I recently got a letter in the mail at work from someone I did not know! Huh! Has that ever happened to you? Ha! I know…lots of time. We call it “junk mail.” Well, I opened it because it had my name on it and was hard, so I figured there was a credit card or gift card inside. Oh Goody! What could it be? Plus I recognized the writing (more on that in a moment).

I opened up my junk mail from a guy in the Boston area that had a nice little “digital hand-written” note with a $5 gift card to Starbucks! How did he know I liked coffee? Why did some random guy give me $5 to Starbucks? Well, the note explained: “to put a smile on your face, David!” Good grief! The whole thing was a multilevel marketing program trying to get me to buy a note card company that sends cards to individuals with your digital handwriting on it. It is supposed to be as personal as it gets!

Well, I have someone locally who sends me the exact same cards and has tried to get our company to embrace the “unbelievable” business opportunity! The concept is not stupid but needs major improvement. The idea is that when you think of someone or a business contact, instead of sitting down and writing a personal, handwritten note, you use this company to do it. They write the note, print it and mail it! It supposedly looks real, but I have to tell you, it looks so fake and impersonal that I would never send it. My idea, from a marketing or just plan common sense perspective, is that if a person does not have 5 minutes to write a personal note on a postcard or letterhead, he or she should not waste money on sending a generic note out at all.

I get these notes from others that say thanks for attending a conference or for helping with this or that…but to me, it means nothing! I feel like the note is from a friendly computer, not a person!

Ok…anyways, back to my story. So I get this $5 gift card from this guy back east, and I think it is over…He is done sending me stuff! Does he stop there? No! He tries harder. I think he sent me just a regular letterhead note and package the next time. Is he done? Nope! He wants to market to ME even more. So then he sends me a supposedly custom email this morning that made me start cracking up. It was so generic and staged that I just thought to myself, “Does the guy sell any of these cards.” I had to show it to my friends reading this just for fun!

Marketing Genius? You decide!