For the first time in donkey’s years I’m sending out some promotional postcards to carefully selected specific business owners. So if you get one, it means you’re SPECIAL, keep your eyes peeled to your doormat!

If you just want one anyway because you’re nosey, let me know

My postcards came via Moo, which is an outstanding print service, and I was particularly impressed by the wording on the front of my beautifully packaged cards – “Helping keep mail alive”.

This struck a chord with me as I’ve been rather consumed with Twitter, Blogging and other social media for several years and generally using the Internet only for business networking to drive clients. Over this time I’ve not been entirely convinced they have been really doing that much in terms of marketing my business for the time invested and in addition I’ve become networking burned out. It’s all become incredibly boring.

After reading what Moo have to say I sort of felt like slapping myself. How on earth do I expect to sell a print design service to business owners when I barely ever send things in the print myself? How can I show them what I can do for THEM in terms of print design, when I never use print design to sell MYSELF to them?

In addition, if I’M bored of social media and the Internet, you can bet my potential clients are too. I bet they’d love to see something interesting hit their doormat for once, and it’s my job to prove to them that I can be interesting, and that I can be interesting on their behalf also.

The Internet of course is amazing, and I’d never be without it, but I think many of us have become guilty of relying on it to excess. Recently I’ve realised this and not only have I started posting things to my clients and potential clients, I’ve started sending handwritten letters in my personal life also.

So I sent out my postcards, and you know what, I even hand wrote the addresses too, because I want to show the recipients that I can be bothered to make an effort to win their business, that they are more than just another unimportant business on a huge mailing list I have.

Businesses have increasingly used the Internet to sell their services and spent less and less on printed communications. Why?

The answer is simple, it’s cheaper to communicate online than it is to communicate via post, and we decided as businesses that as such it was a ‘good method’ of selling our services, and whilst we told ourselves that we should be using other methods also including postal communications, many of us have become guilty of using it as our main method or only method.

Now the Internet may be cheap, but it’s not necessarily the BEST way to communicate your services to your potential customers – for one it’s like shooting a communication machine gun in all social media directions and seeing what comes back (not necessarily your perfect client), whereas postal marketing can be far more focussed because you are directly approaching the specific people you want to work with.

While I feel social media and online business networking has it’s place still, I for one am returning to printed communications – because it’s not cheap and it requires more effort, and that shows my potential clients I am genuinely interested in working with them.

I’m going old school.