NeuroI’ve been following neuroscience marketing for a little over a year now and I continue to be amazed at the breakthroughs and key learnings being discovered seemingly every day.

I’ve been applying some tactics based upon insights I’ve gained. In the areas of fundraising for non-profits and new business generation initiatives, I’ve been quite happy with the results.

Here’s a link to a great blog post that details a unique twist on the use of personalized handwritten notes in marketing communications.

A survey was mailed with three different cover letters:

  1. A printed letter.
  2. A printed letter with a handwritten message.
  3. A printed letter with a handwritten message on a Post-It note.

Here was the response rates for each tactic:

  • 36% response for the plain printed cover letter
  • Adding
    the handwritten note improved the response rate by one third to 48%
  • The Post-It more than doubled the response to 75%.
  • A second test was done to see if some magic in the Post-It note was
    responsible for the higher response rate included cover letters with a
    blank sticky note attached. That approach generated only a slightly
    higher response rate of 42%.

What seems to cause the
boost is a “reciprocity” effect. That is, the recipient recognizes that the
sender put some personal effort into the mailing, and is
more likely to reciprocate with some effort of his own.

Try it, you might like it.