How To Get The Attention of Busy People

I'm hesitant to share this image, because it says nice things about me that I'm not worthy of.  But I have to make a point.  The image came in an e-mail.  It wasn't even a real letter.  But it got my attention. It made me stop what I was doing to write this post—and yes share a link.  If you want to get the attention of someone who isn't always easy to get a hold of, do something special just like Darren and Julie did.  Send a "love note".  It's that simple.
And check out the e-book.

Comments

[Darren]

Sweet! That's the whole idea, with the getting of attention. We'd have perfumed the note, but the technology costs on that were prohibitive.

[Conrad Hametner]

Hey David – I couldn’t resist processing the picture of your personal handwritten note using qipit. Follow the link below to see the difference:

https://www.qipit.com/public/qipit-inc/socialmediaready_com_love_note

We created qipit (www.qipit.com) to make it easier to share handwritten information just like this. I have found that sending a thank you or personal handwritten note via the Internet is very effective. People tend to remember it; there is just something more personal about handwriting than type.

[Scott Monty]

Just to completely rebel against the digital space from time to time, I like using a fountain pen on personalized stationery. This outreach effort is a really nice mashup of analog & digital technology in a eye-catching way. Why? Because no one else is doing it - it's not your typical pitch; it stands out from the rest. And that's why it works. Very cool idea.

[David]

Okay, it got your attention. And when you saw that they said "your" instead of "you're" did you trash it? Anyone who is that careless with their language shouldn't be trusted with a bigger communications project--like a book.

[DA]

Nah David. That didn't bother me. A standard e-mail that was grammatically correct would have failed where this succeeded.

[Darren]

David: Dude, easy on the belletrism there. We wrote a bunch of these notes, so it's natural that we're going to make a mistake or two.

But more to the point, here's a lesson learned in my years of technical writing: grammar and spelling don't matter as much as we'd like them too. And, to quote a fellow Canadian, often the medium is the message.

So dismiss us on a technicality if you like, but we got the result.

[Scott Monty]

One more thing, David. I revisited this post because I received a customized message from Julie & Darren (in a totally different format). As I re-read your post, I noted a degree of self-doubt there, David. It's really unnecessary - and let me couch it in terms of a quote I heard over the weekend:

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

So, hold your head up high and embrace the compliments you get from your community. Whether you admit it or not, you've made a huge impact with what you do. Just keep on being DA.

[David Sanchez]

You are very humble David, Italiano al fin. Che Capisca? Anyway Keep the good work, busy people love to read your stuff.

Congratulazioni Signore!

[DA]

Si Davide, Mio Capisco. Grazie.

[JD]

What a great idea. Since I'm a copywriter I have to ask:

What was the email subject line that got you to open the email in the first place? Or did you know the sender - and that's why you opened the email?

[Daniel Foster]

I have the same questions as JD...plus I'd like to know whether the image was attached, embedded, or a URL. And did they say anything else in the email?

[DA]

Hey all.

I could not find the original e-mail, but pretty sure that I clicked on it because I know of Darren even though we have not met personally. However, I would not have clicked on the link or wrote about what they did had the "love note" not been attached. Hope that background helps.

[Melis]

Although eyecatching, e-mail deliverability is a real problem unless you pay big bucks to become white listed (or work hard to have your subscriber’s white list you). This campaign has to be so effective that it will outweigh the fact that it will probably reach less then half your recipients than it would have if it was plain text. So how effective is it really?

[Darren Barefoot]

JD and Daniel: It sounds like David won't mind if I disclose details of our email. I went and checked, and the subject line was:

"A Note From Some Semi-Secret Admirers"

The note was really short, just pointing to the attachment and citing the URL (so that it was easy to click). The image was attached--I wouldn't use an HTML-based email for this kind of personal correspondence.

Melis: We only did about 20 of these, but our response rate on this was way higher than 50%. I knew, or was known to, some of the recipients, which certainly helped.