1221: Boost and Retain Customer Loyalty Through Personalized Notes with Handwrytten Founder and CEO David Wachs

Robert Plank 0:04 Hey, we're back here with David from handwritten.com that's H, a, n, d, W, R, Y t, t, e n.com, and they are all about having you send these personal lines, these hand written postcards. They were founded in 2014 they've sent over 12 million notes. They have over 200 robots and counting. So David is going to get us energized, excited, turned on, and point us to this direction of postcard marketing, using his service, getting it plugged into our business. So David, how the heck are you today?

David Wachs 0:40 I'm great. Thank you so much for having me on your show, Robert. I appreciate the time,

Robert Plank 0:46 and I appreciate you making the time. And I have to ask, how do i pronounce your last name? I didn't want to risk guessing and getting it wrong.

David Wachs 0:53 It's wax, like floor wax, basically

Robert Plank 0:56 like floor wax, ear wax, are easy enough to remember, and it kind of, if you think about it, that might even fit in, sort of the branding, right? You figure like someone gets a package in the mail, like in old times, there'd be, like the wax seal. So I don't know, maybe there's something there. But as far as what you have to offer us, and, you know, help us, like, increase our profits, get our time back, all that sort of stuff. What is your focus? What is handwritten all about?

David Wachs 1:22 Yeah, so I started handwritten because prior to handwritten, I was running a text messaging company doing a million a day, a million texts a day for big brands, and what I realized is everybody's getting a million texts a day now, whether from their friends and family, from spammers, from everybody else work that texts are overwhelming. Emails are overwhelming. The average person gets about 130 emails a day, but what they're no longer getting is handwritten notes. And I started sending handwritten notes, and I saw the power in that. I thought, gee, if I could only automate this being the engineer I am, how would that improve things? So handwritten is the largest provider of automated handwriting services in the world, and we really help brands stand out through a more personalized form of communication in a truly surprise and delight sort of way. So you know, everybody expects an email, everybody expects a text, nobody expects a handwriting note. So it really helps people, you know, kind of zig when other people are zagging, type deal,

Robert Plank 2:34 I love it. And you're 100% right that it's like, I mean, if you think about the ratio of people that I I've bought from, I've gotten emails, gotten texts from all of them. And then there's, like, a very small amount that I've actually done some kind of one on one, but that's just like a quick message, right? Like a non automated text. And then there's even less people that kind of sent a quickie thing in the mail. And we got a little unboxing here, happening today. It's got a package that came from, from your company, and just want to, like, look at some of the man. So, so, yeah, it, you're not kidding. It looks like it's actually written in, I mean, it is written it with a pen, right? Like, my understanding is, instead of like a, like a laser or inkjet printer, there's like a plotter, right? There's like a physical pen that, like moves on the page. Is that? Right?

David Wachs 3:23 Yeah. So we have 100 well, 200 robots. Now, it used to be 175 would keep adding, and each robot holds a real pen. But then it's a matter of, how do you get the notes on and off? The robots, we have robust paper feeds machine vision systems to QA the notes systems to ensure the right note goes in the right envelope. There's a whole bunch of robotics. You think this would be a simple industry writing a bunch of handwrit notes? It is the exact opposite. This business is, like, 10 times more complicated than my old texting company. So, so yeah, we have everything is written in real pen, long answer to short question. It's a Pilot g2 ballpoint pen. You can pick them up at Staples or Office Max if they're around smudges. So it passage passes the smudge test, which people ask. What you might have seen there is that not only does it handle all the characters and randomization and all that stuff. But we do emojis, like smiley faces, frown faces, hearts, all that in every font. Yeah. And the paper quality is, is typically very good too. Usually we write on when available, 120 pound vellum, which is kind of a thicker, toothier stock. There's been some paper shortages that we're always working through, but for the most part, we write on that too. So it's nice thick envelope, nice thick piece of paper. Your handwriting, whether it's one of our styles or actually your own, you can put a signature on there. You can even include a gift card to Starbucks or one of a number. Our brands, and then we put a real stamp on it and mail it for you.

Robert Plank 5:04 Well, that's a lot of fun to think about. It reminds me of, have you seen the movie American Psycho where he's geeking out about the business card? He's like, Yeah, bevel with the eggshell white it's it's fun to think about. And it's like, you don't really appreciate it unless you, like, hold it in your hand. You're like, hey, that that's some some thick card stock?

David Wachs 5:21 Yes. So we spend a lot of money on paper, around handwritten but I think, you know, it's a premium product. We don't even do postcards, really, because postcards don't have an envelope, and we consider the envelope the unboxing experience. So we take this very, very seriously, maybe too seriously. Everything has a real stamp on it. We don't think meter mail is creates kind of an elevated experience. So we have giant moles of stamps. Everything is, is, you know, we think about everything, well,

Robert Plank 5:51 I love it. And so, you know, you mentioned a lot of things about the cost, which is reality, right? There's like, if someone's sending the Starbucks card, there's the cost. If they're sending the postcard, is the cost? And then you imagine the hesitation is someone saying, Okay, well, I want to get that money back right. If I'm spending, like, all this, how many dollars per mailing? And it's like, mailing to like, 1000s of people. So obviously we want to, like, have it be part of a larger sequence, and we want to be mailing to the right people. And so, like, if someone has these objections, such as this, like, what do you say in response?

David Wachs 6:27 Yeah, 100% so this is not typically used for prospecting, so you're not trying to boil the ocean and, you know, send handwritten notes to everybody in a neighborhood or anything like that. That's just not a good use for it. It's going to be very, very costly. But to cultivate existing relationships. And, you know, thank people, our number one use case is really just saying thank you. It's a tremendous way to do that. And you know, one of the most expensive things in business is attracting and retaining clients. You know, you can go out and try to get a new client off Facebook or Instagram or Google or whatever else, that could cost you 20 bucks. But how are you going to then keep them and get them to repeat by and that's really what we do. So it's really about nurturing and shepherding your existing customers more than it is about your building new customers, although we do have clients doing that too. In fact, we have car dealerships that use this and they say they get a 7x greater response compared to print. You know, they have print budgets already, so it does have that greater ROI. But people say, well, what's the ROI of a thank you note? And personally, that causes me great consternation, because I'm like, Well, you should be saying thank you. Anyway, they think they need an ROI, so that makes it about them, not about the gracious act of saying thank you. I would say you can certainly AB test it and see, okay, the people that I'm sending a thank you note to, what's their retention, versus the people that I'm not sending a thoughtful thank you note too. Or you could, like kind of listen to Albert Einstein, who said, not everything that can be measured matters, and not everything that matters can be measured. And knowing that you're sending something to thank somebody you know, there's value in that. And in today's day and age where there's a, you know, we live in an age of abundance, where you can find marketing services from anybody, or you could buy a car from anybody, or you could even go to Alibaba and have somebody make a car for you and ship it from China. You know, the fact that you chose somebody and you gave them an opportunity, or somebody chose you, I should say, and gave you an opportunity to serve them. I think in most cases, at least where there's some level of margin there, it's worth sending a thank you note to try to retain that client. To give you an example, we have a piano tuner. He only needs to enter your house once a year to tune your piano. So he goes in your house, tunes your piano, uses our automation system to send you a thank you note after tuning the piano again, pianos only get tuned once a year when it goes to your house the next year, that handwritten thank you note is often standing up on the piano. So not only has it opened, not only is it read with and you know, good luck getting your junk mail piece or your emails read. It's standing up on display in the most highly coveted room of the house. You know what I used to call as a kid growing up, the fancy room, right? Like my parents won't let me step foot in the fancy room without taking my shoes off, but your handwritten note is on display for a full year. So that's billboard space you cannot buy through other methods, but handwritten notes have a certain spot in our heart that allow them to to enter people. And the reason people are saving is they appreciate it. And when people appreciate things, they're more more likely to buy from you again if you go to. Handwritten.com H, A, N, D, W, R, Y, T, T, E, N.com, and click Resources at the top. There's actually a a consumer outreach survey from a few years ago where we told 2000 consumers, we're currently redoing this survey, but we pulled 2000 consumers and ask them they're, you know, how they want to be communicated to, and do they feel appreciated? You know, blah, blah, blah. And what we find no surprise, is, most people don't feel appreciated, and the number one way to make them feel appreciated is send them a handwritten note. And when people do feel appreciated, you know, you can expect them to buy more and to refer more and review all the stuff, right? So, you know, again, long answer to a short question. If you're looking to retain clients, I think handwritten notes are a tremendous way to go.

Robert Plank 10:55 I agree. And you know, What's also great about that is, if you have these existing clients, if they're paying you. You have all their addresses. You don't need to ask for them. You're billing them. You go in your shopping cart. You already have this database. And so those are a lot of, like, really great reframes you have for us here, right? Like, I thought I'd heard all the all the Einstein quotes from being on social media, but that's great. So not everything that you can measure matters, and not everything that matters can be measured. And so you're saying that, instead of looking because, like, a lot of times, like, when people are talking about, like, the like, the low quality, like low quality of printing, rather of like the letters and the postcards, they're just saying, like, okay, like, if I, if I pay $2 I want to get $2.02 back. But you're saying that a better way of thinking about these, like, high quality cards, is who's paying you already and who do you want to retain? So that way you get that sort of permanence. Because, like, that's why people are, like, all about, like, having a book, right? You hand someone your book, they don't want to throw it away. You can't give someone these beautiful cards. They don't want to throw these away either. And so that's, that's really cool to to think about. And so as far as I know, we just now said that, like, it's, it's about the, um, the kind of appreciating them, not so much the money. Like, it's a loaded question, but like, about what is the price range like? I know there's different things, but if I was going to send, like, a envelope and a letter like about what am I expecting to pay?

David Wachs 12:29 Yeah, for a card, either a folded card or a flat card with your logo fully printed to your specs, full bleed, you know, so it looks like a card, you'd get a hallmark with an envelope with a real stamp. Well, the card with the envelope is about two bucks in any sort of volume, and then the stamp is 73 cents. Now I believe maybe it's going up to 75 that's up to the post office. So you're at about 275 so it's not a cheap it's not the cheapest thing on the block. However, you know, again, getting back to my automotive dealership, they see a 7x greater response rate to handwritten notes versus print. And even when they adjust for cost, it's about a 3x greater ROI than print. So because all these print pieces, you know, postcards, they get thrown away without being looked at. Print pieces do too, but handwritten notes have like a 300% greater open rate than print. So you know, when was the last time you got a handwritten note in the mail that looked actually handwritten that you didn't open? You know that? That's we live in a world where people are craving authenticity, and I know it's not fully authentic, but it's the next best thing, and in an age with all this AI stuff, it only makes it more valuable, because now you're getting more emails, more text, more robo calls. You know, when you receive something that you you consider to look authentic, that that means a whole bunch more.

Robert Plank 14:00 Now I agree, and especially like you mentioned, AI like, I feel like, especially in the past 18 months, my defenses are up way more. I and with social media too, I'm just like, Well, my attention can easily be distracted. So if I see something, I'm like, Hey, is this worth my attention or not? And I noticed that when I would get pieces in the mail. I did. Used to, like, open up every single one, but I kind of made it like a mental note the other day, when, like, I get something in the mail, I like, I'll kind of tear open the envelope a little bit and, like, peek inside. And if I see like, if it looks too professional, or if I see like, like a URL or phone number bar code, I'm just like, I just, I peek inside. It's not even a matter of, like, I see it and I ignore it. I'm like, I don't even know what the message is. I'm not even looking at it. And so this is the kind of thing where it's on my mind every now and then, and I know I don't take it as seriously as I should. And like, what really blew my mind about this idea was they said I. George H W Bush used to write four handwritten thank you cards a day, even though, while he was president, like the most stressful time constrained job there is, but he still found the time he'd meet someone, get their business card, write a couple of little, you know, bullet points. And then whenever it was time to write those four, he'd just say, hey, hey, I appreciate you. Here's this message. And so as far as like, people using this service properly, right? It's easy to sign up for a service and not use it enough, not use it correctly. So as far as what you see your users doing in the aggregate, does anything drive you crazy? As far as like, the misuse or the just not using this to its full potential. Yeah.

David Wachs 15:43 So I'd say it's always best to automate, because even if, and there's a lot of ways to automate. I mean, if you have Shopify listeners, we have a plug in directly into Shopify. We are on Zapier. We have a direct integration with Salesforce, HubSpot, Blackboard for nonprofits. You know, basically we're the most and then into all the automotive dealership systems as well. So we're the most easy to integrate system out there. And I say it's worth doing that investment and integrating, because even if it's super simple to point and click through our website, you're not going to point and click through a website. It's just people have too much to do, and you might do it for a week or two, but then it'll get the best of you, and you just won't have the time to do it anymore. So automate Now, if you're not going to do any of those integrations, you can also automate directly with us. We have birthday and anniversary systems where you can just upload your list of birthdays and we'll send out the cards, you know, two weeks before their birthday, automatically, fully customized with a gift card if you like, same thing with anniversary. So you could do that. The other thing I'd say is, keep your notes short. You don't want to write full letters. We don't even offer that anymore, because nobody's going to read it. You know, people don't have the attention span to sit down and read a letter, nor would they believe you sat down and wrote them a letter, you know. So you know, what were you doing sitting at your desk with a feather pen and a well of ink, you know, people aren't doing that anymore. So keep them short. Keep them under 500 characters. And then third, I'd keep the calls to action, if you want them very subtle. So what I mean by that, if you, if you're writing somebody a thank you note, maybe the card on the back of the card or something, it has a QR code, or, you know, visit this website through an offer, but don't write it in there, because what you're writing is the thank you that needs to seem as genuine as possible. The card can have some printed assets on it, maybe that have some calls to action, but you don't want to ruin the effect of your thank you note by spamming it up with a bunch of other stuff. So just be wary of that. And then, certainly, while you don't want to send too few, you'd also don't want to send too many. So you don't want to hit people with 10, you know, handwritten notes a year, as much as handwritten would love it. You want to keep it to like a two to four thing a year. You know, whether that's a thank you, an anniversary, a thank you, a birthday card and a holiday card, those are the typical use cases for us, and

Robert Plank 18:18 that's doable enough, right? Especially if you have this client, you're talking about $10 or so, right? With the four cards, so you're like things like birthday, holiday, thank you, anniversary, that's really cool to think about. And and like I kind of touched on earlier, is I love this idea of taking something that's kind of boring on the surface, right, sending postcards in the mail. This is technology that exists for centuries, but making a lot more fun with like the craftsmanship and the copywriting and the automation. And so we want to get people excited about handwritten and about the possibilities. And so in the spirit of that, since we just met, and I just opened up the the package. So I'm just now learning about the specialness of handwritten Is there a missing, hidden, invisible question in our conversation here? Is there something that I should be asking you? I just don't know to ask you.

David Wachs 19:13 Well maybe, you know, I'm really here to talk about the benefit of handwritten notes, not just my company handwritten. So I would say, you know, how do you get started? And the way you get started is going to a Walgreens or Dwayne Reed or whatever, and buying a pack of thank you cards and sending them to your top 10 clients. And when you see the value of that, then reach out to a company like us and automate it and scale it. But you don't need to use handwritten to do that. You could sit down and do it yourself and then see the magic that that creates. And then you'll come and find a service like handwritten to do that. So that's what I would say, is I'd say, go to this, go to the store, do what George Bush did, and send out those four day and see what value that adds.

Robert Plank 19:58 I love it for a day or just. Top 10. I mean, it's very dual right to to get the itch. And so would you say, I mean, I know it's kind of weird and dangerous to talk about expectations, but say someone does this, they send out the 10. Thank You cards. Is it typical or expected to get, like, three responses, seven responses. Like, if someone just does that, sends out 10. Thank You cards, top 10 clients like, what would they be expecting?

David Wachs 20:25 You know, honestly, I it varies so much by industry. I think with existing relationships, I think you could potentially get, you know, five to seven responses. Who knows what I will tell you is a story. I'll tell you two more stories. One is a I used to live in Chicago. Now I live in Phoenix, Arizona. A friend of mine from Chicago wanted to use my service to prospect real estate purchases. So I said, Sure, you know, you can. I'll give you some free credit, because he's an old buddy of mine. Go on there, send, send a handful of notes and and see if, if anybody wants to sell their house to you. He sent one note, and he got a response. And I'm not saying that's normal. That is certainly not normal, but it's possible. And when he called me, I said, Well, that's clearly not, you know, the norm, but I'm happy for you so you know, you can get responses as low as one. The other thing I'd say is an example from a snack box company that uses us so they send snacks to your office, and when they you know, on a monthly basis, a subscription service, and when they screw up as a win back, they send you a handwritten note apology, along with a bunch of other, you know, free snacks. And what they found is the highest LTV lifetime value of customers were those that had the screw up and then the win back. So their response to that was, let's just screw up with everybody, win back everybody and raise all all ships. So that's what they've done, and it's been a great strategy for them. So there's a lot of ways to use this. You know, what's the right number? Sending 10 getting you know, if you get three responses back, is that a success? Well, maybe getting one response is a success. If you sent 10 emails, you got no responses. So, you know, it's very, very difficult to say, but I would say, you know, give it a shot. See if it's for you. Don't do it with handwritten do it with a pen and ink and see what happens.

Robert Plank 22:31 I love it. Well, we discussed some amazing ideas here, right? And like, especially, there is a lot of talk about reaching the right people. Right? You post a Tiktok a YouTube, it gets 100 views. People say, Oh, that's a failure. That sucks. But if it gets you one client, it gets you 10 prospects. That's way more valuable than, like, 10s of 1000s of views of people that aren't even communicating with you. And then I love the win back idea, because you think, like, okay, like, what would I do if I really messed up with my partner, with my spouse, right, it might buy them flowers, buy them chocolate. So like, buy them flowers anyway, just because, right? And it's a fun, silly, similar idea with your customers. And so how can people take action with this? We we showed handwritten on the screen. Yeah, talked about possibilities. You said that's handwritten.com. With a why is that front page? The logical place to go is there is a special landing page.

David Wachs 23:27 Yeah, so just go to handwritten.com H, A, N, D, W, R, Y, T, T, E, N.com. You can click sign up. You can use discount code podcast when you sign up, you can sign up with Google or Apple or whatever. But you can also do email and password. If you do email and password, enter sign up code podcast for $5 in free credit to allow you to send a card to yourself. Then once you decide this is right for you, you can do a subscription or do a bulk buy. There's a lot of ways to get a great deal on it. The rack rate is 375 if you just buy one card. But that goes down very quickly, whether it's a subscription or bulk or anything else. You can also go to handwritten.com and click business and then request free samples there. And if you do that, we'll send you a package, just like the one you received, Robert. And you can see for yourself if it's something you want to do, but the fastest, easiest, is go on the website, play with yourself, send yourself a card using that discount code Podcast,

Robert Plank 24:26 very wonderful. And yeah, when I went there, I don't even remember how I ended up on that on that page, if, like, you guys contacted me, or I ended up on there, but I ended up, like, going there, filling in that form, and then I got like, a text immediately from a real person. And so it's like there's a definitely a magicalness in hooking it up with the automation, right? With the just the text on its own sucks, but a text and an email and a postcard, and of course, not all at once, not an overwhelming way, but there are some exciting possibilities here. When someone goes to H, A, N, D, they'll. U, R, Y, T, T, E, N.com, and go there, click on business, or, even better, sign up, use that discount code, podcast to get your credit, send the card to yourself. And then in a few days, then you'll get it, and you'll just be amazed at the just, I mean, if I wonder if there's like you've done, like a Turing test kind of situation, right? If you show someone a handwritten card versus an actual card, and being like, Hey, can you even tell the difference? Like, I sure can't.

David Wachs 25:29 You know, it depends on the handwriting. I'm my worst critic. There's certain styles, like joyful Jennifer, tenacious. Nick, reliable Ryan, those are all handwriting styles that I think are dead on. There's others that, yeah, you can tell it's really you know what resonates with you. And if you get that sample kit, that'll certainly you know. And we're getting better all the time. But there's some legacy handwriting styles that, personally aren't my my jam. But luckily, there's 35 different styles to choose from, and I'd say a good 30 of them out of there are indiscernible from human handwriting,

Robert Plank 26:06 of course. Well, you're a perfectionist, right? You're always improving, and then, especially with the scariness of AI, I'm always like, Okay, I need to stay on the cutting edge, or stay informed before everyone does this sort of thing, or at least before I know not everyone will send these handwritten cards, but I'm like, Okay, if this becomes the norm, I want to get ahead of it and do it before everyone else does, or at least my competition does. And so handwritten.com that's handwritten with a Y, and as we are wrapping up, winding down, our conversation here, Mr. David, this is the point in the show where I like to put my guest on the spot just lightly and ask them for a fun quote or lesson that has served them that they can pass on to us. That Einstein thing blew my mind earlier, so I stump you for one more. Do you have one final quote or lesson that has helped you in life or business that you want to share with us?

David Wachs 26:58 Yeah, when I was in college. So back 25 years ago, now, actually more than that, 28 years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Conan O'Brien, who was just starting out with his his his late night show, and he spoke at my campus, and I met with him because I was one of the people that brought him to campus. And he said, If I had some advice for you all, it would be, always get in over your head. And that advice has stuck with me for 28 years or 20 Yeah, 28 years or so, so always get in over your head. Always try to push yourself a little harder. Get out of your comfort zone, because it's outside of your comfort zones when you really grow. So that's that's really the advice that has has hit me the longest. Who knew it would be Conan O'Brien, but here we are

Robert Plank 27:53 right, and that's amazing, and I love that. Get in over your head, embrace that controlled chaos, the improvement. If you're at version 7.0 of yourself, get to version 8.0 and in the spirit of that, get in over your head with this postcard marketing, with these handwritten notes by going to handwritten.com with a Y, Mr. David wax, that's last name, W, A, C, H, S, for those people that like to do some LinkedIn stalking or add someone on social media that's David wax from handwritten.com very enlightening conversation and enjoyable speaking with you today.

David Wachs 28:29 Great, Robert. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Robert Plank 28:35 dfypodcast.com forward, slash, free, go there right now to see what you could be missing in your podcast. Maybe you aren't active enough on social media. Are you writing and broadcasting an email for every episode of your podcast? Do you follow up with your podcast guests? Do you do things to make your podcast interview and content creation easier? Go to dfy podcast.com/free, to claim your gift right now you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai