Like many other people, I’m fed up with email spam and junk. While sure I can delete it, each day it takes so much time to delete the emails. Of course, I can always just delete the entire batch of emails, but there is always the chance that an important email ended up in the spam/junk folder. I’m sure that important email we send out ends up in a spam or junk folder. On the other hand, over 50% of the snail mail we receive is junk mail. But if it is hand written, I take a second look at it.

This leads to a thought provoking article by Richard Halstead on Wine Intelligence, “It’s Personal.” In his short article Halstead looks at the positive affects of hand written letters. He recounts an experience during the holidays. The Chief Executive Lulie sent gifts with handwritten cards to a number of clients. Halstead noted the results, “However its impact on our clients was profound: we received thank you emails and calls from just about everyone who received something.”

Later Halstead writes, “What makes it distinctive now is simply that so many of our interactions are at a distance, electronic and relatively banal (how many unread emails did you bin today?), ideas such as a) going to see a customer or b) doing something thoughtful for them tend to be seen as quite radical.”

Is the advice in Halstead’s article valid for the wine industry? When was the last time you wrote a hand written communication and sent it to a winery?

Cheers,
Kathy