A start up company called Inkpact is turning the personalised Thank You message into an art. It has a team of home workers who will write a personalised message by hand for brands that wish to acknowledge an order for their product. It is a million miles from an email and it works, the company says.
It quotes an open rate of 99% compared to 16% for an email and a click rate of 49% compared to the 2% from an email. The trigger is an order received online which because the customer provides an address for delivery of the purchased item, has also provided an address for further communications. This also means that there is no problem with GDPR.
The handwritten message is also likely to be shared on social media because it stands out and is much more likely to engender a second or third purchase, delivering a provable ROI.
The brand uploads the data about its customer along with the personalised message. All the writers are notified and will copy the message by hand onto cards preprinted with a logo and footer. Once written a photo is sent for quality control before the message is put in an envelope for sending. The system can cope with 50,000 messages a week.
The company quotes several customers on its website with the percentage increase in second purchases, the percentage uses a redemption code and the second purchase rate. The letter, which has a standard stamp on the envelope, can include some printed collateral encouraging the follow on purchase, but the main impact is about the surprise a personal touch from the hand written note. This is supplied on a decent piece of board with a corporate logo included.
Currently the business has more than 1,000 members of what it calls the “Scribe Tribe” in the UK and US. It claims to send hundreds of thousands of messages a year.
Inkpact has grown in less than ten years into a multi million pound business. It is aiming to reach £100 million in the next five years.
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