People are Driven to Distraction. How Can You Reach Them?

Let us sing the praises of snail mail. Yes, snail mail.

As the Times reported at length, digital gadgets are driving us to distraction. Exhibit A, the entrepreneur so distracted by an unending digital flood of instant messages, chats, posts, tweets and games that he overlooked one of the most important emails of his life. Not for a few hours or overnight. For twelve days!

Bet he would have noticed the handsome offer for his Internet startup if it had arrived by snail mail.

That's certainly how it works in our household. My wife wouldn't think of trying to read all the email offers she receives. But she browses a surprising number of catalogs delivered by our faithful snail. Likewise, often as not I neglect to follow the email link to an online pdf newsletter. But when the snail brings a newsletter, I look at it.

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The sponsor of this blog has plenty of content for wealth managers to put on the web. But Merrill Anderson's most productive marketing tools continue to be those that arrive … by snail.