I got a hand-written card today! From an organisation! I was so excited. The oblong hole in the front door is not just for bills after all.

Somebody had written me a personal thank you note and a different hand had written my name and address on the envelope too. This wasn’t from a friend or family; this was from a large organisation.

Yes, the good people – I always suspected they were good but now I know it – at Movember wrote to me personally to thank me for the huge sacrifice of growing a moustache for 31 days. Now there are thousands of people a year that raise money for this prostate cancer charity, and I bet we all got a hand-written thank you letter. Mine was from Sara and she signed it ‘Sara x’. Who cares if it wasn’t actually Sara, it’s the thought, and the perception, that counts.

I shall definitely grow a moustache for November 2014; they have me for another year, and another few hundred quid, with one thoughtful gesture.

Attention people who have customers – or people who want to stay on the right side of someone else: show you care by taking three minutes out of your day to write a card and envelope and why you appreciate them. You’ll need a stamp too of course, but if there is a better return for such a small investment, I don’t know what it is.

Incidentally, even if you’re not in marketing – or even business – you should dip into the daily genius that is Seth Godin’s blog. Here’s one of his best ever pithy-but-explosively-useful posts containing the handwritten thank you note.

Anyway, back to emails, the web and calls…