There's something special about receiving a hand written thank you card that gets lost when converted to a font (even a nice looking "hand written" font).
Here's an idea I had to keep the hand written allure and still eliminate the major hassles (stamps, stationary, envelopes, etc.).
What if a customer signed up and was given a template to print out on any old printer. This template has a To/From section at the top similar to a fax cover sheet and below that, a large rectangular outline.
The user would fill out the top contact info, hand write the thank you note inside the box, snap a picture with their smart phone and then email the picture to you. Your servers would identify the user based on the email address, place the hand written contents of the rectangle into a gorgeous thank you note template, OCR the contact field at the top of the page and then email a sample copy to the user for approval. If everything checks out, user clicks 'approved' and copy gets sent to intended recipient.
Obviously that is an over simplified explanation and a good amount of work would need to go into something like that, but I can absolutely imagine having a stack of these pre-printed forms sitting on my desk and scratching out a quick thank you note to people.
4 for $1, 50 for $10, unlimited for $100/year? Or do freemium where you charge for premium or custom templates, remove thankuz branding from the email, etc.
You'd probably also want to do some image processing so the hand written section looks like it belongs in the template and wasn't just pasted in.
Hopefully that brainstorm is useful to someone, good luck with your business!
Excellent feedback! We agree wholeheartedly that handwritten is the way to go and have been working hard to address that very issue. We came up w/ something pretty similar during a few Thank Tank sessions based on some other products and technologies we've seen used elsewhere.
Our concept was that the user would download and print a special font card w/ the various characters and symbols listed, along with corresponding boxes for them to fill in each letter / symbol in their own handwriting. Once complete, the user could snap a picture w/ their smart phone, or scan and fax, what have you, the card back to have a custom font made by us using their own writing. There are some challenges, but the technology exists to make it all happen.
The user could then begin using their own handwriting, or choose an attractive one (as they currently can) for any notes they create.
We're also planning physical delivery as an option, and are working on a privacy layer for private notes. The biz model you suggested looks very similar to a couple of the ideas we've brainstormed.
Loved you ideas about removing branding, and your thoughts on the freemium model.
Your thoughts are right on and re-affirm what we've thought, and what we've heard from users thus far! Thanks so much for chiming in, and for the warm wishes.
Feel free to email me any time (address in profile), should you think of anything else. You obviously grasp the art of thanks very well and we'd love to hear more!
Comments
There's something special about receiving a hand written thank you card that gets lost when converted to a font (even a nice looking "hand written" font).
Here's an idea I had to keep the hand written allure and still eliminate the major hassles (stamps, stationary, envelopes, etc.).
What if a customer signed up and was given a template to print out on any old printer. This template has a To/From section at the top similar to a fax cover sheet and below that, a large rectangular outline.
The user would fill out the top contact info, hand write the thank you note inside the box, snap a picture with their smart phone and then email the picture to you. Your servers would identify the user based on the email address, place the hand written contents of the rectangle into a gorgeous thank you note template, OCR the contact field at the top of the page and then email a sample copy to the user for approval. If everything checks out, user clicks 'approved' and copy gets sent to intended recipient.
Obviously that is an over simplified explanation and a good amount of work would need to go into something like that, but I can absolutely imagine having a stack of these pre-printed forms sitting on my desk and scratching out a quick thank you note to people.
4 for $1, 50 for $10, unlimited for $100/year? Or do freemium where you charge for premium or custom templates, remove thankuz branding from the email, etc.
You'd probably also want to do some image processing so the hand written section looks like it belongs in the template and wasn't just pasted in.
Hopefully that brainstorm is useful to someone, good luck with your business!
Excellent feedback! We agree wholeheartedly that handwritten is the way to go and have been working hard to address that very issue. We came up w/ something pretty similar during a few Thank Tank sessions based on some other products and technologies we've seen used elsewhere.
Our concept was that the user would download and print a special font card w/ the various characters and symbols listed, along with corresponding boxes for them to fill in each letter / symbol in their own handwriting. Once complete, the user could snap a picture w/ their smart phone, or scan and fax, what have you, the card back to have a custom font made by us using their own writing. There are some challenges, but the technology exists to make it all happen.
The user could then begin using their own handwriting, or choose an attractive one (as they currently can) for any notes they create.
We're also planning physical delivery as an option, and are working on a privacy layer for private notes. The biz model you suggested looks very similar to a couple of the ideas we've brainstormed.
Loved you ideas about removing branding, and your thoughts on the freemium model.
Your thoughts are right on and re-affirm what we've thought, and what we've heard from users thus far! Thanks so much for chiming in, and for the warm wishes.
Feel free to email me any time (address in profile), should you think of anything else. You obviously grasp the art of thanks very well and we'd love to hear more!