A lovely man I know works in Manhattan and pulls over $1m in salary and bonuses a year.

He is the VP of sales for a major international health products company.   If you have ever had a cold in the USA, you have bought his one of company's products.

This man sends out hand-signed notecards to his addressee list every month.  The addressee list includes clients and referrers.

He hires a college student and pays her from his own checking account. She is not an employee of the company: she works solely for him.

He gives the student a list of his addressees, their addresses, and their personal interests: golf, Parisian art galleries, wedding of daughter, etc.

The student clips articles on the topics of his list from paper versions of NY Times, Washington Post, SF Chronicle, and other newspapers and magazines he subscribes to for this purpose.  Paper versions because paper is far more personal than print outs of websites.

The student hand-addresses the envelopes and adds a postage stamp.  She adds an address label to the top center of the envelope flap because this is the proper etiquette of personal mail among the elite.  She does not run it through a postage meter.  This is because envelopes with computer-generated addresses and metered postage have less than a 9% chance of being opened.  A hand-addressed envelope with postage stamp gives the envelope a 80%+ chance to not only be opened but read.

Personal note here:  chance of being open and read would be even higher if my lovely friend purchased an embosser with his return address.  Each envelope must be hand-embossed for the image to appear.  Hard to do via machinery.

My friend's wife buys bulk note cards with no text in various designs.  Again: sports for guys, florals for gals.  The student hands the press clippings, note card, pre-addressed and stamped envelope to my friend. He adds a short personal note in pen like "Read this and thought of you, John Doe." He has been using this technique for 25 years with huge success.

You may not have a wife to buy your notecards but you can easily find a very competent college student who will work for $10 an hour as long as she gets a great letter of recommendation from you.  Female and gay guy students are far more reliable and sensitive to personal nuances than hetero guys.

You can buy your own blank notecards.  Florals for women, sports for men.  Just be certain to send the right guy the right sport.

Go get 'em!     LauraV