It does not have to be the net..

.. but

Think of the dialog process again. When did you last carry out a conversation where you spoke a sentence or a paragraph and waited for th answer for a week or two? This is what you must do when you depend on a paper mailer to communicate.

How many customers will take the trouble to write back to you in response if they had to depend on putting pen to paper?

Accept it. The net is the reality. And the reality is that every time you are sending a mailer out to hundreds of customers, you are creating opportunities to have conversations with them; not one way, not one-off. Will the conversations be in tens in number or hundreds or in thousands? How meaningful will they be? How much will they advance your communication objective? That will depend on how prepared you are with relevant, precisely targeted content that enable this whole dialogue process. 

More conversations with your prospects/ customers and more meaningful ones at that. Will you sell more or less as a result? 

"Does it also do that?"- the need to have a dialogue

Content is king; knowing your product's key benefit to the target segment is important as is having as many support points as you muster. Customers do like the benefit statement spelt out in easy to understand personal terms. Product usage examples, testimonials from othert users, application hints.. they are all good. Keep them coming and organize them in a way that you can find them when you need. 

Internet enables faster delivery of messages. Remember, it also enables faster trashing of irrelevant messages. So, having something useful to say is your best chance of being read in the long run. Communication is a two-way street; so, more relevant your messages, more is the chance that the customer comes back to you; with a question, with a comment or a feedback or even better an intent to purchase! Start a dialogue.

Prepare ahead of time

It is no good to be underprepared for a customer meeting. Don't be caught in a situation where you have to communicate to a potentially large customer segment but either your benefit statement is not ready or you do not have adequate support points behind your benefit statement. You need a lot of content to facilitate dialogue with a large customer base segmented into micro-markets. Get started on generating and organizing content today; before your "strategy boys" are done with their market segment definitions.