Yes, you saw that correctly. Not only is handwritten correspondence the most effective direct marketing you can use, it might just be worth something someday. That is, if you ever become President of the United States.

Lincoln’s emotional reply to petition calling on him to free ‘all the little slave children’ up for auction | the Daily Mail

The stirring letter - written in the year preceding the President’s assassination and the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which formally abolished slavery - is the highlight of a 111-lot collection of Presidential and other historic American manuscripts being sold the Dr Robert Small Trust at Sotheby’s in New York next Thursday (April 3).

It is estimated to fetch between £1.5 million and £2.5 million. If it finds a buyer it will become the most expensive Lincoln manuscript ever sold at auction.

Sotheby’s manuscripts specialist in New York, David Redden, said yesterday: “This is Lincoln’s most personal and powerful statement on God, slavery and emancipation. No piece of mail touched Lincoln as deeply as as did this petition.”

The £6 million sale include other significant Lincoln manuscripts as well as those signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ulysses S Grant and Robert E Lee.

In a letter about handwriting personal notes in the Kansas City Star, Jeanne Phillips of Dear Abby fame hits on the key emotional aspects of handwritten mail.

Although e-mail is here to stay, handwritten correspondence still has an important place in people’s lives.

Each method of communication fills a need. E-mail is fast, cheap and easy. However, it can often also be terse and impersonal. Handwritten messages can be an art form, an elegant skill that expresses emotions.

Now, we’d be the first to talk at length about the innate value of handwriting, particularly handwritten marketing, but here is a new angle. Steve Graham at Vanderbilt University, in a new study to be published this month claims that “a majority of primary-school teachers believe that students with fluent handwriting produced written assignments that were superior in quantity and quality and resulted in higher grades.” There is more in this Newsweek article on how Good Penmanship is more than a Quaint Skill.

Handwriting is important because research shows that when children are taught how to do it, they are also being taught how to learn and how to express themselves …

All this matters, educators say, because evidence is growing that handwriting fluency is a fundamental building block of learning. Emily Knapton, director of program development at Handwriting Without Tears, believes that “when kids struggle with handwriting, it filters into all their academics. Spelling becomes a problem; math becomes a problem because they reverse their numbers. All of these subjects would be much easier for these kids to learn if handwriting was an automatic process.” That concern, in part, prompted the addition of a written essay to the SAT, which is graded for content, though not legibility. “If you put something like a writing test on the SAT, children’s skill level will begin to be addressed,” says Ed Hardin, a senior content specialist at the College Board. The trickle-down effect to middle schools should eventually reach third grade, where the trouble so often begins.

Once again, we’ve come across data to show that the little things like handwriting really do stand out in today’s world. This study by DayTimer® demonstrates that even in the job search a little extra special touch makes a difference. A related field where Handwritten Results can generate leads, develop relationships, and start a conversation is recruiting, both in-house and recruiting firms. Using Handwritten Results, recruiters can reach out and touch thousands of potential clients, or even candidates. We’re interested in helping recruiters, so if you’re a recruiter let us know if you have any comments or suggestions.

Some of the highlights:

In a survey conducted by DayTimer® over 70% of respondents to their poll on communication said sending a handwritten note was friendlier, “demonstrating special effort to communicate”. These results have direct impact on job search. As the hiring managers mentioned above confirmed, follow-up or thank you notes had a definite impact on the success of the job search process for those candidates who went the extra step. With all this data that supports use of follow-up or thank you notes following an interview, why aren’t more job seekers making use of this easy yet powerful step in their job searches?

It’s also interesting to see why people don’t use handwritten notes as much. This is where Handwritten Results can really help the professional marketer.

Potentially, the issue of writing of something by hand may be a hurdle. First of all, it takes time to sit down and write a handwritten thank you note. Few of us are practiced at this lost art and generally have no idea how to phrase what we want to say without sounding trite or corny. Secondly, those of us who do most of our communicating via a keyboard these days, our handwriting really stinks. The muscles in our hands that control the formation of letters are out of practice and the result of pen stroke on paper is fairly pitiful. How many of you think occasionally “Gosh, I used to have decent handwriting when I was in college…” We are out of practice both mentally and physically when it comes to writing with a pen.

And lastly, women respond particularly well to a handwritten note.

The same study by DayTimer® also noted that women appreciated handwritten communications more than men. 54% of women had positive feelings about receiving a handwritten letter. A good percentage of men also appreciated it – 42%. That’s an interesting viewpoint about something most of us ignore these days – courtesy communications.

In the news today was another letter found by President Lincoln. Unlike email, voicemail, or even glossy direct mail, I’m always struck by the permanence and long term value of the simple handwritten note. Lincoln’s note was found tucked in with other documents just waiting to be discovered and shared again.

July 7, 1863, three days after the Battle of Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg, President Abraham Lincoln penned this note to his General-in-Chief Henry Halleck expressing his belief that if Gen. George Meade could follow up his recent victory in Pennsylvania by defeating Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army the Civil War would be over.

Thankfully, the art of handwriting is not completely lost. I ran across several recent stories, mostly related to Zaner-Bloser’s handwriting contest sponsorship that remind us how handwriting is taught at a young age. What pleasantly surprised me in this age of emails, text messages and voice mail was that Zaner Bloser had 157,000 entrants from around the country.

The National Handwriting Contest is sponsored by Zaner-Bloser, a language arts and reading company. Each year, schools that use Zaner-Bloser handwriting as their handwriting text may select one student from each grade level for the contest.

This year, students in grades one and two submitted manuscript samples, while older students submitted cursive samples. Entry forms on the Zaner-Bloser Web site asked students to first write their full name and then write down a designated sentence.

The final portion of the entry form asked students to write why neat handwriting is important. Colleen’s response was simply, ‘‘so people can read it.”

Entry forms were grouped into the categories of grades one and two, grades two through four, and five through eight. The Zaner-Bloser Web site provides a legibility key to help entrants use the correct size, slant, spacing and shape in their entries. Entries are judged according to these four principles.

According to Zaner-Bloser, this year there were 157,000 entries; 6,500 from Maryland.

Winners are grouped into two categories based on their school, public or private⁄Catholic. Judges choose one winner from each grade level in each category at the state level.

From these, national grade level winners will be chosen in each grade in both categories. The 16 national winners will then compete against each other to be named the Grand National Champion.

You can read the whole article here.

UPDATE: More articles, here, here, and here. And a completely different handwriting contest here.