Normally I wouldn’t expect a pizza joint to make me sit back and say, “Hmmmm, this is a great idea to connect with customers and improve business.” It is, after all, just a pizza joint, albeit one established by Jimmy John Shark that serves a damn good pizza.

But the other day I received a thank you card. A hand-written thank you card no less, from Mafia Mike’s Pizza on Cooper Road in Gilbert.

It’s not the free order of amazing cheesy breadsticks that makes me go “Hmmmm” (though as I noted in my review on Yelp, they are rather tasty). It’s the fact someone took the time to hand-write a note, hand-address it, and put it in the mail. You know, the real U.S. Postal mail.

Of course the hand-written note is nothing new. It is not like this is some new-fangled marketing technique that is going to take the business world by storm.

Why does it work? It is personal, it reaches out and connects. It says “thank you for your business” and “we appreciate you” in a way few other methods can touch.

That’s pretty smart business.

When is the last time you wrote a thank you card?