There is a fine line between getting peoples’ attention and irritating them, and this is something that marketers more than anyone else have to be accutely aware of. This post on Jim’s Marketing Blog discusses this issue.
I’m sure we’ve all been a victim of this: you receive a promotional email from some company which you can barely, if at all, remember signing up for. Then, days later, you receive ANOTHER email from the company. Are you more or less likely to open this second email? Did you even open the first email at all?
Althought his problem has been garnering significant attention, and thus slowly rectifying itself, in recent years, I’m sure we can all remember the days when email spam was just part of life. For some reason, marketers were falsely convinced that if you bombard consumers with the same message or promotion over and over, the response rate will increase. On the contrary, you will likely damage your company and brand image for good by pestering people with unwanted emails.
Jim’s blog post stresses “doing the right thing correctly”. Email marketing is a very viable tool for certain companies; however, abusing email will only lead to annoyance and possibly distrust from valued consumers. Email is now moving towards a more targeted approach in which promotions and messages are tailored to different types of consumers, ensuring that the right message gets to the right person to maximize the frequency of the message actually being absorbed. This is good news for us, as that means that the days of unwanted spam are coming to an end!