« The Dumbness of Email »

And it’s not even email’s fault.
I subscribed to Red Herring last month, as a christmas present to me, and I’ve been anxiously waiting for the first issue to arrive (I should go and check the mailbox again after this posting).  This morning, I received an email from Red Herring, telling me to hurry and renew my subscription, and I could get 2 years for the price of 1.

Sheesh. That’s a little premature.
You can’t tell me that they don’t know when I subscribed, or when my subscription REALLY is ready to be renewed. Why wouldn’t they make a smarter linkage between the email server and the customer database server? Why blanket their customerbase with renewal notices, when the vast matority of them probably aren’t in the *renewal window*? Laziness.

It’s not just Red Herring, it’s almost every organization who sends out email to its customer base. The laziness of not really caring about customre specific information.

In another life, The Wiz worked for a web company that specialized in software and customer databases that would allow companies to send VERY smart emails. It was an outstanding platform that would marry customer personal preference with email content, and then also track the success of those email programs.

Imagine a Canadian Tire email, that was tailored to YOU. You would receive an email if the tools you liked were on sale. Same deal with Shoppers Drug Mart, or even Pizza Pizza.  These retailers know almost everything about the preferences of their customers, yet do nothing to tailor the email experience. It’s all about relevance. We push for relevance in voice communication (think Iotum), why not with email communication?




Technorati Tags: email relevance, Red Herring, Iotum

Comments

[Krk]

totally agreed. email communications should the simplest way to communicate with their customers in a meaningful way based on what their databased preferences.

A simple lack of investment in software to make sense of the data and feed back appropriate promotional programs to take advantage of the data they've acquired.

Then again... a lot of companies like to acquire data about their customers without using the "right" tools to promote more business from it... another missed opportunity.