Brands: Stop with the well-meaning COVID-19 emails
The influx of emails in the past week has been brands’ version of queuing at the supermarket for a pack of toilet paper, Hamish Cargill says. You don’t need to do it, but since everyone else is, you feel obliged to join in.
Last week, rather than working productively, half of Australia’s white-collar workforce spent their week working from home ploughing through an inbox full of well-meaning emails from every brand they’ve ever engaged with.
It was, to use the word of 2020, an ‘unprecedented’ waste of the nation’s time. Time that could be better spent making hand sanitiser, or finding the ideal Zoom angle.
And it wasn’t just the readers’ time. Consider the process behind the development of these emails, from first draft through to the 17-person scrum of earnest folks across legal and corporate comms who had to approve every wasted word.
“. . . few of them had a point to make.”
Sums up most corporate emails.
Brilliant article. Well said.
Well said, Hamish, and as a result I haven’t read most of these emails.
But I would say that if you don’t demonstrate what you’re doing about the situation, your clients will think it strange and probably ask you. Especially when you’re a small company serving multinational clients, you are tacitly expected to act like a multinational.
So, I’m with you – strike the balance between empathy and a practical demonstration of your actions.
Hit the nail on the head. I saw someone on LinkedIn sum up the three groups of emails. 1) getting emails when you bought a $5 item 5 years ago. 2) Emails that just talk about how they’re helping employees which is nice to have but of little value as a customer. and the more useful 3rd) if there is impact to your business operations, or you need support or if there’s actual impact. If there’s no impact, don’t email.
Pretty much most advertising these days – start with a solution (in this case an email) without first addressing what problem (if any) you are actually solving.
Hhmmm,
Decent article Hamish.
I wonder how these sort of Corporate emails will be taken in the weeks to come. When we see tens of thousands of hard working people joining the unemployment cues. There will still be the many big Corporate businesses that can afford to support their employees as the WFH. Then – there are many many more, that cannot support their hard working, loyal employees – and end up having to stand them down, often without pay.
Will we see “empathy emails” from Corporate Australia then – Telstra, Woolworths, Banks, Insurance Companies – and the like. What will their messages of support be then?
… the never-ending emails from Luxury Escapes and Trip-A-Deal in the middle of a lock-down.
Just plain stupid.
But thank God I can still have a haircut.
Im not sure you can knock someone for trying todo something good.Thats important right now.
I think what’s being said here is to be disciplined about what that ‘something good’ is and getting to that point directly
Totally agree! I also unlinked a number of contacts on LinkedIn because of this poorly placed self promotions. Poor form!
Great article, couldn’t agree more, I tried to reply to a couple of them, they had a non-reply email address, just shows you how sincere the email was.
You have just done the same thing only with a slightly elevated sense of self importance. Do us all a favour and just resist the temptation to contribute nothing of value.
Free advice – segment your database into three audiences:
1. Loyal customers: email them anything they need to know that will impact them
2. One-off customers: don’t email them
3. People on the database that aren’t customers: don’t email them
You’re welcome.
Bingo.
I appreciate the sentiment of this article and also agree with all comments here too above – the good ones and the negative ones both.
I’ve had way too many ‘policy’ emails that I too think are a waste of time and mean nothing, and don’t impact me at all.
In a time like this we need to be real and we need to make sure we don’t waste people’s time and at the same time spit in the face of people really in hardship too.
All realities are right here though. There will be no one solution.
It would be nice if opinion pieces on Mumbrella had some useful ‘How To’s’ as opposed to ‘How Not To’s’ as this article is phrased. I think we all need to be valuable, useful and with respect at this time rather than some blanket bagging out.
Hence my favourite response goes to @Paolo above with the split of the database.
Oh, and if your customers really are impacted by your decision then something bigger than an email is probably in order. I saw a good video with a heartfelt message for a conference that was cancelled and felt that was of value. It also explained how the alternative solution was going to work too.
If it is a bigger impact again then a personal call is even necessary.
Definitely need to delicately balance that fine line between empathy and capitalism though.