Seriously, get your email act together
Almost exactly one year ago (before my site was officially even up), I wrote about Neiman Marcus diluting their “exclusive” brand by sending me, a very infrequent customer, emails nearly every day (original post is here for context). Since my personal email box is somewhat of a virtual trashcan (over 7360 unread messages as of today), I let the experiment continue.
One year later, Neiman Marcus has learned absolutely nothing. Their online marketing strategy is still not consistent with their brand. 16 days into April, I have gotten the following volume of email:
- 2 on April 1
- 1 on April 2
- 2 on April 5
- 2 on April 6
- 1 on April 8
- 1 on April 10
- 1 on April 11
- 2 on April 12
- 1 on April 13
- 2 on April 15
- And one today thus far…April 16.
As I said last year, there is absolutely nothing aspirational or premium about sending out that much email to light-to-moderate customers. Of course I could unsubscribe (but that would ruin my experiment and hey, with 7300+ unread messages it really doesn’t add that much bulk). However, they should be trying to engage me instead of chasing me away. Plus, they should be making their best customers feel more special with exclusive offers.
I hope someone talks some sense into Neiman Marcus soon.
What you can takeaway for your company is to:
-Understand and segment your customers;
-Make your email marketing strategy consistent with your brand; and
-Think about how you can make your emails more relevant and interesting. If NM put their emails into a monthly newsletter or e-zine, it would be much more compelling to receive.
How can you improve upon your marketing strategy?
