Both online services and physical stores are flooding the inboxes of their customers with news regarding the coronavirus. Be it sharing safety tips or briefing customers on how they are tackling the pandemic, companies are sending out a range of uncalled-for emails.
While the email marketing tactic to stay in the loop might be worth the praise, users are growing impatient over the same content being churned out from different sources over and again.
Generally speaking, we all tend to tick boxes that allow email subscriptions and casually hand out our email information in a myriad of places, both online and offline. Times such as this is when we realize the gravity of handing out email addresses casually.
Though receiving an email from a frequently used online app may seem normal, finding emails from companies whose products one may have used long ago, might not be welcomed.
Amidst all the frustrations of receiving countless emails in their inboxes, people have now started mocking the email practices of several organizations.
Dr. Fussell Sisco, an associate professor and chair of strategic communication at Quinnipiac University, said that such emails surrounding the pandemic can be an effective strategy. She also highlighted the fact that the effectiveness of those emails, however, depends on the person receiving them.
She further stated that a company’s reputation may also be tied to how they handle “crisis communication”.
“It’s not just that I don’t want to order anything from you right now, or you’re going to be closed. Are you somebody that I want to buy from again, once all this is over, because of what your practices were?” said Dr. Sisco.
Other experts such as David Hagenbuch, a professor of marketing, said that companies need to evaluate whether it is required to email their customers and brief them about the pandemic or not.
It makes sense to receive an email from your favorite coffee place and stay abreast of their latest safety measures, but the same doesn’t apply to a random e-commerce site that you may have visited years ago.
