Could you survive without your email database?
Bronwyn Cook
Head of Marketing, APAC @ Mastering SAP | Head of Brand, Social & PR at Wellesley Information Services | Strategy, Brand, Content, Events, Digital & Data
A contact of mine recently posted a story on her LinkedIn feed about a very interesting marketing decision made by UK pub chain J.D. Wetherspoon.
They deleted their entire email marketing database and will not send any more email newsletters.
No, this wasn’t a mistake, this was a well thought out strategy with very logical reasons. Instead, Wetherspoon will drive their customer communication via their website and social channels.
As I was reading my friends post (and this article) at first I thought “are they crazy” but as I thought about it more I changed my mind to “what a brave and inspiring idea”.
In the face of all-to-regular data breaches, increasingly tight data governance regulations, decreasing open and click rates, the ongoing decay of data, combined with the subscription and human costs of maintaining a database…how much simpler would our lives be without them?
Think of what could be accomplished with that budget! Engaging videos, amazing content, bigger stands at events…the possibilities are endless.
More importantly, would eliminating what Wetherspoon classify as “intrusive” outbound communication and concentrating on channels that consumers are quite happy to be engaged with – mainly because they have to follow or like you to receive those communications – improve your customer engagement and experience?
I know personally I probably receive at least 20-30 emails a day from companies I’ve bought online from in the past or subscribed to their update service. Despite their best attempt at attention grabbing email subject lines, personalisation or offers, I’m sorry to say that 90% of them just end up getting deleted without reading.
However, put the same offer into my Facebook or Twitter feed, with a thumb scrolling stopping image, I’m more than likely to respond to it.
Obviously for any business some level of database needs to be maintained, but can we adjust our mindset away from the holy grail of email marketing and instead focus on communicating with our customers via channels that they want to be communicated on?