E-mails We Don’t Love: Spiegel
Yes, yes, Spiegel had sent an E-mail We Love just a few weeks ago. But you’re only as good as your last message, and the last message I received from fashion merchant irked me with its insincerity.
“Dear Best Customer,” it began, easing into a few sentences about the approach of spring before continuing, “To thank you for continuing to be one of our very best customers… we’d like to extend a special invitation to preview our Daylight Savings Sale TODAY, before everyone else!”
That would be swell, if indeed I were one of Spiegel’s best customers, or if I had bought anything from Spiegel in the past five years. Because I haven’t, this pitch makes me highly mistrustful of the brand: Either its database is unkempt, leading me to question the company’s overall competence, or Spiegel thinks it can flatter me into a purchase. And if it’s lying about the exclusivity of its sale preview, what else is it lying to me about?
The “because you’re a best customer” gambit is a longtime direct mail come-on, and I guess tests show that it works. But if anyone has statistics to back this up (or refute it), I’d love to see them. Because I’d like to believe that most of us not only would fail to fall for this sort of fibbing but also would be insulted by it.
March 16th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Perhaps they’re testing the ’self-fulfilling prophecy’ email?
One would hope a person who hasn’t purchased in five years would NOT be considered a best customer (and if so, I wonder what those WORST customers look like)–but to say it might make one mistrustful of the brand might be going a bit too far. I would guess that most people reading that email are not marketers like us and as such, probably won’t think that way. Better still, perhaps they’ll even think to the last time they purchased with Speigel, reflect on what was hopefully a good experience and decide it’s been too long since then and make another purchase.
Now, if you had said you’ve NEVER bought from Spiegel and received this email…that would be a problem.
March 16th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
If disloyal (and uppity) customers like yourself respond to this email at a similar rate to customers that Spiegel actually loves, then it tells them certain things about the effectiveness of the conent of message vs. the power of a basic impression. Having said that, I’m heading to Spiegel right now - I gorgot they existed!
March 16th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Perhaps you are in the control group…
March 16th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Dear Valued Customer is one I see a lot. I can’t be all that valued if they don’t even use/know my name.