I have a confession to make: I have multiple email accounts...to collect spam. 

It is a dirty secret confession of a marketer. I’ve got Yahoo, Gmail, and there “may” even be an AOL account in the collection. I knowingly hand these out to brands. I have a system for email prioritization with the top spot in the collection going to brands I want to hear from. If you got an AOL email and the name doesn’t have any initials from my name…sorry.

In this time of shelter at home, I’ve had a chance to review the contents of all strata of spamcounts. It has NOT been pretty. The emails fall into some curious categories:

  • Desperate remembrance – “Hey, we are still here waiting for you to buy from us!” to “Without YOUR support, we won’t be here for much longer.”
  • Gross outs – “Out of an overabundance of caution, we have finally started cleaning things!” 
  • Bottom feeders – “This is the perfect time to buy sweatpants in bulk…AND…with every purchase, we will send you toilet paper and a picture of a nurse holding a puppy!”

I think it is clear most consumers would like to permanently banish the phrases “Out of an overabundance of caution” from branded email. This overabundance of caution isn’t really that…now is it? It is an overabundance of Stan from Legal and Debbie from Risk telling you an email had to include the robotic linguistics known as an overabundance of nobody talks like that.

The longer the world shelters and economies grind to a crawl, the reaction of some is apparently to ramp UP emails in an attempt to continue relationships. Even worse are the brands who failed to check their workflows and content, keeping customers in automated drip campaigns that fail to take our global condition into context. I especially love the ones encouraging me to bring the email IN-STORE by a certain date.

What got really depressing was when I started to look for emails that used the word “you” more than the word “we.” Outside of the self-serving celebrations of “we are still up and running so that you can keep working/buying,” the “you” emails were few and far between.

In this age of customer-centric-lip-service and “embracing” the customer-first attitude, isn’t it time to make a hard shift from talking about “we” -- we are with you, we are in this together, we are still here ready to do business, we still want your money – and start talking about “you”?

Shifting conversations from WE to YOU can be hard…it demands that for every question we ask, we are ready to respond quickly with action that directly reflects the answers received. It also demands that we ask internally before we ask externally. Once again, asking our people what they need and what they know our customers need will also demand we be ready to respond. We can’t keep asking and not answering.

Perhaps the biggest thing to remember is that if we continue delivering messages of fake empathy and false community, the outcome will be brand distancing. Consumers are not likely to forget the opportunistic, the false or the downright creepy interactions during a time when nerves are frayed.

There is a difference between HAVING empathy and just sounding empathetic. It is not our customer’s job to have empathy for what our brand is facing. It is our job to remind them why our mission, values and vision align with their own, today and well into our mutual tomorrow. It is our job to ask how are YOU? What do YOU need or want? And if the answer is they just want to be left alone for a bit…to not be sold something…not be reminded a bill is heading their way…not be reminded they can’t go to the store with a coupon…we need to respect the answer and respond in kind and with kindness.

The social currency accumulated now will last well into the recovery. The brand distancing could last a lifetime.

Business Research Themes