With any email or SMS marketing, I don't need to explain that it's important to remain relevant. The trouble is, many companies get this very wrong; or they let business decisions override sound marketing plans. I'll have numerous examples to share, but let's start with O2 today.
I was subscribed to both their SMS and email marketing. Their SMS marketing I was barely tolerating as it was, but I stuck with them; I don't recall them ever sending me a marketing email.
Two days ago I get an SMS touting a Cash Manager card – one of these products where you pre-load cash and use it in lieu of a credit or debit card. Oh, and of course they're very lucrative as the company offering the service deducts a fee every time one tops up.
Companies falling over themselves to offer financial products is nothing new. But why is O2 doing this? It has nothing to do with their standard products, so there's an immediate disconnect when sending this sort of marketing. They even announce that it's "Powered by Natwest", as if to further underscore that they're effectively just marketing to their database on behalf of NatWest. Kaching.
So I unsubscribed from their SMS marketing. Today I got an email about the card (their first marketing email since I joined, I believe). So I unsubscribed from that too.
This is where O2 has failed. They have lost two ways to communicate with me, because the were clearly trying to push a product that had nothing to do with their core business. In doing so, they now can't communicate to me when they want to about things that are relevant: about getting a new mobile phone, about upgrading my tariff etc.
They could have made this a better offering if there was some synergy between the Cash Manager and their core business. Like what about being able to pay with my phone? That I would find an interesting concept. But the most they could muster is a picture of the card and a phone in the same email. A very shaky blurry phone at that, much like the connection between the two themes.
So what's the cost of marketing like this? Do we as marketers have to support short term decisions made for business reasons, sacrificing long term communications with customers?
O2 made their choice this week, and I opted out.
