I flew back to my native state of Michigan this past summer to attend the wedding of my best friend from high school. In planning, I called the hotel where the reception was going to be held in order to book a hotel room for the evening.
After taking my usual billing information and booking a room for me, the hotel operator asked me for my email address so she could "send me an email confirmation of my room reservation".
I don't know about you, but whenever the proprietor of any business asks me for my phone number or email address, I tend to clench up. A bunch of questions run through my brain, all wondering why the person needs my information. The basis of these questions is usually a matter of trust...that is, do I trust this person to use the information in ways I would approve of?
I gave the hotel operator my email address and, sure as sugar, the email confirmation came through almost immediately. I have to admit, it helped to have it in writing, sitting there in my inbox, so I could review and look for any mistakes. Did they get the correct date? Correct room size? And so on.
I went to the wedding, my friend got married, and then I returned to Santa Barbara. As you might have guessed, this story doesn't have a happy ending. (Not about my friend, he's still happily married.) A couple months later, I got an email from the hotel. Not a satisfaction survey or any kind of follow-up to my stay.
Marketing.
A friendly email reminder about the hotel, telling me to consider the hotel for my next corporate retreat. I stayed in their hotel for a single night, and, as flattered as I am by their presumption, I don't own a business or manage a team. The reality of this past transaction as a one-time deal, as evidenced by my billing zip code I provided when I called. Never mind that I live in California, 2500 miles away, and that I just booked a room to stay for one night.
Nope...once your email address finds it way into the system, you get tossed onto the massive pile of everyone else who's ever stayed for one night, and they email market to everyone as a homogeneous mass of prospects. This isn't a marketing strategy...this is at best a wasted opportunity, but at worst, it's burning through any goodwill they earned in my mind during my stay with them.
Every business can do better than this. Big or small, I don't think any organization can afford not to pay attention to how their emails are being received by prospects.
