The hour is serious, and I believe that now, everyone is somewhat aware of it. For our elders, for the weakest of our societies, (almost) everyone has finally understood that it is necessary to stay at home. And so much the better.
On the other hand, it would seem that on the business side... how can I put it... some people got a little carried away. We are in a complete rush in which everyone wanted to communicate, whether to say that they continued to work or on the contrary that they stopped part of their activity.
In essence, it's understandable. When my water supplier sends me an email explaining the remediation measures. I understand.
On the other hand, when Midas, where I did 2 car maintenance more than 7 years ago, sends me an email when I haven't opened their messages for several years, no. There, really. No !
So much so, that this mass of messages resembles the RGPD implementation craze during which all brands spammed their databases to reaffirm that they were really not spammers.
So much so, that SignalSpam and others were forced to issue messages asking brands to limit their communications so as not to clog up the email servers... used by caregivers to coordinate their actions.
So much so that Laposte.net's servers went down for a few hours and Orange.fr had a few moments of weakness. I recommend you this article of the Journaldunet on the subject: https://www.journaldunet.com/ebusiness/crm-marketing/1490039-saturations-emails-coronavirus/
So now we take a deep breath and think about the future!
What is your Coronastrategy during this strange period?
As always when we do marketing, first of all, we put ourselves in the shoes of our customers and prospects, and we think about their state of mind, and their needs. There you go, that's it!
Basically, in relation to your own strategy, there are two cases:
Your business has stopped
And.... you are "almost" unemployed. I'm thinking of the restaurant industry, travel industry, ... and many others. Unfortunately, for you, it is probably time to take a break.
You might be tempted to keep communicating... because the void is scary! But if you have nothing to say, don't say anything! Your customers will not forget you. When they return to normal life, you can start contacting them again.
What will happen if you continue to solicit them? They will find your messages useless and irritating. And so they will either ignore them or, worse, classify them as spam.
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Take advantage of this moment to rethink some of the elements of your emailing strategy that you usually don't have time to think about.
Your business continues... after a fashion
In this case, adapt to the situation! People are either at home (at best telecommuting, at worst stuck with their kids... or both), or they have to go to their jobs (respect to the caregivers, to those who feed us, to those who guarantee the basic services that are useful for the good functioning of our society, ...). In any case, their level of attention to commercial and marketing actions is very different from what it usually is.
Far be it from me to be a fortune teller and know what people are thinking, but this is a time to refocus on the essential. The trivial can wait a bit.
Try this:
- Not to start aggressive campaigns;
- To focus on advice and the practical aspects of your products and services;
- To attempt a storytelling approach rather than a descriptive approach;
- And so on.
If we return to the question of the deliverabilityIn contrast to what you might try to do, address only customers and prospects with whom you have had recent interactions to protect your reputation as a sender.
If on the contrary you widen your targeting, you risk sending a very bad signal to anti-spam filters. More spam complaints, more spamtraps hit, more bounces, less opens, less clicks, ... the perfect cocktail to drastically decrease your sender reputation.
Focus on quality.
And when it's over, how do we get the machine going again?
Oh yes, that's a great question (and one that some people were quick to ask). In both cases, you will normally have a significant drop in your sent email volumes during this containment period.
We're going to have 3 different scenarios at the release (maybe more if you've done some original stuff):
- You have not sent anything for at least 30 days Sender reputation: In this case, your sender reputation has probably been "neutralized" (or almost), i.e. it has fallen back to a level close to that of a brand that would start sending email campaigns for the first time (well, in reality, you still keep some history, whether it was good or bad). You'll have to plan a warm-up plan for your IPs and domains in order to progressively increase your volumes and recover your sender reputation.
- You have greatly reduced your volumes and relied on quality shipments In this case, you have probably managed to maintain your reputation. Better yet, maybe you've managed to improve it. But be careful not to increase your volumes too quickly. While you should benefit from this strategy compared to your colleagues who have followed other paths, you should still be careful. You don't go from 50,000 emails twice a week to 500,000 every day without paying attention.
- You haven't changed anything... worse, your reputation has deteriorated : I hope for your sake that this is not what happened. If it did, you might want to take the time to do a little deliverability audit and change your practices in order to hope to keep your head above water.
In all cases, it is essential to monitor your deliverability with care. Whether during this unprecedented crisis, at the time of the recovery... and even after. It cannot be repeated often enough, it is better to anticipate deliverability incidents than to suffer them.
Good luck to you!
Psssst, we are preparing a deliverability training at a distance. Do not hesitate to contact us if you wish to participate in the 1st wave of the virtual classroom.
Cover photo by Loic Leray on Unsplash
