Mother’s Day Marketing

Lots of stuff going on this week, but I did want to take a second to reflect on the importance of always trying to improve marketing tactics, always getting as close to 1-to-1 communication as possible.

I’ve purchased from 1-800-Flowers before, because (don’t tell my wife) I look at flowers as a commodity. Granted, I do know enough about Winston Flowers in Boston (the Tiffany’s of flowers, if you will), but most of the time I need to have flowers sent for some kind of social obligation. I think I get some AmEx points or some other kicker for 800-Flowers, so that’s who I’ve used.

They are heavy on the email, I’ve noticed that I get numerous messages around all the major holidays. There are two schools of thought here – one is that every subscriber has a lifecycle, that you hit them hard for as long as possible until they break, and that’s fine. The other is that you go conservative and see how long you can hold them.

I hit the breaking point this week on flower-grams though. My Mom passed away back in 1999, and after receiving what felt like the 15th email about Mother’s Day Specials, the tipping point was reached. The important point to note here though is that these emails are not the reason I buy from them, and even though I’ve unsubscribed that won’t stop me from being a customer. The brand momentum is already there, so unless someone else comes up with a substantially better way of doing all this, my business is not going elsewhere.