In these days of cookies and pop ups, where it seems that someone is always trying to sell you something, I have noticed the subtler gentler trend of e-mails asking if you want to opt out.
Try as I might to always uncheck the box that assumes, of course, you want to receive e-mail, whenever I order something, my inbox still seems to fill up. Unsubscribing can sometimes be easy, but others are arduous and take some time to actually cease.
So, I was surprised this year to receive e-mails from a few merchants asking if I wanted to opt out of Mother’s Day e-mails. Maybe it is my demographic – being older, it is less likely that my mother is still with us, but I have more than a few contemporaries whose mothers are very much alive. Whatever the reason, I did take note, and appreciated the acknowledgement that for some – Mother’s Day also conjures sorrow.
Schools starting doing this a while ago – Mother’s Day and Father’s Day became Parent’s Day and then Family Day -where anyone you considered family was welcome -biological or not. I was always the kid with an absent parent -so for me it was a day of forced smiles while I politely engaged with my classmates parents. In those days I was an anomaly – but in post COVID America, an estimated 245,000 children have lost a parent to the pandemic, and apparently e-mail marketers took note.
Last week I started to receive opting out messages for Father’s Day as well. It gives me hope for a kinder, gentler America in these days of fractious hate groups and deniers, that someone, somewhere in a marketing department raised their hand and said, maybe we should give people the chance to opt out of our solicitations.
Now, I realize that it is a strategy. Holiday email opt-outs are a practice in empathy; many companies are now acknowledging that the holidays can be difficult or bring up negative feelings for some individuals. By allowing customers to opt out of holiday themed marketing e-mails and prevent unintentional distress, companies strengthen the customer relationship.
In fact, research shows that over 90% of consumers react positively to holiday email opt-outs, and 81% of customers are more likely to make a purchase after receiving the option to opt out. So, not only is it the ethical thing to do, but it’s also a smart business strategy.
Empathy Deficit is at an all time high in our country, so it’s ironic to me, that e-mail marketers get it, when so many business leaders and politicians on a certain side of the aisle continually underestimate what people are going through and only focus on their own needs. Here’s hoping that those leaders will also come to realize that Empathy Wins.
https://www.omnisend.com/blog/holiday-opt-out-emails/
https://www.capterra.com/resources/holiday-email-marketing-opt-out/
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/08/covid-orphans-us