It’s official, Christmas is here, or so Argos would have you believe now that its Christmas commercials have started airing on television. And late last week I received my first Christmas email marketing piece.It wasn’t from Argos, whose only mention of Christmas in an email to me recently was an opportunity to win a trip to see A Christmas Carol at the cinema next month. No, whilst most retailers are still busy touting spooky Halloween merchandise, The White Company sneaked in the first Christmas email: “No mad rush. No silly price. No shortage of ideas. Just the perfect Christmas, starting right here”. It also offered a discount of 15 percent for enewsletter subscribers.
I wasn’t expecting The White Company to be the first company to get in touch, and for me it’s far too soon to start worrying about buying Christmas gifts (there are two family birthdays in November for a start). But what I am keen to find out is whether now the first email has landed in my inbox there will follow a flood of Christmassy missives. Or do retailers have too much on their minds with the postal strikes to start their Christmas campaigns just yet?--MT
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The postal strikes are a distraction, and on the periphery of attention. The strikes are of far more interest to the media than to online retailers who will almost certainly have backup plans backing up their backup plans when it comes to Q4 fulfilment.
ReplyDeleteMaybe retailers are just too senstive to "over-Christmas-ising" their customers too soon. I notice both Sainsburys and Tesco have started soft-touch Christmas TV campaigns ... no doubt with carefully-monitored poll groups to test audience reaction.