By ROBERT WAGNER

I recently bought a laptop manufactured by a widely known and once high regarded consumer electronics company. The company in question has faltered some in recent years, though I’ve not held it against them; I continue to consider them whenever I’m looking to purchase electronics and I believe they produce above average gadgets of all kinds.

It’s their marketing that’s failing them.

The laptop I purchased was nothing shy of a behemoth; their top of the line, all of the trimmings model – and I’m extremely happy with it, all 9 pounds of it. It’s a desktop replacement and it’s not only incredibly fast, I felt it was a good value compared to everything else I looked at. I was so impressed with my new laptop that I even filled out the annoying user survey and warranty information, knowing full well that doing so was going to drop my email address into a mailing list.

And what’s the harm in being on the mailing list of a company that I’ve bought numerous products from over the years? You’d think there wouldn’t be any harm at all, right?

Wrong.

Within 5 minutes I had already received my obligatory “thank you” email congratulating me on my purchase; reasonable enough, no problem there. It was the next email I received an hour later that bothered me.

The email that suggested that, since I’d just bought a very expensive laptop; perhaps I’d like to buy another very expensive laptop.

Seriously?

The registration process had specifically noted the model number of the laptop I’d purchased – there was no mistaking that I’d bought a laptop and not a video camera or a television or a surround sound receiver – and yet the first marketing email I get is trying to tempt me into buying another laptop? That not only makes no sense, it feels insulting – as if my initial purchase wasn’t enough for the company in question.

24 hours later I received another email suggesting that I buy another laptop; and another one the day after that. 7 solicitations to buy a laptop in 7 days – after I’d already spent thousands of dollars on the first one.

We live in an age where such blind (albeit ambitious) marketing is not only impersonal; it’s unacceptable. Whereas I’d have been fine with receiving an email about accessories for my own laptop, or the aforementioned television or surround sound receiver – all of which this same company manufactures in abundance – instead I’m made to feel as though my purchase wasn’t special at all.

The technology behind email marketing has come a long way in the past few years. It’s almost unheard of for companies to utilize such poor logic in their marketing practices. Personalization is the order of the day now and companies everywhere have the facilities at their disposal to cater to us in ways that wouldn’t have been possible just a few years ago.

That a multi-billion dollar consumer electronics conglomerate appears to care so little about their customers is mind-boggling at the very least.

At most, it goes a long way to explain why the company in question is suffering a severely tarnished reputation as of late.

As for my laptop, I’ve perfectly happy with it.

But I’ll be taking my money elsewhere next time.

Share:

• Tags
• ·
• consumer electronics
• ·
• email
• ·
• email list
• ·
• marketing
• ·
• personalization
• ·
• personalized marketing
• ·
• Robert Wagner