Ashley Lockridge says, “There’s a scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that will stick in my head forever. Violet Beauregarde, an obsessive gum chewer, starts smacking on a piece of gum that is promised to taste like a three-course meal. Despite Willy Wonka’s protests that he hasn’t gotten this test product “quite right yet,” she chews on and experiences a delicious dinner of tomato soup and roast beef. However, when she gets to the blueberry pie dessert, she begins to turn purple and blow up like a gigantic blueberry, eventually becoming so large she almost pops.

There’s a lesson here for marketers; our vices can destroy us. During the holiday season, instead of gaining pleasure the more we chew, our dopamine is triggered by sending more and more volume with the hopes that we’ll get the satisfaction of staying at the top of the inbox, thereby gaining visibility, opens and transactions. Despite warnings that too much volume and lack of segmentation can cause email fatigue in the long run, marketers push onward and have rapidly increased email deliveries by 25 percent compared to the 2014 holiday season.

Interestingly enough, as soon as the holidays are over, most retailers seem to realize their near-absurd need to over-deliver (pardon the pun) and pull back in volume the week after Christmas“.

Does fluctuating holiday email volume send customers the wrong message?

‘Experian Marketing Forward’ Blog

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