British brand marketers are pushing British consumers to the edge of their sanity.
According to freshly published reports from across the pond, brand spam is out of control in the U.K.
Of the roughly 11 billion emails presently unopened in British inboxes, we’re told that at least half are from brands.
John Fleming, Webtrends Marketing Director EMEA & APAC, is quoted by Econsultancy in an effort to explain the phenomenon.
“One of the key reasons Brits are ignoring these emails is irrelevancy,” Fleming asserts. “While they’ve signed up to receive updates from brands, they’re self-selecting which ones they actually read and only opening the emails they find relevant.”
“This ‘brand spam’ is also driving Brits barmy – in fact, survey respondents said it’s the most annoying thing a brand can do when it comes to communications, even worse than sending texts in the middle of the night. 84 percent of Brits say irrelevant brand spam drives them mad,” Fleming concludes.
Not surprisingly, the spam-born headaches among British consumers need not be permanent staples of digital and mobile marketing experiences across the pond. A greater focus on better-targeted and more relevant messages sent on a less frequent basis can, and should, do the trick and mitigate this problem.
According to the same report, 44 percent of British consumers say that personalized recommendations are useful, clearly indicating that relevant messages are seen as more of an invitation than an irritation.