P&G Fits E-mails To Customer Needs

PARK CITY, UTAH--E-mail marketing isn't a one-size-fits-all proposition. Different brands often require different strategies. Some brands warrant weekly emails to customers, others do better when aggregated into a monthly newsletter, according to Denis McGrath, interactive marketing manager at Procter & Gamble.

Speaking at MediaPost's Email Insider Summit, McGrath says P&G adjusts frequency of its marketing e-mails for the company's vast array of brands. Customers simply aren't interested in seeing information about batteries or toilet paper in their in-boxes all that often.

Diapers, on the other hand, are intensely fascinating to new parents. "We've found expectant mothers are like sponges," he says. "They're collecting information on everything."

McGrath says P&G takes into consideration how customers are likely to react to e-mails when planning campaigns. For "mundane" products, like batteries, the company sends out limited information about several different brands in a single monthly email. Over the course of a year, 40 to 50 brands are represented in the monthly newsletter, with each appearing two to three times per year.

Conversely, for Pampers, P&G sends e-mails once a week to expectant mothers. But after the baby is born, "suddenly everyone's busy." So the company pulls back to once a month.

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