Vonage are pushing their forthcoming IPO with what can only be described as manic ferocity! A couple of days ago the company sent me pitch letters by e-mail for the addresses associated with both of my Vonage phone numbers then today they left me voicemail on both numbers. Enough already!
I understand that the company wants to get lots of interest in the IPO but at what point does it become simply another irritating sales pitch that will put people off? The problem that Vonage and the majority of businesses suffer from in their public messaging is that they don’t create a single point of contact with the customer – they create multiple points with many lists that are so different that cross-referencing them to remove duplicates is next to impossible. Now it is certainly true that as irritated as many people become by too many “touches” the fact is that an interesting, relevant offer will get their attention anyway — which is why spam will always work and why it will never disappear unless email technology changes radically. What I always wonder about is the cost of having and using so many different lists. Surely planning a modern communications strategy for a business should involve a carefully structured customer and prospect database that ensures that messaging is optimized to reduced costs? Or is that more expensive than simply blasting out your message to as many recipients as possible without worrying about duplication or about annoying your customers and prospects? I guess that if the message matters enough then the delivery mechanisms doesn’t. I suspect we’re destined to live with floods of corporate messaging unless the majority of us start making it clear we don’t like it and don’t want it. And that means we are doomed to always be flooded. Sigh.
