One of the dilemmas posed by the Internet is how much contact with
clients is too much. Push e-mails are powerful tools that allow
anyone selling something to stay in constant touch with customers,
but there is a point at which unsolicited communication may become
obtrusive.
The use of opt-in or opt-out techniques allowing recipients to
control the flow of incoming communication is helpful, but it
doesn't eliminate all unwanted material because e-mail addresses
often are sold from vendor to vendor.
Striking the right balance between too little and too much
communication is the key.
In a service business such as travel, maintaining continuing
contact with clients is a valuable marketing technique. With e-mail
capability, a travel vendor has the opportunity to personalize the
communication by offering specific suggestions to clients based on
their travel history.
The failure to keep in close but unobtrusive contact with
clients has more dire implications than in the pre-Internet era,
because you can be sure that wired clients are hearing not only
from you but from potential competitors, including your own
suppliers.
For what it's worth, here's my experience with push e-mail
promotions. From time to time, I have signed up with on-line
providers, giving them my e-mail address in order to receive news
of special promotions.
But I only read the material they send me when I have the time
to do so; more often than not, I trash the messages without reading
them.
I also find there is a point of diminishing returns that occurs
when a provider sends too many messages. It's the "boy who cried
wolf" syndrome. I never know when a message may be important.
Conversely, if a provider sends less frequent messages, I am more
likely to check them out.
While your clients probably won't read or respond to all your
communications, you might want to heed the advice of a travel
marketer I met many years who said that he didn't care if people
threw away his promotion material so long as they remembered that
he had sent it.
He regarded promotion as less expensive form of advertising that
might not have the immediate effect of stimulating a sale but that
kept his name fresh in the minds of his former and potential
customers.
So while it is important to measure the effectiveness of
promotional activity against its cost in real dollars as well as
your time, it might be wise to factor into the equation the level
of awareness you are achieving with continuing communication.