Coronavirus opens corporate email floodgates

Maybe it was that one store where you shopped while on vacation a few years ago, or perhaps that online service that you used just last week, but it’s all the same message: Businesses have flooded everyone on their email lists with coronavirus updates, tips on staying healthy and words of encouragement — much to people’s dismay.

“Thanks to the Insta ad that lured me into buying a pair of everyday/gym-to-office/rugged/ softest/all-weather/spill-proof/hidden pocket pants for sending me 6 emails to let me know how their company is dealing with #coronavirus,” one user said on Twitter.

“Is anyone else now only realizing how many company email subscriptions they’re part of? Thanks, company I booked a gig ticket through five years ago, I’m glad you’re also disinfecting your offices #coronavirus,” said another.

The email deluge, which quickly became a running joke online, raises questions about marketing practices as nonessential businesses closed shops and storefronts amid the spread of the coronavirus.

“The basic element of crisis communication is that you should say something,” said Hilary Fussell Sisco, an associate professor and chair of strategic communication at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut.

The emails can be an effective strategy, she said, but it depends on the person receiving them — someone who last ate at a restaurant in 2007 might dismiss its message, but a person who orders delivery twice a week will be looking for that information.

There’s also a reputational side to it, Fussell Sisco said.

“It’s not just that I don’t want to order anything from you right now, or you’re going to be closed,” she said, adding, “Are you somebody that I want to buy from again, once all this is over, because of what your practices were?”