A Mother's Day reality ignored

There's just one so-called killer app. It's email. It's pervasive, cheap, and often relentless.

And, in late April and early May, it becomes utterly tone deaf. 

I began receiving email* promotions from marketers for Mother's Day deals a few weeks ago. They've steadily increased in frequency. And in stupidity, as in: "Mom really wants a digital SLR outfit." (Words never uttered in any household in my family. Ever.)

(Note: this isn't about the new Garry Marshall ensemble comedy, Mother's Day. I'm talking the real Mother's Day, May 8. Which is right around the corner. So get cracking.)

By Frank Mayne from London, UK
(Clara's Card) [CC BY-SA 2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

While there are women for whom I'd buy Mother's Day cards, gifts or flowers, my mother is not among them. She died in 2013. (The woman in the stock photo is not her.)

And every email pitch with "Mother's Day" in the subject line is a jagged-knife reminder of her absence. I'm likely overly sensitive to this, but I've severed ties with online retailers whose relentless, thrice-daily emails reminded me "It's not too late to buy a gift for Mom."

Yes, it is, FTD.

I refuse FTD's emails. Their thoughtless, attack-style approach to email marketing lost them a customer. Perhaps many customers. And nothing will lure me back. 

You may have another point of view. And, that's fine. You may even find promo emails from online marketers for Mother's Day beneficial. I hope you have the opportunity to celebrate the occasion with warm hugs, construction-paper greeting cards, and laughter.

Many of us cannot. And, a ceaseless barrage of Mother's Day promo emails from online marketers is an admission that they have no sensitivity in building relationships with customers.

*The Associated Press' rule is that "email" requires no hyphen.