Example of bad email marketing practice in CRM
The other day I went to unsubscribe from an email I received from a local car dealer. I received the email as a result of scheduling a service appointment on their website. What I saw blew me away. Watch the video and for the real thing take a look at this PDF file.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.As an email marketing specialist I was able to detect that this may be due large in part to a misconfiguration in the CRM which is probably mostly the dealer’s responsibility but also a training issue with the CRM provider. I suspect this because of the variable at the very bottom %%ChannelUser%%.
But as a customer, this is confusing and unprofessional.
From a branding perspective, this is completely user unfriendly. As part of the set up process the vendor should make sure this unsubscribe page is properly branded. If the system does not support that then, well, that’s a different story. This page must be branded to represent the dealership.
From a functional perspective this is completely confusing. What do customers think when they see this? This certainly takes away any warm fuzzy I may possibly have with this dealer.
There isn’t much more to be said about this. The visual speaks for itself. It is an abomination that stands as one of the leading examples of how not to use a CRM and how not to do email marketing.
When I first got in to email marketing I spent much of my time setting up, configuring, and maintaining automated email campaigns but more and more I find that the best way to connect with people via email is to take the time to craft highly personal communications and avoid automation to some extent. One benefit for doing this is that you often are able to nip a misconfiguration like this in the bud because you do a walk-through of your opt-in and opt-out processes.
If you are going to pursue automation in your email marketing, definitely take the time to put control measures in place to help minimize or avoid scenarios like this by testing your process when you initially set up the campaign and anytime you make a change, even the tiniest change to any part of your process.
Ryan, you are correct: this is not the ideal way to present permissions to consumers.
I will also say that the timing of your post is impeccable, as our developers have been working with our email deliverability partner on this particular topic. In fact, we are in the process of rolling out changes to our standard unsubscribe landing pages.
Additionally, we offer the option of customized landing pages which are branded with the dealer’s logo and provide links to the dealer’s homepage, online inventory, etc. The customized option also serves as a global unsubscribe mechanism for all marketing emails. Whether the page you featured is a configuration issue or the dealership is unaware of the customized landing pages we offer, I can’t say with the info provided.
I can tell you that we are constantly striving to provide our dealers with the simplest and most powerful CRM solution, which includes strong management of their email marketing. If you have any other input or ideas, please feel free to contact our Product Team at 317.842.4242. Thanks.
Hey Steve thanks for taking the time to address this here. I think it demonstrates the commitment at Autobase to provide a quality product and it is good for others to see this and to know about the capability for this part of the interface to be customized. I can contact you directly to fill you in on the dealer referenced in this post so that you can address the issue with them.