I’m not a big fan of car dealerships. Given a choice of visiting the dentist or a car dealership I’ll choose the dentist. It is one of the reasons I have bought cars from Hertz and CarMax. They sold cars like my grocery store sells canned corn. There’s the shelf. There’s the price. Any questions?
That said, lots of people are trying to get into the “Internet Marketing” business these days. Some of those people are Car Dealers. Unfortunately, many of these people try using the new technology, without understanding the culture.
One of those, in my opinion is Absolute Hyundai of Mesquite. They use CRM.COM to email blast their prospects. Today, I received two of their emails. Why two? I thought I knew the answer. You see I was shopping for a car. So I requested some information using one of the car sites that sells inquiries to dealers. And because I’m naturally suspicious of car dealers anyway, I requested much of the information twice, using different names and email addresses. Why? Because it lets me follow their follow up marketing. So I figured that they had just emailed me to both addresses.
But guess what. They had sent identical emails (with different subject lines) to the same address. Now I am confused. But that is a nit. I move on.
Here is the text of the email
James ,
I noticed that you were not able to make it for your appointment. Just wanted to touch base with you and see what time you could make it out today. We will be here until 8:30am until 8:30pm. Please call and refer to your personal internet confirmation # 4060223. When you come out you will also recieve up to $250.00 FREE GAS on the spot. Just for coming in!!!
Come in for our Saturday Specials!!!!!
I am personally Looking foward to working with you!
Eric Romo
(888) 599- 3558
I was really curious about that personal internet confirmation number. So I called up, used a different name, and gave them that number. They looked it up and identified me, so I do know for sure that the number is uniquely assigned.
(To be sure, I handled that call badly. I should have been more direct about the purpose of my call and instead of using a made up name, I should just not given my name and asked them up front. I was wrong. I feel badly about that and I’ve noted it for next time to do better. Mea culpa.)
Then I wrote back. Here is what I wrote:
Hello.
For this email, I reference your email to me which I have copied below and include in it’s HTML format for full clarity.
First, please know that I have no memory of ever requesting to be placed on your email list. It is possible I did. I cannot say with absolute certainty I never did. But I have no memory of ever doing so.
That said your CAN-SPAM notice says explicitly that my request to be on this list was not required. That increases my suspicions that I never did and that my one time contact of you caused me to be on your list.
To be sure, CAN-SPAM does not require a request. Including me on such a list is clearly legal. But, in my opinion, it is discourteous.
I don’t mind you sending me any individual, personal one time email you would like. But I have no memory of ever once explicitly signing up for your “list”.
My recommendation is that you be more open and forthright on whether I actually signed up, and if so, how and when, and if not, then explicitly how my individual name became on the list. It isn’t complex. Something simple, like “We are sending you this notice because on xx.Dec.2008 you requested information from us on our website and we thought this additional information might be useful”. For me, full disclosures like that are a key part of internet courtesy. I would also recommend including an unsubscribe link right there. Your overt willingness to immediately unsub me, goes a long way in easing my concerns and encouraging me to keep reading.
Second, you appear to have begun with a tiny “mis-statement”. I never had an appointment. I strongly recommend changing that opening line. It immediately alerted me that this was a bulk marketing email. There are a ton of opening grabbers that would work better.
Third, I strongly recommend you quit trying to hide your CAN-SPAM notice. Doing that seems to imply that you are scared I might actually read the thing. For me, that reinforces the “image” of slimy car dealerships. Be PROUD of the CAN-SPAM NOTICE. I mean you only want to email people who want it. Be proud of the CAN-SPAM notice. Don’t hide it. Feature it. With a little “language crafting” you really can transform it from a legal requirement into a marketing “plus”.
Fourth, there is a teeny tiny formatting bug you might want to address. There is an “extra” space after my name, in the email salutation. That may be because of the omission of my last name, but the email software should be able to omit that space with proper coding, and if it can’t it omit the space, it should be fixed.
Fifth, you did not disclose what is required (or not required) to get the gas. This only encourages me to think there must be a catch. If there is no catch, say so. If there is a catch, tell me. You know. Full disclosure. This isn’t hard.
Finally, I wonder why you aren’t using an email domain that belongs to your dealership instead of a subdomain of the Car Research domain. If you have an opportunity to relay this back to the “powers that be”, I strongly recommend you abandon the ah.car-crm.com subdomain and move your email to the dealership domain. The use of the Car Research subdomain severely weakens your branding effort. I would include and FEATURE your dealership domain http://AbsoluteBestDeal.com in the email and also use it for your own email address. ERomo@AbsoluteBestDeal.com is a lot better than eromo@ah.car-crm.com.
(Yes, I know that YOU write email addresses and domain names using all lower case. But you don’t have to. Mixed case works fine for email addresses and domain names and significantly improves readability. It can cause problems in URLs but works great in email addresses.)
I note of course that all of these comments are not for you personally, and trust you will forward them as appropriate.
All that said, in accordance with the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act, take me off this list and all your lists.
Thank you.
James S. Huggins
So, please, let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear your opinions.
Addendum: I have received an email asking me what their CAN-SPAM notice said, so I just decided to add it here:
This email is being sent to you, James Huggins, because you either showed interest, purchased or serviced a vehicle at Absolute Hyundai. We send these emails to benefit you with savings, factory recall information and timely servicing information. If you would like to be removed from this email list please, Click Here and you will no longer receive these emails. Should you have any suggestions or comments regarding our email program, please feel free to call us at (888) 599- 3558. You may also contact us via regular mail at 16230 LBJ Freeway – Mesquite, Tx 75150. Your feedback is important to us! Thank you!
To ensure delivery of these e-mails in the future, please add eromo@ah.car-crm.com to your address book.
The Notice in their email to me was formatted in very faint and hard to read gray text.
I have written on my website about CAN-SPAM here http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/web1/can-spam-is-stupid.htm and here http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/web1/why-can-spam-notices.htm.
