AUTO DEALERS: Follow The SPAM Laws When Email Marketing!
November 28th, 2006
Local car dealers are unique business people. They are typically savvy business people and often like to cut out the middleman. One area I consistently see auto dealers cutting out the middleman is email marketing. There are a lot of attractive options for do-it-yourself email marketers. The lure of just opening up Microsoft Outlook and sending emails in bulk is also too much for some dealers to bare. Beware to follow SPAM laws when participating in email marketing.
I received an email today from a local Jeep dealer in New York that I performed a mystery shop on a few months ago. The email was promoting a “spin the wheel and win” promotion offering free prizes when you buy or lease a new vehicle. You can obviously make any offer you want (within legal guidelines) to your mailing list. The problem with the email was it contained no physical address (SPAM law). This alone can get your dealership hit with a hefty fine. Furthermore there were no unsubscribe links or instructions on how to be removed from the list.
This dealership is playing with fire. My suggestion would be to either let their advertising agency deal with their email marketing (and all internet marketing for that matter) needs or use a SPAM compliant do-it-yourself email service such as Vertical Response, Constant Contact or Benchmark Email.
Use email marketing safely! You were warned.
xBMANx
Entry Filed under: Automotive Advertising, E-Mail Marketing, Local Internet Advertising
2 Comments Add your own
1. Jeff Kershner | January 11th, 2007 at 12:47 am
The problem here is..many dealers use their CRM tool for email blasts (SPAMING if you want to call it that). Most of these CRM tools are not properly designed for email marketing.
Dealers should use their CRM tool for exactly what the acronym stands for, Customer Relations Management, communicating with their clients and potential customers, NOT email marketing. I agree..use Constant Contact, DealerSend, or other email marketing vendors for your email ads.
-Jeff
DealerRefresh.com
2. xbmanx | January 11th, 2007 at 2:14 am
Jeff,
Thanks for the great comment. I agree with you that CRM’s & ILM’s are being used for purposes that they were not intended. Thanks for commenting, Being in the automotive advertising industry I have a great deal of respect for your Dealer Refresh blog.
xBMANx
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