JasonCrundwell.com

Category: Digital Marketing

Do you allow your email subscribers to change addresses?

Digital Marketing

As part of my New Year’s resolutions and taking advantage of the free time I have now to better organize my digital life.  One key part is moving all my email marketing subscriptions to a dedicated email account. I still want marketing messages, but I want to keep my primary inbox as clean as possible.

I was surprised how many e-marketing providers only offer a place to unsubscribe, but no way to update your email preferences – easily.

I’ll pick on MLB.com.  I purchase the MLB Audio Package every season to listen to the Cleveland Indians games. From this subscription, I get MLB.com store offers. In order to change my email address, I had to go through the following steps:

  1. Click the unsubscribe link in the initial email
  2. On the unsubscribe page, click the link to manage your account settings.
  3. Try to log in.
  4. Forgot Password Request
  5. Wait 10 minutes for the new password email.
  6. Log into MLB.com and sign in with a new password.
  7. Login screen gets stuck spinning in Firefox.
  8. Open a new window, try again and discover I was now logged in.
  9. Click to the account settings page.
  10. Change Email Address
  11. Change Password.

That was a lot of work for a simple email address change. Making a simple email address change should not be made that difficult. The average customer won’t go through that effort.  In hindsight, it would have been easier just to unsubscribe and not worry about the offers from MLB.com. I’ve yet to purchase anything from their site anyway.

Ideas for Action: Try changing an email address from your e-marketing products. Can the process be made easier?  Have you tracked or followed up on bounced email addresses?

Bottom Line: Are you losing current customers because they’ve changed their email address and never updated their subscription settings?  What are you doing differently to get them back?

New Adventures

Digital Marketing, Digital Media, General Rants

So after 13 years in television and eight of those managing television websites I’ve decided it’s time for a change.  The reasons are many, but in the end, it came down to wanting a new challenge.  The family also played a big part of my decision, Indianapolis is a great community and we’ve made the Circle City our home.

My current role has also prevented me from having the luxury to share the expertise and knowledge as a digital media professional.  My goal with this blog to do just that. This business continues to evolve and change at a rapid pace — yea, tell me something we don’t already know.  The challenge is cutting through the clutter and getting down to the basics.  Connecting brands and their customers.

That could be writing an effective news headline to get that user to click, or creating an email marketing campaign that gets that customer in your door.

I may on occasion break off on a personal tangent, but I also believe that helps define who I am.

Fasten your seat belts, keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times.  It’s going to be a wild ride.