Subscription Fail

by Jay on March 4, 2009

If you rely on email to communicate with your customers, there are a lot of ways to lose their trust and, consequently, their business. Fill their inbox with “special offers.” Sell their email address. Etc.

But maybe the best way to lose a customer’s business is to accidentally stop going after it.

In February, Expedia did just that. From the Email Marketing Lounge:

Expedia sent an email to assumingly a select group of affected subscribers on Friday, February 13th letting them know that their email address had been inadvertently unsubscribed. The unsubscription happened due to a one-time “technical issue” that occurred between November 8 and December 5. Expedia has since re-subscribed those users back to a ‘subscribed’ state.

If their promotional emails were working, just think about how much business they lost in two to three months. (And why does a month-long “one-time” issue just not sound right to me?)

The email to the recently re-subscribed included a prominently placed unsubscribe link, giving everyone a great big easy out. Again. As if just doing it for them the first time wasn’t enough…

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