melbourneseller

Account Executive

Marketing sent an (horrible) email from reps emails

The company I work for (fintech start up) LOVES an offer campaign. A recent offer was "1 months free software use if you sign up by x date".

We'll normally get this messaging out through a variety of channels, including 1:1 emails from reps to current deals in our pipeline, and it nudges those stagnating or hard-to-win deals.

normally, our marketing team writes the copy, and then individual sales reps will approve the copy and ensure authenticity to the reps voice.

On this most recent campaign though, the offer was sent without approval - an email sent from the reps emails and with their name attached to it (through our CRM, HubSpot). Im not necessarily against this, except the email copy was cringe-worthy. Terms such as "exclusive offer", "SIGN UP NOW!" were used. Appropriate copy for marketing emails, but surely not a sales email.

Curious what the community's thoughts are on emails being sent from a reps email and with their name on it, without the reps approval?

😤 Conflict Resolution

🧢 Sales Management

17

21 comment

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CuriousFox

WR Officer

13

🦊

I loathe this shit. Marketo can suck it. So I delete the emails of the most important contacts in SFDC so they don't get spammed.

jefe

Arsonist

1

🍁

Aggressive but smart approach. Protect your book

Rallier

Politicker

5

SDR Manager and Consultant

I absolutely hate this practice. I have no idea why marketing thinks it’s okay to blast out emails under my name without asking. I’ve been in this situation before, I let it be known that I was not okay with that. And surprisingly they listened!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

1

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Ugh. No thanks. I’d be livid.

Gyro25

Notorious Answer

1

Account Executive

Gross. Marketing does this all the time. If you don't actually speak to prospects or a/b test language, you shouldn't be blasting emails like marketing.

washedD1soccer

Politicker

0

Regional Sales Manager

Busch league. I’d leave and take my customers with me. Is your product not differentiated enough that marketing has to offer these deals constantly to drive decisions?
Urgency is something that should be created as a result of a great sales process and discovery not some flashy coupon.
When I sold payroll my company did this constantly and I hated my life. Getting customers this way is also the fastest way to lose them when the next flashy deal gets sent their way.

Beans

Big Shot

0

Enterprise Account Executive

This is garbage, BOGO deals up next?

funcoupons

WR Officer

0

👑

It's a hard fuck that from me dawg.

Jewcan_Sam81

Politicker

0

Account Executive

I'd feel so violated

ChunkyButters

Tycoon

0

AE

If that shit cost me a deal, marketing would be eating my fucking quota.

Shit like that tends to get under my skin quick. While not the best route, I'd have gone straight to a sales exec (CRO, VP) who I have a relationship with and tell them to tell marketing to fuck right off. If they won't, I'd probably walk over to the head of marketing.

I don't lose my cool very often, or quick (usually). But, you do anything to negatively affect my livelihood and I won't be held responsible for my own actions.

Justatitle

Big Shot

0

Account Executive

Annoying yes
Marketing trying to justify their jobs also yes

The nice part is you have plausible deniability to any prospect, yeah we use (Hubspot/Marketo/Pardot) and our marketing team can send emails from our email address.

In truth the people you sell to get pounded by emails so they likely saw it and its already in the trash.

ThatsWhatSheSaid

Valued Contributor

0

Intergalactic Sales Director

Marketing: trying to justify their existence since 1940

melbourneseller

Fire Starter

0

Account Executive

UPDATE: I’ve disconnected my email from our CRM. What does this mean?
1. No email logs
2 marketing can’t send emails
Let’s see how long it takes before someone (in marketing) starts asking questions 🙃

RealPatrickBateman

Politicker

0

🔪Amateur Butcher🔪

My only positive recourse for this type of problem was to befriend someone in marketing (Puuuuke 🤢) and get them to take me out of the auto-emails like this. Otherwise, Marketing can suck my left pinky toe.

NotCreativeEnough

Big Shot

0

Professional Day Ruiner

My marketing team sent out an email blast at 5:30 pm today… Thursday… because that one makes a lot of sense. So you’re not the only one with a bad marketing team

CRAG112

Valued Contributor

0

Account Executive

There was a post on LI recently about people getting emails from sales people for end of month specials with zero discussion beforehand, and they all stated their opinion of the product and company was lowered, and they are either reviewing different options or looking for a change.

I can only imagine this being done like this, especially for deals in the works, would have the same effect.

Congrats to marketing. They just trained all your buyers to wait for the discount. And you didn't even have to pay for the training. As a bonus, they killed your talks on value and made you look like a shitty sales person. The very thing people see sales people as normally.

godpull54

Praised Answer

-1

PDR

Totally not okay. I’d be pissed off about it. Sounds like the marketing team is stepping on sales team toes. Bottom line is they aren’t experts in sales. The messaging is terrible and probably turned of your clients. I’d bring it up to my manager to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.

godpull54

Praised Answer

-3

PDR

In most companies sending an email from a coworkers account without permission is a fireable offense.
Just had an engineer fired for sending an email to a client from a sales team members laptop because he thought the sales team wasn’t moving fast enough…

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

3

☕️

Well, this example was handled through the marketing automation features in their CRM. It’s a simple “from field” setting and marketing teams do it all the time. This example asked tact, that’s for sure.

Any context to provide around your example? Did the engineer steal the laptop and run away to send this email? Why wasn’t the sales rep smart enough to lock their screen when they were away from their computer…or at least close it?

godpull54

Praised Answer

0

PDR

Engineer went on AE'S laptop while he was away from his desk.

I leave my computer open all the time. You don't really expect anyone to come and mess with your laptop while you step away for 5 minutes at my workplace. Didn't expect the engineer to get booted over it though, I thought it was just going to be a disciplinary note.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

3

☕️

Well, it’s probably against IT policy to leave your machine unlocked while AFK. However, a larger breach of privacy by the engineer.

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