Marketing
Run email campaigns from the CRM
A separate email tool means another list to keep in sync. Campaigns work better on the contacts you already have, with consent and history in one place.
6 min read
Exporting contacts to send a campaign is how lists go stale. People unsubscribe in one place and still get mail from another. A customer who just complained still receives a cheerful offer because the marketing tool never saw the ticket.
Running campaigns on the CRM list keeps consent and history together. You mail the people you actually know, and you can see on the person what happened next.
A separate email tool starts well and then drifts. The CSV is a snapshot. The CRM keeps changing. Unsubscribes, complaints, new jobs, and people who asked for a text instead of an email all happen after the export.
Campaigns should mail people you actually know. The place you already keep those people is the list. History of what you sent should sit on the person, next to the call and the quote.
If last quarter's send still sits in a tool nobody in the office opens, you do not have campaign history. You have a vendor dashboard.
The list is already there
If contacts are maintained for sales, they are the right people to email: customers, open leads, past jobs. You should not need a second database that starts decaying the day after the CSV lands.
Segment by something true. Open quotes. Customers with a job in the last year. People who asked not to be mailed. Vague 'everyone' lists are how you train people to ignore you.
See what happened on the person
Opens and clicks are useful. More useful is seeing that this contact got the March offer and then booked. That belongs on the timeline, next to the call and the quote, not in a marketing dashboard nobody in the office opens.
When a lead replies, that reply should become follow-up, not another metric.
- ✓Who received it
- ✓Who engaged
- ✓Who should not be mailed again
- ✓Who turned into a booking, a quote or a complaint
“We sent a spring offer to a list we had exported in January. Two people had already asked us to stop. One had an unpaid dispute. Running the send from the CRM would have shown all of that on the contact before we hit send.”
Write like a person, not a blast
Short, useful, about their work. If you would not send it as a one-to-one email, do not send it as a campaign. A seasonal reminder, a genuine service window, a clear offer with a date: those can earn a reply.
A newsletter that exists because you felt you should 'do marketing' usually earns unsubscribes.
Consent is part of the record
If someone unsubscribes, that fact belongs on the contact, not only in the campaign tool. If they said 'text me, don't email', that belongs there too. Campaigns that ignore the record will eventually cost you a customer.
Do not rebuild a 'clean' list in a spreadsheet to work around consent. Fix the record.
If you are exporting CSV every week, the tools are fighting
Weekly exports are a sign the campaign product and the CRM are two sources of truth. Pick the CRM as the list. Send from there, or sync in one direction, but stop treating the export as the customer database.
Segment by something true
Open quotes. Customers with a job in the last year. People who asked not to be mailed. Those are facts. 'Everyone we ever met' is how you train people to ignore you.
Vague lists also create legal and reputation risk. Two people who asked you to stop will remember the cheerful offer longer than anyone remembers your subject line.
If you cannot say in one sentence who is on the send and why, do not send. Write a smaller list. The replies will be better.
Write a send you would sign your name to
Short, useful, about their work. If you would not send it as a one-to-one email, do not send it as a campaign. A seasonal reminder, a genuine service window, a clear offer with a date: those can earn a reply.
A newsletter that exists because you felt you should do marketing usually earns unsubscribes. You do not owe the internet a monthly magazine.
Use the customer's world. Storm season, end of financial year, school holidays, the plant you last serviced. Generic inspiration does not belong on a trade list.
- ✓Who received it
- ✓Who engaged
- ✓Who should not be mailed again
- ✓Who turned into a booking, a quote, or a complaint
Consent lives on the contact
If someone unsubscribes, that fact belongs on the contact, not only in the campaign tool. If they said 'text me, do not email', that belongs there too.
Do not rebuild a clean list in a spreadsheet to work around consent. Fix the record. Workarounds become the next bounce storm.
When a lead replies, that reply should become follow-up on the person. A click is not the end of the story. A conversation is.
Stop the weekly export
Weekly exports are a sign the campaign product and the CRM are two sources of truth. Pick the CRM as the list. Send from there, or sync in one direction.
If you must use another sender for a while, do not treat the export as the customer database. The export is a file. The customer is a person who changed yesterday.
Who should be excluded before you write the subject
Open complaints. Unpaid disputes. People who asked to stop. New customers who only just had a hard job. Exclusion is part of writing, not a last click.
The CRM can show those facts if they live on the contact. A CSV from January cannot.
A send that creates work you can see
When someone replies or books, that should land on the person as follow-up. If the only outcome is an open rate, the send was a broadcast, not a working tool.
Assign replies the same day. A campaign that creates an unowned inbox is just another shared mailbox.
Foxtra marketing sits on the same contacts as sales, so you are not maintaining two versions of the truth. Write a short, useful send. Look at who engaged on the person, not only in a chart.
Write a short, useful send. Look at who engaged on the person, not only in a chart. Mail the contacts you already keep up to date.
If you are exporting CSV every week, the tools are fighting. End the fight by choosing one list. The CRM is the list that sales already touches.
Mail people you know, exclude people you should not mail, and put the result on the contact. That is a campaign that belongs in a CRM.