E marketing and the law

E marketing and the law

Author
Discussion

truck71

Original Poster:

2,328 posts

171 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
I'm looking to conduct an e shot campaign for a new business, are there privacy/contact laws I should be aware of?

I'm manually constructing a database and all contacts will be openly available on the net.

Thanks.

wheelerc

219 posts

141 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
If you are sending bulk emails to people who haven't specifically asked for them, the ISP you are sending through will very quickly get blacklisted, and will not be happy with you.

You can use a service such as Campaign Monitor or MailChimp, but they are very specific on what you can and can't send.

Campaign Monitor have a good guide on the laws and regulations here - https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/u...

Please don't spam smile

jammy-git

29,775 posts

211 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
wheelerc said:
If you are sending bulk emails to people who haven't specifically asked for them, the ISP you are sending through will very quickly get blacklisted, and will not be happy with you.

You can use a service such as Campaign Monitor or MailChimp, but they are very specific on what you can and can't send.

Campaign Monitor have a good guide on the laws and regulations here - https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/u...

Please don't spam smile
Agreed. You can't just take contact details and send them whatever you want, people have to specifically opt-in to your marketing. Not that it stops many, many companies from buying contact lists and spamming them.

plasticpig

12,932 posts

224 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
jammy-git said:
Agreed. You can't just take contact details and send them whatever you want, people have to specifically opt-in to your marketing. Not that it stops many, many companies from buying contact lists and spamming them.
True for BtoC but not for BtoB.



jammy-git

29,775 posts

211 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
Good point.

RM

580 posts

96 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
plasticpig said:
True for BtoC but not for BtoB.
True for B2B also, if the email addresses are for specific employees that have not opted in. If they are openly published general contact addresses, info@ contact@ etc then it is ok.

truck71

Original Poster:

2,328 posts

171 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
RM said:
plasticpig said:
True for BtoC but not for BtoB.
True for B2B also, if the email addresses are for specific employees that have not opted in. If they are openly published general contact addresses, info@ contact@ etc then it is ok.
Thanks. Would be B to B using published contact details, will this be ok? No desire to get blacklisted.

plasticpig

12,932 posts

224 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
RM said:
True for B2B also, if the email addresses are for specific employees that have not opted in. If they are openly published general contact addresses, info@ contact@ etc then it is ok.
Nope. It's perfectly fine to send emails to individuals in companies as long as it's a Ltd , PLC or LLP and the emails are marketing business related products as they are considered to be corporate subscribers.





WinstonWolf

72,857 posts

238 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
plasticpig said:
RM said:
True for B2B also, if the email addresses are for specific employees that have not opted in. If they are openly published general contact addresses, info@ contact@ etc then it is ok.
Nope. It's perfectly fine to send emails to individuals in companies as long as it's a Ltd , PLC or LLP and the emails are marketing business related products as they are considered to be corporate subscribers.
I'll always report emails I haven't specifically asked for to providers such as Mailchimp.

akirk

5,376 posts

113 months

Tuesday 6th December 2016
quotequote all
black listing will take place simply based on lots of emails being sent out and recipients marking them as spam...
as above - at least use one of the recognised systems for sending out bulk email - it will make it simpler and you will comply with all the stuff around unsubscribing etc.

clarkey

1,365 posts

283 months

Wednesday 7th December 2016
quotequote all
You'll get blacklisted regularly, even if contacts have opted in. This means that many out-bound emails from your domain will be treated as spam. It's simple to remove the marketer though.
In my experience it's hard to avoid, so just know how to deal with it when it happens.
I can't remember the detail, but I am pretty sure a business can mail another business without permission - but if you are asked not to contact again you have to make sure you have a process to stop it happening again. It's good form to include a remove from list button on any emails you send out.

Audicab

480 posts

246 months

Wednesday 7th December 2016
quotequote all
The question was about the law and in the UK for B2B we operate an opt-out policy which means you can send emails to any Ltd and Plc as long as the email is relevant for their work. So you can't send a personal email to a corporate email address as this is still classed as spam. You must offer an unsubscribe method and ensure you unsubscribe them with 28 days. You also can't hide who has sent the email.

Sole Traders and Partnerships are classed as consumer emails and cannot be emailed without their permission or unless they are customers.

However a lot of email service providers use the Can-Spam act which says everybody on the list must be subscribed and if required you need to be able to show how and when they subscribed.

Good quality email data is very valuable but time consuming and difficult to gather. You need to offer your target market incentives for subscribing to your emails and ensure you always think of them when sending out any message.