6 Things You Need to Know About Email Marketing Regulations

Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with your customers and promote your business. And, because it is such a personal medium – after all, you are often contacting somebody using their personal details – there is a great deal of trust that goes along with along with it. As such, there are authorities and a great deal of legislation in place to try to stop people from exploiting this trust.

This post is not about the merits of certain email marketing methods, but rather an introduction to some of the laws and regulations you need to be aware of before you start sending messages out for your business.

1) Consent

Under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations (PECR) 2003, you cannot send marketing emails to individuals “without their specific prior consent”, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Consent must be informed and knowingly and freely given, meaning that it must be clear to potential recipients what they are signing up for.

2) Getting Consent

There are three conventional ways by which consent can be obtained: opt-outs, opt-ins and soft opt-ins.

• An opt-out is where somebody is given the option of not receiving marketing emails. An example may include a tick box at the point of information collection stating: “Tick this box if you don’t wish to receive emails about future offers”.
• Similarly, an opt-in is where you give the potential recipient the choice TO receive further mail. For example, “Tick here to receive emails about other offers we think may appeal to you”.
• A soft opt-in is somewhat different, in that consent can derive from a previous sale or ‘negotiation of a sale’, on the condition that the marketing relates to a similar product/service as the initial sale and that the recipient was given the choice to opt out.

3) Unsubscribing

You must stop sending mail to any recipients who unsubscribe from the email, making it straightforward for them to do so. An ‘unsubscribe’ button is the easiest and most obvious way to do this. Although even the slightest diminishment to a mailing list can seem like a bad thing, it is also a good opportunity to get feedback on why your mail lost favour with specific people. Rather than deleting all an unsubscribers’ details, industry practices state that some basic details should be stored on a ‘suppression’ list, so that you know not to contact them again.

4) Third-Party Lists

You may buy or rent access to an existing list on the grounds that consent has been given by the recipients for their details to be shared with third parties. When faced with a limited list, this is an option for business who are trying to reach out, but you must take caution. The ICO state that you must perform your own checks to make sure the details were gathered ‘fairly and lawfully’ as senders are held responsible for the data they use.

5) Required Information

When sending out emails, you must clearly identify yourself, telling the recipient who you or your business are and providing ‘valid contacts details’, perhaps including an address and email address. According to the SEQ Legal, emails must also be ‘identifiable as commercial communications’, disclose the details and terms of any competition or offer and, although not specifically required, it is a good idea say why they are receiving the mail. For example, “you are receiving this email because you subscribed to the newsletter”.

6) There’s More to Learn

Summarising detailed legislation and regulations is only a way of introducing you to the overall decorum of email marketing and should only be seen as such. Therefore, in order to make sure that you are fully aware of how these regulations will affect your email campaigns, it may be best to have a look over the official guideline below.

https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1555/direct-marketing-guidance.pdf

Give us a call on 01623 600 620 to see how we could help with your email marketing campaign.