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Email Marketing Law

Email and SMS marketing is popular with small businesses because it can be a highly cost effective route to reaching new customers. However, the new legislation on Privacy and Electronic Communication has had a large impact on the way businesses conduct email and SMS marketing campaigns. Its left small businesses trying to fathom out what they need to adhere to if they are to keep on the right side of the law.

What is it?
The legislation was designed to protect consumers and businesses from unsolicited electronic communication or Spam as it’s more commonly termed, and states that marketing via e-mail and SMS will be permitted only if recipients have given prior consent or 'opted-in' to receive information via these channels.

Breaking the law is serious and could result in fines of up to £5,000, so it's crucial to know what counts as consent and how to go about getting it.

Collecting data
The regulations state that you have to obtain explicit permission from a consumer before you contact them via email or SMS for the first time, requiring the need to write or phone them in the first instance. Additionally, if you're writing to the individual, its worth engaging with them to ask them how in the future they wish to receive communications from you.

This may differ depending on the products or service being sold. For example, Customer X may want to be contacted by email for car insurance but by post for travel insurance. Understanding how consumers want to be contacted is as valuable as understanding what they want to be sold.

The legislation does allow businesses to contact existing customers who have already given their email address or mobile number and also those consumers who have enquired about a product or service via email or SMS as by showing an interest, they are deemed to have given permission to be contacted again in the future.

Any form of electronic communication sent to an individual must always contain a clearly stated unsubscribe option which is free for the recipient of the email / SMS. You will be evading the law if you continue to communicate with a consumer once they have opted-out from communication with you.

Buying data lists
Acquiring new customers is never an easy task and many businesses buy 'customer data' from specialist data providers. This data provides you with details on individuals who might be interested in purchasing your product or service and it usually includes contact information as well as lifestyle data, for example, what car a person has, so you can determine how likely this particular individual will buy your product or service.

To be sure that you have prospect data that adheres to the guidelines, check how the data was collected and if prior consent for contact by the individual was provided. There's no point for example, spending £500 pounds on customer email addresses when none of the people on the list have opted-in to receive information via email or SMS as it's a waste of your time and money.

Benefits of the law
It's not all doom and gloom. Ultimately, the result of this new email/ SMS marketing legislation is that potential and existing consumers should almost certainly be more responsive as they have explicitly requested information from you. And, as the medium continues to grow, there are suppliers including Royal Mail who have developed a myriad of cost-effective and easy to use tools that can help small businesses develop, run and analyse sophisticated email and SMS marketing campaigns.

So get to grips with this new legislation quickly and benefit from the rewards that electronic marketing can bring. As long as you have explicit permission from everyone you email or send a text message to, you can't go far wrong.

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