Most people starting out in business don’t know what the law actually says about what you can and can’t do regarding email marketing. Everyone seems to have their own definition of what constitutes spam – especially those people who offer to sell you one-off email-shots to their 10,000 name lists.
If your eyes glaze over when you read what the various official websites have to say about email marketing, don’t worry – you’re not alone. With guidelines like that, no wonder everyone’s spamming everyone else.
So, in a spirit of public good-heartedness, I’ve boiled down the rules to a couple of points that you’ve no excuse for not being able to grasp. Honestly. Here it is
1. You can send mail marketing to a LTD or PLC company without consent – so long as the addressee is non-personal (e.g. info@bigcityconsulting)
2. You can’t send email marketing to individuals, sole traders or partnerships unless there is consent.
The rules define 3 ways consent is given (or construed):
1) Where (at the point of collecting email addresses) you’ve offered an ‘opt-out’ box but the person hasn’t ticked it
2) Where (at the point of collecting email addresses) you’ve offered an ‘opt-in’ box and the person has ticked it
or
3) Where the email address was obtained ‘in the course of a sale or negotiations of a product or service AND then only where the email contents are concerned with that sale AND then only where the person has been given an opt-out option at every stage’.
This is what’s known as ‘the soft opt-in’.
If you’re outside of that, you’re spamming.
[...] it being toothless when it comes to enforcement, the law on spam is fairly simple and I summarise it here (in case you need to be [...]