Email marketing and the law

Marketing   ·   January 27, 2009

Email marketing is being pushed hard as a more effective method to sell but it comes with its own unique set of problems. For a start you need lists of addresses of people and companies willing to accept your email. Not that easy to obtain especially in view of laws regulating the use of email marketing. Lets face it not all email is spam and provided that it is appropriate to your business and needs then its no more spam than a letter from your bank or accountant telling you of new services. The real bad guys are the conmen and mass marketers selling penis extensions and medical supplies. Don’t you just hate this email?

We need to keep it in context since crooks use other conventional methods to steal from people including direct mail, credit card fraud and distraction burglaries. This of course has happened throughout history from the earliest times. When coins were made from all gold and silver it was a common fraud to shave tiny slithers off each coin defrauding the owners by selling the shavings as bullion. Shaving money off your credit card is remarkably similar. How is this different crime from rogue email and breaking into your computer? The facts are that whatever methods we find useful to reach customers and to transact business services and goods - then a criminal element will exploit these same techniques to steal from people.

What this means is that we shouldn’t end the practice of selling by email on account of crooks no more than we stop using credit cards or selling by direct mail. So how can you use email marketing legally and effectively?

UK law on email marketing

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Whilst the intention behind the law is clear, the regulations only apply to UK businesses and do nothing to prevent spam originating in countries where the relevant laws are less strict or, indeed, non-existent. For genuine UK businesses seeking to increase sales of their products to a targeted market, the effect of the law is essentially more red tape. The regulations apply to unsolicited commercial e-mails and text messages (SMS) sent to individual subscribers, rather than to company addresses, so much of the business-to-business e-marketing is not affected. However, under the regulations the term ‘individual subscriber’ includes sole traders, non-limited liability partnerships and their employees.

So in brief there you have it. You can send email to Limited companies addressed to info@ or sales@ quite legitimately. Provided you include your business details and the opportunity to unsubscribe. You can also use any lists you have compiled where people have registered or opted-in to receive your email. You will often see claims made by companies that they have thousands of opt-in email addresses. I’m pretty cautious about these claims since when you drill down they will not be all genuine. Probably one of the largest lists of genuine opt-in emails in the UK is owned by Thomson Directories. The rental cost of these is quite similar to a traditional mailing list but far less effective in my experience but then of course you don’t have the additional postage cost.