Email marketing

Promoting your products or services by email can be a powerful and flexible form of direct marketing. Through email, you can communicate your messages more quickly and cost-effectively than using paper-based marketing.

You can tailor your message to specific types of customer. You can also build customer relationships and acquire new customers through relevant, well targeted emails that interest recipients.

Marketing emails are regulated by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. These define what you can and can’t do in terms of sending unsolicited marketing emails. You will also need to comply with the Data Protection Act, which applies to personal data used in email marketing.

This guide covers how to reach the right people and monitor the effectiveness of email marketing and newsletters, as well as outlining relevant regulations when providing personal information to third parties.

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Overview of email marketing under privacy law

Unsolicited marketing is marketing that has not been specifically asked for. If you want to use electronic mail to carry out unsolicited direct marketing, you need to comply with the rules in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. These rules include specific things you must say in your marketing messages – eg disclosing your identity and providing a valid email address to all recipients – as well as legal responsibilities you have as a marketer.

Read about the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website- Opens in a new window.

What is electronic mail and direct marketing?

Under the regulations, electronic mail is any electronic message that consists of text, voice, sound or images – ie email, text, picture, video, voicemail and answer phone messages. Direct marketing is defined as a message that is trying to sell goods or services, or is promoting the values or beliefs of a particular organisation.

You can only carry out unsolicited marketing by electronic mail if the individual you are sending the message to has given you their permission.

See the page in this guide on opt-ins and opt-outs.

Sending electronic mail to other businesses

Opt-in requirements don’t apply to marketing sent to companies or limited-liability partnerships. However, it is unlikely to be good business sense to continue to send marketing to businesses that don’t want you to. You still need to give your identity and provide a valid opt-out address.

Complaints and breaches of privacy regulations

The ICO is responsible for dealing with any complaints and breaches of the regulations. If you breach these rules when you carry out electronic marketing, the ICO will contact you in an attempt to resolve the problem. Though they cannot directly punish businesses for breach of the regulations, they can issue an enforcement notice against you if you do not resolve any problems they contact you about.

The Data Protection Act

If you send direct marketing messages electronically to individuals whose personal details come from a bought database, you must also comply with the Data Protection Act. For more information, see the page in this guide on rules about buying databases.

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Opt-ins and opt-outs

There are two types of procedure that can be used when signing up a new subscriber to receive your email marketing messages – single or double opt-in.

Single opt-in is when a person provides their email address and simply indicates that they would like to receive future emails from your business. Double opt-in involves following-up the previous step by also sending the subscriber an email with a confirmation link they must click on to complete their registration.

Double opt-in is not a legal requirement, but is often considered best practice – as it eliminates the risk of someone having their email address registered by a third party. Also, instructing a subscriber that they need to respond to your confirmation email should prompt them to retrieve your email – which may have been redirected to a ‘junk’ folder by their spam filter.

Soft opt-in

Soft opt-in can apply in certain circumstances as an exception to the consent rule for direct marketing. This applies where:

• you have obtained an individual’s email address and details during a sale or during negotiations for a sale of a product or service to them
• your messages are only marketing your similar products or services
• you have given the individual opportunities to refuse marketing messages when their details are collected and with every future message, and they do not opt out

The opt-out option should allow the individual to reply directly and easily to your message in order to stop any future marketing. For example, if you use text messages, you could allow an individual to opt out by sending a stop message to a short code number – eg text ‘STOP’ to 12345. This should only cost them the price of sending the message.

By law, you must allow individuals to opt out or unsubscribe to receiving marketing from you at any time they wish. You must comply with any opt-out requests as quickly as possible.

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Target the right people

Email marketing is more successful if it focuses on people you know are interested in what you’re offering. So for example, if you’re running a special offer on computer hardware, it will be more effective if you promote it only to people responsible for buying IT.

People are easily annoyed when they receive an email that’s irrelevant to them, and they’re likely to delete unsolicited messages – or spam – from your business without reading them. Because spam continues to be a major problem, computer security software can be used to block these emails automatically.

However, an email to an existing customer or contact, who has agreed to receive marketing from you about products or services, may well be valuable to them. Even if they don’t buy from you immediately, they may do so in the future.

Keeping it relevant

If you have got a large database of customers and potential customers for your email marketing campaign, it’s worth analysing what you know about them, so you can send a more relevant message. See our guide on how to manage your customer database.

For example, you could send high-spending customers an email about your new loyalty discount. Customers who haven’t bought anything from you for six months will be more likely to respond to an update on your products and services, or a special discount to motivate them to make a new purchase.

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Get people to opt in to your email marketing

It is illegal to send unsolicited email messages except in limited circumstances. If customers have consented to receiving information from you in the past, ie opted in, you can send them information on other things you think they might be interested in.

However, you must give these people the option to opt out of receiving any further messages from you. See the page in this guide on opt-ins and opt-outs.

Email can be a very cheap and effective marketing tool if you can get customers and potential customers to request updates from you by email. See the page in this guide on how to make your email newsletter engaging.

Using incentives

People are more likely to opt in if you give them a useful incentive. For example, you can offer special services or discounts to customers who sign up for your email updates. It’s even more effective when you make offers available exclusively through your email marketing. You can then be more confident that recipients will check for the latest email.

Building your email list

If you’re running an email marketing campaign, keep it in mind when creating your other marketing material. It’s well worth putting opt-in tick boxes for email information on all your paper-based marketing material.

You can use your website as a powerful way of getting opt-ins too. It’s always worth highlighting the benefits of subscribing to your email service and providing an online form to register immediately – although it’s best to make registration optional where possible. Customers shouldn’t have to ‘create an account’ in order to buy products from an online shop.

Don’t ask for too much information at the registration stage – lots of boxes to fill in will discourage people. Name, email address and phone number should be enough to start with.

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Create an email newsletter

Research suggests that spending on advertisement sponsored email newsletters will double over the next few years.

You could combine your marketing messages and news about your business into a regular bulletin, an email newsletter.

Make sure your email newsletter:

• is interesting and relevant to the recipients so that they open and read it
• uses customised messages so people pay more attention – if you have won a contract in your area, you could focus on the location for local recipients, while those further away will concentrate on what the contract shows you could do for them
• gets recipients to phone you or click through to your website

Your phone number and website address should be displayed prominently and repeatedly so people can easily find them.

Direct links to relevant parts of your website can sit alongside each story in the newsletter so users can click straight through.

Build your mailing list

It’s worth promoting the newsletter in every way you can. Remember to put opt-in tick boxes for email information on website forms and all your marketing material.

Word of mouth, or viral marketing, is also a powerful form of promotion, so you might encourage recipients to forward your newsletter to a friend or colleague. They may not be directly interested in the newsletter content at that precise moment – but they may have a friend or colleague who is.

Opting out

Remember that you’re legally required to give recipients the opportunity to stop receiving your newsletter. You should have an ‘unsubscribe’ option on every edition you send out. See the page in this guide on opt-ins and opt-outs.

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Make your email newsletter engaging

Keep your email newsletter relevant – use it to tell people about things they’ll be interested in. For example, if you have extended your business premises, that’s only interesting to you. But if it means you can offer a wider range of products, that’s interesting to the reader.

Tailor it to your audience – you could consider sending different newsletters to different kinds of customer to make them more relevant to each type of reader.

Attract attention with the subject line – many people will choose whether to read an email by looking at the subject line in their inbox. Be careful in your choice of words and don’t exaggerate – messages with subject lines such as ‘The best products ever’ are likely to be treated as spam and filtered out or deleted before being read.

Get straight to the point – don’t waste people’s time with long stories – be succinct, get them interested and encourage them to click on a link to your website to find out more.

Use simple language – avoid jargon – write simply and clearly so readers immediately understand what you’re offering and the benefit to them.

HTML, plain text, or both? – HTML can make your newsletters look like web pages, offering you the ability to use logos, pictures and graphics. But some email programs won’t read it correctly, so it’s best to offer a plain text version too. Encourage recipients to choose the best format for them when opting in to your newsletter. Include a link to a web-based version of the email so that recipients who are having difficulties viewing it can access it online.

Offer exclusive benefits – offering special benefits that recipients can’t get anywhere else can encourage them to read your newsletter more regularly.

Get the frequency right – only send newsletters when you have got something relevant and interesting to say.

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Monitor and follow up your campaign

You should monitor the effectiveness of your email marketing to make sure you’re getting value from the time and effort you’re spending on it. This will help you to improve future campaigns.

At the very least, it’s valuable to keep a record of the number of responses you have received and from what type of customer. You can then assess which groups are more likely to respond to this marketing approach.

You could also keep track of the recipients who open your emails. Email marketing tools and services typically offer this kind of functionality.

Do the people who have opened your email have anything in common? This could help you to increase the effectiveness of your messages.

Response rates for email marketing are often slightly higher than for other direct-marketing methods. Typical response rates average around 3 to 4 per cent, though this varies significantly for different business sectors.

If your response rates are below average, it’s a good idea to check that you’re focusing on the right type of customers and talking about their needs.

The right response

It’s important to consider how you’re going to handle the response from an email marketing campaign. Have you got enough capacity to answer the phones and respond to emails if you get a 5 per cent response rate? Will you be able to offer your product or service to recipients within the promised time?

Email marketing may give you valuable contact with new customers, as well as reinforcing your contact with existing ones, so spend some time planning how you will handle the response, to ensure you don’t let anyone down.

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Rules about buying databases

If you buy (or rent) a mailing list, you need to check with the supplier what rights you have to use the list for email marketing.

If the list includes individuals (as opposed to companies), they must have given their consent to receiving unsolicited emails. You must also ensure that you only send emails that match the consent individuals have given. For example, they may have consented to receive emails on a particular subject.

As with other email marketing, when you send marketing emails you must give individuals the right to opt out from receiving further emails.

See the page in this guide on opt-ins and opt-outs.

Databases without consent

If you buy a database where the individuals have not given consent, or if you wish to use it for a different purpose, you need to get their consent.

If you make your first contact with the people on the database by telephone or email, you should make sure that you comply with the privacy rules for electronic marketing. If someone doesn’t respond to your initial contact, you can’t assume that this implies that they consent to your using their personal information for unsolicited marketing, or any other purpose.

Data protection

Any personal information held on a database should be adequate, relevant, not excessive and should not be kept for longer than is necessary. If you are the new owner of a database, you should decide how much of the information you need to keep, and then delete any that’s unnecessary. You should not retain personal information for future use.

Respect people’s preferences

Some people choose not to receive sales or marketing by email by registering with the Direct Marketing Association’s Email Preference Service. Check you don’t send marketing emails to anyone who has registered. It isn’t a legal requirement, but it’s strongly recommended.

Online selling rules

When sending sales messages by email, the rules covering distance selling and online trading apply. See our guide to distance selling and online trading.

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Email marketing services and data protection

Under the Data Protection Act, you must not allow a third party access to personal information kept in your database. However, you can provide personal information to a third party if:

• an individual on the database asks somebody else – eg their solicitor – to obtain personal information on their behalf
• your business outsources the processing of personal information – for example, payroll or customer mailing
• the police need it as part of an investigation

Outsourcing the processing of personal information

If you outsource certain processes that need access to your database of personal information – eg for email marketing – your business will remain liable for the information and keep full control over its use. In the event of a Data Protection Act breach, you are liable.

You must take the appropriate measures to protect the personal information you have, whether or not you process it yourself or outsource it. In order to decide what measures are appropriate, you should consider:

• what type of information you have
• what harm or damage could be caused from its misuse
• what technology is available to protect the information
• how much it would cost to ensure an appropriate level of information security

If you employ another business to process personal information for you, you must obtain evidence from them that they can do so in a secure manner. It is also highly recommended that you regularly check this yourself.

In order to ensure information security, you should have a written contract with them, which:

• ensures they only use and disclose personal information in line with your instructions
• requires them to take appropriate security measures to your standards

If you outsource processes to a business outside the European Economic Area, you will have to take further measures. Download good practice guidance on data protection in outsourcing [opens in a new window].

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CASE STUDY

Here’s how I used email marketing effectively

In 1998 Chris Hall, along with Robert Hughes, started his web design business, ICO Solutions. Even though he knew that technology would play a big part in the way the business was run, he never appreciated how powerful email marketing and e-newsletters would be in promoting its services. This has helped ICO Solutions grow significantly and it now employs 14 people.

What I did

Keep costs down

“At the outset I looked at all the ways in which we could promote our services. I considered advertising, brochures, newsletters, hiring sales people, building a website, using email, direct mail and PR. I then compared the cost of each and the likely success they’d have. By far the most attractive was using email – it’s easy to create and cheap to send. I use some of the other sales methods as well, particularly our website, but email has become the key way in which we promote our services, arrange meetings and keep customers briefed about what’s going on. 

“When we meet potential customers on a face-to-face basis, we always seek permission for us to email them information about our services. We also direct them to our website where they can review our newsletters and sign-up to receive future issues.”

Don’t spam

“Over the years I’ve learnt that there are some common sense rules, as well as legal restrictions, about using email and e-newsletters in the sales process. None of us like our inbox clogged with unsolicited emails. One way to irritate an existing or potential customer is to keep sending emails they don’t want. New EU rules seeking to prevent spam have been introduced that cover all marketing messages sent by email, or text, picture or video messages. As a result I always make sure our emails say who they come from and allow people to opt-out from receiving them in the future.”

Remember existing clients

“In seeking new sales opportunities it’s all too easy to forget existing or past clients. We also use email a lot to keep in touch with people we’re currently working with or who we’ve worked with in the past. Once a month I send a short general update about what we do – particularly highlighting any new products or services we’ve launched. I find it’s a great way of keeping our name in front of people we know and getting more business from existing clients.”

What I’d do differently

Think about what is being emailed

“When I sent my first sales emails I didn’t give enough thought to what I was trying to achieve. Now I don’t even think about emailing potential customers unless I’m clear in my own mind about what I want to say. First impressions do count and a badly worded email or unclear message can turn people off.  Before writing an email I always think about why I’m sending it, what I want to say and what reaction I want. Before pressing send I always review the email and try and put myself in the shoes of the recipient – if I received the email how would I respond? If I feel uncomfortable I re-write it or don’t send it.”

Invest in broadband

“Broadband has had a big impact on our business efficiency. If you have a dial-up connection the difference will amaze you. There’s no more waiting for dial-up or failed connections, web pages are fast to load, and email messages are sent quicker, even with attachments. I’d recommend broadband to any business that uses the internet or email a lot.”

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