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Many SMEs find it difficult to digest the fact that Email could be a critical business strategy. This immediately conjures up images of spammers trying to sell Viagra by bombarding your inbox with cheap deals. Its this misuse of the power of Email that have resulted in several ESPs (Email Service Providers) including Enria to shy away from some sectors like medicinal or pharmaceutical marketing over email.

But to use targeted email to an opt-in customer base can be one of the best decisions for customer engagement and long term retention. The key is devising a strategy that will build the trust you represent with your brand. We explore this topic below in two sections: First is about achieving Compliance: actions to ensure you are on the right side of the law and the second is about building Confidence: what you could do to raise the bar and gain lasting respect of your customers.

Compliance: Staying Legal

There are two main governing acts that have set the stage for Email Marketing compliance. The CAN-SPAM Act (US) and the EC Directive on Electronic Communications. A good ’sans-legalese’ document that lays out interpretation in the UK in great detail has been published by the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK. The basic tenets embedded in these regulations are:

Ensure you have consent:

You need to ensure that you have explicit consent for sending email promotional messages from the recipient. Permission can be obtained in several ways: during a transaction, through a web-form or through ’soft opt-in’ methods. Soft opt-in includes customers whose details you may have obtained in the course of a transaction or negotiation, who have been offered a simple method of declining to receive information from you (and they have not done so) and to whom you will market similar products and services that you had originally engaged them for. You still need to comply with other conditions below.

Identify who you are:

It is illegal to conceal your identity when sending bulk emails. You need to use a valid From Name and ensure that the From and the Reply to addresses are fully functional. You also need to include a postal address of your registered organisation.

Provide an opt out link:

Every email needs to include an option for the recipient to opt out which should be processed in 7 days. Enria has a build in single click opt-out mechanism that immediately suppresses the address that has opted out from all future mailings.

Don’t explicitly incentivise referral:

This requires that you should not explicitly reward people to forward emails, for example, never say: “forward this email to 10 of your friends and get 10% off”. This is sure to get you in trouble.

Confidence: Building Trust

Compliance in necessary, but here are some additional actions to ensure that you can build the same confidence with your subscribers that you deliver in their dealings with you in the non-electronic format.

Use double opt-in:

Double opt-in mechanism requires the subscriber to reconfirm their subscription from their own email account. This mechanism ensures that you are highly unlikely to have someone that does not expect to receive communications from you.

Identify your legitimate purpose:

State why you are sending the mail in the body. Identify your organisation credentials by including the registration number and a comment about your privacy policy.

Optimize relevance and frequency:

Always make your messages relevant to your audience. Segment your market and target messages accordingly. Do not bombard your customers with too frequent messages. A well thought out monthly message will be viewed more favorably than more frequent burst of annoyance.

Test before send:

Email clients (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.) all treat emails differently. As a result display on these can vary widely. Test extensively. Also, test your email on Spam filters. Some filters are quirky when dealing with symbols or certain words and phrases. Enria offers automated testing on up to 20 clients and a number of Spam filters.

Obey the same rules for B2B emails:

The EU regulation specifically speaks to marketing to individuals and leaves B2B communications more open to interpretation in areas such as consent. However, we believe it is best practice to follow the same requirements as above for B2B communications. A case in point are Sole Traders who are considered as individuals. As B2B marketers, it may not be worth your while to create a different strategy for communications to Sole Traders versus a similar Limited business.

Avoid buying lists:

This is not a bold statement for the times. Its true, traditional mass mailing is DEAD. There is no other alternative to building an effective database than working from ground up. But this does not mean you cannot harness the existing information better. Mine your current customer data, improve quality, append emails, analyze performance and follow best practice with transactional events and communications to grow your base. With this investment in time, you will be well in the way to build a high performing subscription base that will reward you many times over.