While the laws of email marketing vary from country to country, there are some common laws and best practices you should follow. Here are some of the main ones:
You Must Have Permission.
In order for you to put someone on your mailing list you have to have their permission. This can be verbal consent, or if you’re collecting their information online then via a double opt in form. Having a double opt-in form is much better then having a single opt-in form for one simple reason: You get to confirm the provided email address in genuine. If someone only has to provide you with a email address and they’re on your mailing list (As with a single opt in form) there’s no way of knowing they didn’t provide you with a fake email address or that they missed out a letter while typing their address. If you have a double opt in form however, when someone enters their email address they’re sent a confirmation email to their inbox. If they then click on the link inside this email they’ve proven they own the email address and are added to your mailing list. This will mean you don’t end up with lots of ‘dead’ email address on your mailing list and have to pay more money to your email marketing company (With some email marketing companies the more subscribers you have the bigger the monthly fee).
You Must Give Them A Option To Opt-Out.
When you send your subscribers emails, in every email you should give your subscriber an option to opt out of your mailing list and stop receiving emails from you. If you don’t include this and someone wants to stop receiving emails from you, they may mark your messages as spam. This will be bad for you, as get enough spam points alongside your name and you could stop being received by email providers. So while it may seem counter productive at first, making it easy for people to unsubscribe will benefit you in the long run. So how do you make sure people stay on your email list? Send them great quality content, of course!
Make It Clear Who The Email Is From.
When emailing someone you need to make sure you let the person know who the email is from. That means you must include your name within the email, and make it clear why they’re receiving an email from you (E.G. “You’re receiving this email because you’re signed up to the *insert your name or your company’s name here* mailing list”).
Valid Reply Address.
When email marketing, it’s important you give a valid email address subscribers can reply to you via. If it’s not possible to let subscribers reply to the email directly, you must make this clear and provide an alternative email address for them to contact. To make this clear, you may want to make the sending email ‘
[email protected]’. Where possible however, you should make your sending email address the one people can reply to for maximum convenience.
Provide Your Postal Address.
In some countries it’s the law to provide your postal address in your emails. This can be a problem for some home based companies who don’t have a office and don’t want everyone knowing where they live, but there are ways to work around that. For example, you may want to get a postal box. This means people won’t see your address directly, although they may be able to get that information with some research. It’s best to check in your country for exact details regarding this situation.
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While the laws of email marketing vary from country to country, there are some common laws and best practices you should follow. Here are some of the main ones:
You Must Have Permission.
In order for you to put someone on your mailing list you have to have their permission. This can be verbal consent, or if you’re collecting their information online then via a double opt in form. Having a double opt-in form is much better then having a single opt-in form for one simple reason: You get
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