Reference

Responsible email marketing

Rule #1 - responsible email marketing is about customer retention

Responsible marketing via email is a customer retention activity, NOT a customer acquisition activity. That is because it is permission based. The user provides you with their email address in the first instance and thus allows you to send relevant information to them. When email marketing is used for customer acquisition, you are using email lists and approaching the user unsolicited. By doing this you run a very high risk of annoying the recipient and you will also be mingling with other "spammers" (those who send unsolicited email) who you would probably rather not associate your company. So when you take the customers email address.

Rule #2 - make sure you have permission

When the user provides you with their email address, make sure you explicitly ask for their permission to email them. You should also define the type of information you will send them. Are they signing up to a newsletter? Will you send them product information from time to time? If you intend to pass their email addresses on to a third party then you should also explicitly state that this is your intention and offer them the opportunity to opt out.

Rule #3 - keep it relevant

You asked for the users permission to send them email and at that stage will have defined what you will be sending them. So make sure you stick to that promise.

Rule #4 - allow them to opt out

If they don't want to receive emails from you anymore, you need to give them a way to remove themselves from your list. Give them instructions for doing this, clearly, in every email you send. You will find that you get relatively few removal requests. Customers are happy to know that they can remove themselves from the list if they wish to.

Rule #5 - protect their email address

A common mistake made by companies that perform their own email marketing is that they simply draft an email and send it to multiple recipients. The problem with this is that each recipient can see all the others who have received it. This is very poor practice. You need to ensure that when you send emails to your customers, you do not reveal their email addresses to other recipients.

Rule #6 - use an acceptable format

HTML newsletters look great, but only if the users email software can handle them. If you plan on sending HTML versions of your newsletter (and you should consider to, as they are often more effective than plain text versions), then offer a plain text version as well and ask the user when they first provide you with their email address what format they prefer.

Rule #7 - don't send attachments

Under no circumstances should you send unsolicited attachments in an email-shot. Firstly, you cause the user to suffer a wait while your message downloads and secondly with the current proliferation of viruses, you raise serious concerns. Make sure you don't accidently send attachments by embedding graphics in your messages.