E-mail marketing: Are you breaking the law?

E-mail marketing is here to stay - and all of us are used to hitting the delete button several times a day to get rid of items that have no bearing on our lives or our work. In some instances, we take the time to "unsubscribe", only to find we are taken through a maze of website pages before we reach the unsubscribe facility.

Three things: One - if you never opted in to receive the mail, opting out should be a simple process. Two - do these people count the visit to the website's unsubscribe button in its hit rate? Three - where did they get your name from in the first place?

You are entitled to ask about how a company got your details. Here's what the law says:

Electronic Communications and Transactions Act. 2002

Chapter VII - Consumer Protection

45. Unsolicited goods, services or communications

1. Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to consumers, must provide the consumer

• with the option to cancel his or her subscription to the mailing list of that person; and 

• with the identifying particulars of the source from which that person obtained the consumer's personal information, on request of the consumer. 

2. No agreement is concluded where a consumer has failed to respond to an unsolicited communication. 

3. Any person who fails to comply with or contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to the penalties prescribed in section 89(1). 

4. Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to a person who has advised the sender that such communications are unwelcome, is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to the penalties prescribed in section 89(1) (http://www.acts.co.za/ect_act/89_penal.htm).

"Shotgun" mailing not only reaches masses of people who have no interest in your service or product, it's often irritating to those who would otherwise, in one-on-one e-mail contact, be keen on your services.

Paulo Moreira, business development manager at e-mail marketing solutions company Prefix Technologies, says people buy databases thinking they can send mails to everyone on the list immediately. "There are several problems with that," he says. "One is that it may be a 'dirty' database, meaning many of the addresses are no longer valid. Another is that the law must to be taken into consideration."

Moreira says that giving people an "opt in" option is always the best way to get a qualified audience. "Contact companies and ask if you can put them on your mailing list. Build you own clean database by networking or by offering an added value item like a newsletter from your website. That way, people sign up and know why they are receiving your mail."

Marketers in the USA practise a double opt-in process, where users offer their details and are then sent an e-mail confirming their subscription. "Once you have this information, make it easy for the user to opt out if they want to," Moreira says. "Hiding the unsubscribe link may not be illegal, but it isn't clever marketing practise."

If you are receiving mail you can't unsubscribe from, or are concerned about who has sold their database to the company generating the mail, ask for proof of where their database comes from. If you're a marketer are sending bulk mail, here's the bottom line:

• You must have an unsubscribe facility (an automated unsubscribe link) on all e-mails that are of a commercial nature. Should someone unsubscribe from your mailing list, you should never send them further similar e-mails.

• You should have permission to send a mail to someone as part of a large-scale communication exercise (i.e. sending out to a list) and need to be able to prove how you got that permission - for example, a paper form, a contract, registration form statistics report from a reputable e-mail marketing solutions company, telephone conversation recording, etc. The recipient has to agree to receive electronic communications and the marketer must keep a record of it.

• The law doesn't mean you can't ever send anyone an unsolicited e-mail. For instance, e-mailing a particular person whose email address is on the website of a company with whom you'd like to do business is not an offence. This is a one-to-one communication that is part and parcel of going about your work. 

Smart e-marketing is about generating leads that will result in business. Forcing people to wade through pages of your website in an effort to unsubscribe from your mail is time consuming and annoying. If that's their online experience of your company, why would dealing with you in real life be any different?

For more information on effective e-mail marketing, contact Paulo@prefix.co.za or visit www.pmailer.co.za