Email marketing has always been a highly effective tactic to promote your products and services at the cheapest cost, provided you do it in a right way. The trickiest aspects in the email marketing niche, however, are the legal constraints which usually differ from country to country.
Amidst an ever growing reliance of businesses on email marketing, each country has come up with its own set of rules and regulations for email marketers. Needless to say, violating these regulations can bring severe consequences to your brand’s credibility, so we’ve compiled the following list of nine things to avoid on your next mass email campaign…
1) False or misrepresenting subject lines: When mass emailing, do you resort to misleading or false subject lines to lure recipients open and read your emails? If your answer is “YES!”, then abstain from any such act with immediately. Not only is this practice ineffective and annoying recipients, your local laws are likely to be strictly against it.
2) Opt in: Do you send out your mass email marketing campaigns to random recipients? Better you don’t. Because many countries explicitly prohibit businesses from sending promotional emails to recipients who did not subscribe to their opt-in lists.
3) Easy-opt out options: Even if your local laws do not offer any specific guidelines on this matter, always try and make a point to include an easy-to-understand unsubscribe-policy in your mass email marketing campaigns. Not only does this help uninterested subscribers leave your campaign (thereby auto-cleaning your list to some extent), but it may also boost your brand’s credibility.
4) Proof of opt-ins: Remember, some laws may demand proofs of all opt-ins on your list, so always keep a log of all your sign-ups.
5) Adequate privacy policy: It’s always better to include a copy of your privacy policy in all the email marketing campaigns you send out. Not only does such a practice add to response rate, but it may also be required from a legal perspective.
6) Valid postal address: Laws of many countries demand that you include your valid postal address at the end of each promotional email campaign you send out.
7) A proper reply-to address: It is essential that you include a valid reply-to email address in all of your promotional mass mailing campaigns. Also, in the event that a customer uses that feature to ask you a question or provide feedback, make a point of replying to him/her within 24 hours.
8) Extracting/harvesting an email list: Did you harvest or extract your email list by any chance? Check your local laws, because many countries have strict laws against lists obtained in this fashion.