|
|
PRESS
RELEASE |
European Legislation on e-mail
marketing is set to change in October – are you prepared?
|
|
|
In October 2003 new regulations regarding
e-marketing will outlaw un-solicited e-mails, if you are currently sending
information to a list of e-mail contacts you must ensure that these are all
legitimate or risk being banned by your ISP. The regulations state that ‘unsolicited communications for purposes
of direct marketing… are not allowed …without the consent of the
subscribers concerned’ However if a company ‘obtains
from its customers their electronic contact details for electronic
mail, in the
context of the sale of a product or a service .. the same natural or legal
person may use these electronic contact details for direct marketing of its
own similar products or services’ For full text http://www.euro.cauce.org/en/amendments1a.html How to check the status of your list and legitimise your contacts
For a contact to be
considered legitimate you must make sure that they
have demonstrated an interest in your company and the services it offers
eg. companies who have contacted you in the past or given their details in
response to previous marketing activity, trade shows etc. Having
an un-subscribe feature in your e-mail message will no longer be enough. So
the
onus is on the company to ensure that all names on its contact list have ‘opted-in’ or subscribed to your mailing list. To authenticate your
existing list you could do one of the following; § Send out your e-publication as usual before October
and include an ‘opt-in’ feature. §
Make contact with your ‘names’ by telephone or
printed correspondence and gain their permission. In order to continue to
build your e-mailing list ensure that your company web-site has a subscribe
feature, and make sure that your sales and marketing team take every
opportunity to collect e-mail addresses of interested parties in all advertising,
mail shots and trade shows. It should be remembered
that the authentication process can be built into your marketing plan as a
legitimate reason to communicate with your contacts and if handled well will
only strengthen your company reputation and credibility. Research into the
efficiency of e-mail marketing campaigns has shown that they are
significantly more effective in eliciting a response than the traditional
direct mail alternative. Responses and Click Through Rates (CTR) rates to
e-mail campaigns are greatly affected by the provenance of the list used. 1. Direct Mail - 1% response
(traditional method) 2. Un-solicited e-mail – 2% response (soon to be
banned) 3. Purchased opt-in lists – 4% response (where a list provider has
gained an individuals permission to send e-mails on a certain subject) get a
much better response, and can be used as a means to add new names to your
list. 4. House opt-in lists -
10% response your authenticated existing contact list generates by
far the best response. With CTR
s of 30- 60% for e-newsletters |
|
|
Internet
direct marketing is estimated to be 60-65% cheaper than traditional direct
marketing. -
Yankee
Group An
article in DMNews (2003) reported that in 2002, IBM’s software group sent
nearly 300,000 messages in 60 separate e-mail campaigns for customers and
prospects who had registered an interest at ibm.com. They found that the
response rates from e-mail were significantly higher than for traditional
direct mail. The
article reported Mark Rosen, VP of integrated marketing communications at the
software group as saying: ‘One and a half percent is what we typically have
seen from direct mail. The 4.1% we saw from e-mail…[is] close to three times
[better]. For interesting articles on e-marketing check the following web sites; http://www.marketingprofs.com/arch/allarticles.asp?w=3 http://www.emaillabs.com/resources_articles.html
To
receive your free copies our Newsletter and additional information
and news about e-marketing |
E-mail marketing is a great development for
small and large businesses alike. The cost of producing and distributing a
flyer or newsletter electronically is far less than the printed version and
much cheaper. However to maximize on this potential consider the following
factors in the production of your e-publication Strategy – form a
clear picture of the message. Be precise about what you are offering and be sure
of what you are trying to achieve. Target – who should
it be sent to. It is important to focus both on who you would like to read
it, as well which recipients will find it interesting enough to read. Subject – Consider
your subject line carefully, it is the deciding factor for recipients to open
or not. Timing – when to
send it. Is the offer time critical? Are you trying to maximise on your boom
period, or boost your slumps? Content – keep the
message clear and position it at the top of the message. Response –
do you expect a response? If so ensure that it is as easy and cheap as
possible for recipients to do this Personalise - personalising your messages will
increase the response rates significantly. Follow-up –
the e-mail is just the beginning, continue the dialogue with more e-mails and
ultimately direct contact to move prospects into sales. In a business-to-business environment, email
marketing offers enormous potential. It is estimated that sixty percent of
employed people have Internet access at work and Internet use in the
workplace is growing at a vigorous 54 percent rate annually. With
eighty percent of professionals and managers using the Internet, and seventy
percent of those in sales, technical, or administrative support positions,
e-marketing can harness that potential and channel it into your business,
boosting your companies exposure and increasing sales. |
|
Subscribe to Cruzing
|
Article
by Rebecca Cruz, e-publishing consultant Cruzing,
62 Folds Crescent, Sheffield, S8 0EQ Tel
: 0114 220 6089 e-mail : info@cruzing.biz web
site : www.cruzing.biz HOME If you would prefer not to receive e-mail information from Cruzing in the future, please send an e-mail including your name and e-mail address to info@cruzing.biz |
|
|
