Small Business Marketing: Email Marketing or Illegal Spam?

Small Business Marketing: Are You Email Marketing or Illegally Spamming?

Have you ever had an email from someone who has clearly sent it to numerous people in their address book? The type of email I’m talking about are the ones where the ‘To’ box contains a list of email addresses including yours, all separated by semi colons.

We all know people who do this kind of thing routinely, forwarding jokes, amusing anecdotes, pictures and the like. But did you know that many small businesses do a similar thing to send details about their products and services to people they feel might be interested in what they have to offer, without first having their express consent to do so?

A Criminal Offence

This practice is called spamming and is a criminal offence in many countries including the UK. The fact is that many UK small businesses are blissfully unaware that their email marketing campaigns are illegal. Here in the UK, email marketing is governed by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

What the law says

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 cover the sending of email marketing. This legislation says that organisations must only send marketing emails to individuals if they have agreed to receive them, except where there is a clearly defined customer relationship. [Source: Information Commissioner’s Office]

Reputable List Brokers and Email Software

So if your business wants to send out emails to people, you need to get their express permission to do so, unless they are already one of your customers. When you buy email marketing lists from a reputable list broker, they will have already obtained the necessary permission. Alternatively, you can collect email addresses on your own website using double opt-in email marketing software.

Collecting Business Cards

A very common practice among many small business owners is to collect business cards at meetings, networking events and exhibitions and then email those people the cards were collected from. If you do this, it is unlikely that you have the person’s express permission and so you could well be sending illegal spam.

Don’t Just Guess – Get Advice

If in doubt you should seek advice from the Information Commissioner’s Office or a lawyer who specialises in UK business law.

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