Opt-in / Opt-out for e-mail newsletter

[Travelling Sam]

Just a real quickie as we're in the process of setting up our first e-mail newsletter, but someone has raised an issue re: opt-in / opt-out.

The consensus is: if a client has booked with us, it is fine for us to include them on our e-mail newsletter (as long as it has a prominent opt-out option).

But what about those people who have enquired with us (they have voluntarily contacted us and provided their e-mail address) - can we automatically include them? We presumed so, but a 'wise sage' (!) has advised that cannot automatically include them in out mailings, but should send them a one-off newsletter asking them to 'opt-in' to future mailings?

Thanks for your advice.

[Pete Crane]

In both cases you should ask them if they would like to receive information from you via email - that way you are working to an opt-in standard which means you won't be getting into trouble with decent send engine services.

You can use the premis that a customer can be assumed to have given prior permission, but that is missing the point; you don't have explicit permission from them.

As for prospects if you are not asking them at the point when they give you their contact details then you are missing a huge opportunity to communicate with them in the future.

The best thing you can do is get someone who knows email marketing inside out to advise you for a short while on the best approach. That way you can be a lot more confident that your email marketing is compliant, works to best practice standards and doesn't have a negative impact on your company's reputation.

[Ali-v-8]

Ye petra has this correct that you must opt in.
Using opt out is now defunked.

[Call Tracker]

send a polite text based email asking them to reply stating they are happy to receive updates via email from you. Explain the frequency of the proposed mailings and the likely content and you should get a good sign up rate.

[Mailing Manager]

As a provider of an email marketing product, this is a question that we get asked regularly. Who can we e-mail and is it regarded as permission-based emailing ? Unless you have included in your booking form a section where your customer either excludes themselves from email marketing or includes themself, you do not have permission to send them anything and it would be regarded as unsolicited email. Using a website form (for a monthly newsletter or free guide to something) with a double opt-in is the best way to create a subscriber list and it will give you the best possible results on all of your email marketing campaigns.

We are a UK based company that specialises in email marketing so if you need anymore help or advice or would like information on our product, I would be happy to help.

[virtuallysorted]

Yup - this is one of those build-up-front type marketing projects - you need to have asked for their permission first.

If this is your first email, even if you have asked if this is okay, then you will probably get a fair number of unsubscribes... Don't encourage them to be spam reports - make your unsubscribe option visible at both the top and bottom of the emails, and reiterate how often you'll be sending this email and what benefit it will have for the subscribers.