Email marketing - a new business no-go?

[JamesTheDesigner]

Hi all.
Looked through the forum but couldn't find an answer/advice to my query, so thought I'd take a shot here. Any help much appreciated!
My new business is ready to launch. It's a design and print business specifically targeting sports clubs around the entire UK.
My website is done and today I started looking at GDPR, privacy policy, cookie policy - all that stuff.
While doing so I looked into Marketing rules on the Gov.uk website.
My plan was the email all the clubs I could find emails for - most of them are readily available on their websites and league sites.
However, regulations seem to be that you can't email people who don't ask to be emailed. I.e. unsolicited emails. And I can't add people to a mailing subscriber list if they haven't asked to subscribe.
That I understand, but as my whole marketing plan is geared around emailing club officials with my product offer, I now feel I'm going to be breaking regulations by doing so. It's getting me down as I'm beginning to feel 4 months hard work is going to be for nothing if I can't push my (very good) product offer in an effective way.
And contacting hundreds of clubs by phone to tell them about myself and ask if I can send them an email will be very expensive/time consuming. Not to mention I'm not the greatest on the phone if I am honest.
Does anyone have a good workaround or idea of how I can make this work?
Yours in despair!
James

 

[AllUpHere]

If your entire promotional marketing strategy was based on sending spam, it was always going to fail. You may find that if the clubs use a generic email address you may still be able to use it. However, it's still a pretty weak strategy to rely upon to generate leads. When was the last time you bought something based on spam you received?

 

[fisicx]

If the club has a generic mail@ or info@ email address you can use that. But it will just go in the junk folder so not really a lot of point.

Sports clubs are inundated with marketing spam. Your email will regarded the same way.

A good workaround is to change your business plan.

 

[Nochexman]

This isn't answering your question, but having just taken a look at your website, I would like it more if you could give some indicative pricing there. Hope that helps.

 

[justinaldridge]

I know this market well and it's a very tough one. I agree with the points above. Sending marketing emails to general email addresses has a dreadfully low rate of success. I know, I've tried it in a few industries.

If anything you are better off finding the marketing contacts on LinkedIn, connecting with them and try a more direct approach through there. It's still not easy but it's likely to prove more successful that the general email approach.

Oh, and to answer your question, if the email address is on the site then there is nothing stopping you from emailing them as long as you give them an option to never hear from you again!

 

[fisicx]

This isn't answering your question, but having just taken a look at your website, I would like it more if you could give some indicative pricing there. Hope that helps.

Also had a look at your site. Apart from the awful UI you are making lots of unsubstantiated claims. My local club already has sponsorship and a contract with a local printer. They aren't going to jump ship to an unknown provider like you.

 

[saythisinstead.co.uk]

Hi all.

Looked through the forum but couldn't find an answer/advice to my query, so thought I'd take a shot here. Any help much appreciated!

Yours in despair!
James

Having looked at your website James I think your concerns about getting to market with spam [unrequested] emails is the least of your problems.

Your site gives no indication of any benefits you may be able to bring to a new client.

Will you be able to get them more customers? more site visits? What exactly would be the benefits of using you to do whatever it is you do [the website doesn't make that clear....but it looks like you create branding]

You'll need to be a lot more precise in your marketing message.

You'll need a better plan to bring your offer to market.

Even if you weren't breaching any GDPR rules, [which I don't think you would be] your respnse rate would be small to non-existent.

Before you do anything else you'll need a clear plan of how you are going to get the word out.

Knowing how you are going to sell your products/services is the first step with any new venture.

The exact nature of your offer is not important yet.

The best people to advise you how to move forward with this are your potential customers. You'll need to devise a plan of how you are going to talk to them.

Me....? I'd call them on the phone and ask if the boss might be around and whether it would be possible to 'pick his/her brain' for a couple of minutes.

Tell the boss about your service and the marketing plan you are thinking of and see what they think.

I'm pretty sure you won't take this advice but I have brought various things to market this way.

Just by finding the boss and asking...'Would you mind if I pick your brains for a couple of minutes?'

Not had one refusal yet....pretty simple psychology so no need to explain hopefully?

 

[Graham Tyers]

Dialling hundreds of clubs isn't that much work. I have a few staff who can break the 1000 dials a day figure quite easily.

Why not email those you can and either call yourself or engage a good agency to call your list and narrow it down so you can get some quality conversations in the bag?

 

[Jamie Monumental]

Try targeting through social media? Personalised messages will take longer but should have a higher success rate.

 

[Jamie Monumental]

Social media messages

 

[Mark T Jones]

You are allowed to email individual s under a corporate domain, but must make it easy to opt out

As others have said, you really do need a compelling subject line and clear proposition to avoid being lost in the noise

 

[Aaron Starc]

Email marketing is a good way but never rely on it too heavily for two reasons:

1. The email open-ratio is very less.
2. Nobody likes unsolicited emails.

To approach this, you need a proper digital marketing plan for your business. If you think you can execute a digital marketing plan or if you have a budget then get an agency on board which can execute your marketing plan, digitally.

One more thing you can do and I have seen people usually do is personally visiting to nearby places, wherever they can and get a meeting and then pitching them your business.

 

[SustainableKate]

Similar to what people have suggested above - it may be worth contacting generic emails but there is possibly better ways to reach out, through facebook pages where you can message teams or through linked in - finding specific contacts who deal with this aspect of the clubs business.

I wouldnt be to dishearted though - it defintly isnt a waste of 4 months of work - things often don't go to plan in business, you just need to think creativly and be willing to adapt your strategy.