Permission Based Email Marketing

[Claire H]

Hi there,

In order to send an email campaign to a customer or potential customer you need to have obtained their permission to confirm they are happy to receive communications. However someone told me that you don't need permission to send emails to info@ addresses but I must say I've never heard of this before.

I was under the impression that you must have permission from the recipient and there are no exceptions for info@ addresses?

Could anyone clarify.

Many thanks,

Claire

 

[Ashley_Price]

Checking the government's "Marketing and Advertising - The Law" advice, it doesn't say there are any exclusions for info@ or other generic email addresses:

You’re only allowed to send marketing emails to individual customers if they’ve given you permission.

Emails or text messages must clearly indicate:

• who you are
• that you’re selling something
• what the promotions are, and any conditions

Check that you aren’t sending emails to anyone who’s asked not to receive them, using the Email Preference Service.

If you buy or rent a mailing list, ask the supplier if you have the right to use it for email marketing.

Every marketing email you send must give the person the ability to opt out of (or ‘unsubscribe from’) further emails.

 

[Ashley_Price]

However, doing a little more research, "Marketing Donut" seems to have something different:

You can ‘cold email’ an unsolicited, direct marketing email to a corporate subscriber, but be careful. The fact an email address ends in .co.uk does not mean it belongs to a limited company. Anyone can register a .co.uk domain name (the only UK domain names that tell you for certain that you are dealing with a UK limited company are the .ltd.uk and .plc.uk domains, but these are rare).

An email to [email protected] or [email protected] is clearly to the corporate subscriber. But what if you are emailing 'Pauline Manager', an employee at a limited company, at a work address such as [email protected]? The email will be opened by Pauline, who is an individual.

This is permitted if the email is work-related (eg promoting office furniture to a facilities manager) but not if it is personal (eg promoting family holidays to the sales team at a recruitment company).

 

[Ashley_Price]

I think though, it's like cold calling someone. If you get any come back, apologise profusely and promise to remove their details from your marketing list.

If you do this, many people will at least be satisfied. I think you would only really get into trouble if you kept sending them emails after they had asked to be removed.

 

[CoolsMediaJohn]

What are you expecting to get from emailing an info@ email? It should be fine though if you really want to as they have their address on show right?

I just would not do anything silly like pitching them products for example....

Also - what @Ashley_Price said. Safe advice.....