Email etiquette and legislation
Posted 29 January 2007 at 4:33PM by Alexa Williamson in Email and communications
Following my post about new website legislation for businesses, Martin and I thought it was a good idea to write about marketing email etiquette and legislation.
Being courteous
It's really easy to dash off an email and not think about what you've written before pressing send! Here are a few of the courtesies we have learned from the large amount internal email we send and receive, at BT Business, that has helped us get better response to what we write!
- Think about who your reader is. How will the way you write most make them want to read/act upon your email?
- Focus the subject line: it motivates readers to open the email. Eg if your email is about a 50% off sale on widgets, saying something like: 'Save 50% on brand X widgets' is more effective than saying 'Check out our fantastic brand x widgets'
- Only say what you need to. People don't really read on a screen, they scan
- Similar to the point above, don't spam your recipients with too many emails, they'll stop opening them. When I worked at Ticketmaster, we only sent our main marketing email once a week. By limiting it to this, our retention rate was very high
- Don't TYPE IN ALL CAPS or all lower case
- Using correct grammar, spelling, punctuation and proof reading will score many points with your readers
- Don't attach files unless it's absolutely necessary. If it's a large file you're better off compressing it. To do this in Windows, right click on the file » Send To » Compressed (zipped) Folder
- Do you want to send out an HTML or RTF email? Can all of your recipients receive one? If they can, it's ok to use this format. If not, send as plain text instead
- Take into account that your email may be monitored by a recipient's employer
- Include a brief signature in the email
Marketing email legislation
The Data Protection Act governs marketing correspondence. Here's what you can and can't do:
- In all emails you must include the full name of your business, contact details and clear pricing information if prices are indicated
- There must be a valid address for recipients to opt out of the email
- All commercial email must be clearly identifiable as such
- You must not reveal any recipients' email addresses when sending one out
- You cannot send out unsolicited emails. You must have a recipient's prior consent. NB: there are exceptions to this, which are stated in official electronic communications guidance (PDF) published by the Information Commissioner's Office
Further reading:
- Email marketing (Business Link)
- Effective use of email (BUCS)
Tags: business email etiquette, UK business email legislation, UK email marketing legislation
New feature: Rate this post!
Average rating: 4.5/5
