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Play by the 'permission marketing rules', and consider the possibilities of going one better Here is a back issue of Marketing Booster, the email newsletter that Richard Groom writes and sends free every fortnight to subscribers. You can subscribe here or read over 60 back issues using the back issues index page. This edition of Marketing Booster is in two parts. First, I want to let you know about a fact sheet I have recently written with Leigh Titman at Titman Firth graphic design agency. The fact sheet explains the UK's phone, fax, mail and email preference services. (These give people the chance to register that they do not wish to receive unsolicited marketing communications - there are several legal and ethical obligations on marketers to ensure that we comply with people's wishes.) You can download the free fact sheet from Leigh's web site: www.titmanfirth.com. Leigh and I felt that we needed to write the fact sheet as many of our customers were confused about the rules. In fact, when we did our research we found that at least one of the official web sites that explained the email rules was hopelessly out-of-date. (If you are a non-UK reader then apologies that the fact sheet won't be of use. However, it may prompt you to familiarise yourself with your country's rules if you haven't already done so.) So with the fact sheet as background, I want to give you my take on some of the implications of the rules. One of the main themes of the rules is that there is often a difference between consumer and business marketing. In some cases, you cannot contact private individuals unless they have given you permission to do so. But the rules aren't as strict when it comes to contacting people in businesses or other organisations. I think there are two important issues about this difference that we need to consider. First, there is a trend towards making the strict rules for consumer marketing apply to business-to-business marketing too. For example, a recent change was made to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) that allows certain types of businesses to register too. This means that you cannot contact either private individuals or businesses by phone if they have registered with the TPS or its 'Corporate TPS' counterpart. So if this trend continues - as I believe it surely will - it will have consequences if you currently rely on direct marketing to people other than those who have expressed an interest in your information. Second, I question the practical and ethical implications of adopting a different approach for private consumers and businesses. Think about it. What is a 'business' anyway? Am I, for example, a business or a person? Yes, I operate under a business name. But I am still a human being. So why is it acceptable for someone to send me junk emails if they consider me a 'business' yet it's not acceptable if they consider me a 'person'? All emails go to people. So for me, it doesn't really matter if they receive it at work or not: if the information is of no relevance to them, or if they did not want to be contacted, then the effect is the same - a loss of trust and credibility for the organisation that sent the information. So I would urge you to look at your phone, mail, fax and email marketing and see whether you can adopt the highest standards of ethics, whether the recipient is a private consumer or business employee. To do this, you need to ask people for permission to contact them - and give them every opportunity to remove themselves from your mailing list if they do not want to be contacted. The implications of mass-mailing without giving a thought to the relevance of your information, or whether the recipient wants the information, could be serious. Copyright 2005 Richard Groom |