Despite the rise of social media, email marketing is an integral part of building relationships with other businesses. However, despite the many emails businesses send to consumers or other businesses, there are guidelines to follow. Wondering what email compliance is? Read on!
All entities are to follow policies and practices for emails to avoid any legal issues. In addition, they must prioritize privacy as that is a legal right to any email recipients, consumers, or clients alike.
Time to Review Your Online Email Practices and Privacy Policies
Periodically, businesses need to review their policies and conduct an audit. The goal is to take preventative measures such as audits to ensure the business is compliant. Therefore, they must check emails to make sure they do not violate any privacy rights. Also, entities need to review emails to ensure they don’t violate important policies such as GDPR.
Effective email practices for good response include:
- Including effective call-to-actions
- Writing compelling subject lines and split testing them
- Auto-responses for opt-ins.
Effective email practices for compliance and privacy include:
- Cleaning up email lists
- Tracking open rates
- Making sure your emails have proper signatures
In addition to privacy policies, they also need to implement tracking policies and email archiving policies. Good email practices involve monitoring and creating the right content that won’t violate any rights of users.
Grouping and categorizing emails are significant because the format and structure of emails vary. For example, businesses are likely to have transactional emails, confirmation or auto-reply emails, and communication emails such as customer service emails. Transactional, confirmation, and auto-reply emails typically involve agreement confirmations, scheduling, and more. Communication emails involve initiating conversations with other businesses, offers, and more.
Privacy policies are essential for these B2B emails. Users should give consent first if the business is to disclose any details of email communication.
What Your Email Management Policy Should Look Like
The importance of email compliance cannot be overemphasized. Email policies vary depending on the business so no particular business policy is suitable for all. Despite email management policies varying by the business, there are still standard components all policies should have. They should all prevent:
- Spamming emails
- Offensive and discriminatory content
Another important element involves laws in place for cookies and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Email Requirements: Are You Doing Enough?
The importance of email compliance cannot be overemphasized. Email policies vary depending on the business, so no particular business policy is suitable for all. Despite email management policies varying by the business, there are still standard components all policies should have. They should all prevent:
- Spamming emails
- Offensive and discriminatory content
Another essential element involves laws in place for cookies and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Email Requirements: Are You Doing Enough?
Cookies are what memorizes user activity short-term as they visit websites and apps. To comply with US cookie law, websites have to follow a few simple rules and periodically check for updates.
Every website must disclose that they are using cookies to every visitor. Most websites inform users by pop-up boxes that come up when they first visit the site. Users have to provide consent to the use of cookies. However, it is at the website’s discretion how users accept or deny the usage of cookies.
In addition to users having an option to accept cookies, websites need to clarify how data is shared with third parties, if at all. Therefore, a link to the website’s cookie policy show is included in the pop-up as well.
There are tools online that are either free or paid to construct cookie notices. However, pop-up boxes and notifications usually look different on every website, especially when there are opt-in and opt-out options.
Express consent involves a simple agreement option when users visit the site. This normally involves expressed permission, but they can access cookie settings to make changes. Express consent is a method of consent that most websites use.
Who is Affected Most by GDPR in Marketing?
However, the business must always disclose the use of cookies and get consent from users. Failing to do so results in possible legal consequences for not being compliant by law.
GDPR is to protect users’ privacy so they do not feel their information is at risk. However, if a large number of people do not engage with the website, the website could be possibly non-compliant. In addition, users who lack trust in the website could ultimately result in low traffic and high data risk.
Some may even believe marketers are affected most, but this is not the case. The outcome for marketers could be nothing but beneficial because GDPR and cookies provide data for targeted ads. If marketers can create ads targeted to more specific audiences likely to buy their products, that’s a huge plus. This could increase online conversions and website visitors.
Last GDPR Updates
The most recent GDPR update took place in early 2020. Another goal the EU is working toward is ensuring that smaller entities can easily comply with the GDPR policy. This includes proper legalese and clauses that small and medium-sized businesses can utilize.
California now has the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to keep consumer data protected. Companies must provide data that they collect from consumers upon their request. More states are following suit for data protection laws of their own such as Nevada and Texas.
Other countries have similar policies in place to mimic the GDPR. For example, Brazil has an LGPD policy that regulates any business that collects personal data. There are over 40 different regulations in place for personal data in Brazil, and LGPD brings them all together. More policies from the United States and other countries will be formed in the coming years.
Conclusion
Emails are not just simple online messages. They are an extremely valuable method of digital marketing that’s beneficial for many eCommerce websites. However, there are many different aspects that websites must be compliant with to build users’ trust that they will protect their data.
Creating the right emails and email policies is mandatory in how to do digital marketing for a website. Now that you know what email compliance is, always remember that the privacy of anyone’s personal information is a legal priority.