Email Marketing Pledge
Email Marketing is critical to the success of your business.
In a report by Radicati Group from August 2008 it was estimated that the number of emails sent per day (in 2006) to be around 210 billion. The total number of mailboxes managed by these millions of users were estimated to number about 1.4 billion. on the B2B side, the Radicati Group counted 516 million business email inboxes worldwide in 2007. It doesn't matter if your business is online or off, marketing by email will save you money, drive traffic to your website, build customer loyalty, increase brand awareness, create sales, and increase your profits.
Important note: When we talk about email marketing in this guide, we’re talking about permission email marketing. Without permission, it's spam. And you should never spam.
NEVER EVER EVER SPAM.
Acknowledging the critical importance of consumer consent regarding email marketing, we here at Higher Spectrum Media have adopted the Email Marketing Pledge from the IAB, NAI's ESPC and TRUSTe as our Outbound Email Creed, the most strident set of email marketing guidelines to date. Through its clear mandate regarding permission and use of email addresses, the Pledge will increase industry accountability, and curb unwanted and unsolicited commercial email. The Pledge is as follows: DEFINITIONS: Commercial Email: email messages, sent in volume, the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a product or service Business Relationship: A relationship between the sender of an email message and the recipient. Such a relationship may be created through the facilitation or completion of a commercial transaction between the sender and a recipient. A business relationship may also be created through prior correspondence initiated by an individual, including requests for information, responses to questionnaires or surveys, responses to sweepstakes or contests, or offline contact. Informed Consent: A mechanism through which an individual is clearly and fully notified of the collection and use of an email address and has consented prior to such collection and use. Informed Consent may be implemented in the following forms: Opt-in: At the point of email address collection, a person has affirmatively requested to be included on an email list to receive commercial email. No confirmation email is sent and the person is not required to take further action to be included on the email list. Unsubscribe: A mechanism through which an individual may request that he or she no longer receive commercial email. Unsolicited Commercial Email: Commercial Email sent without an existing business relationship or prior informed consent.Email Marketing Pledge
Unsolicited Commercial Email must not be sent.
Confirmed Opt-in: At the point of email address collection, a person has affirmatively requested to be included on an email list to receive commercial email. An email is subsequently sent to the person, notifying the person that their email address has been added to the email list. The person is not required to take further action to be included on the email list.
Double Opt-in: At the point of email address collection, a person has affirmatively requested to be included on an email list to receive commercial email. An email is subsequently sent to the person, notifying the person that some action is necessary before their email address will be added to the email list.