You don’t need an opt-in to email B2B
There’s a lot of confusion about the permissions needed for email marketing. Let’s put the matter to bed.
The rules about email marketing to businesses and consumers are as follows:
Email marketing – business to consumer
-
Unless you’re comfortable being a despised purveyor of spam, you need to get individual consumers’ permission – or
opt in – before you can legitimately email them -
This remains the case even when you’ve got an existing or previous relationship with the consumer, for example if
they’ve bought from you before -
Even if you’ve got their permission, you must give consumers the opportunity to opt out of future emails every time
you contact them
Email marketing – business to business
-
If you’re emailing B2B you don’t need to get permission first. It is perfectly OK for your business to email offers to
other businesses on a ’cold’ basis -
But it is good manners – and best marketing practice – to always offer an opt out
A grey area can come into play when businesses email Sole Traders, because a sole trader’s business email address might also be their personal email address. If in doubt, strip them out of your mailing list.
Whether you’re emailing consumers or businesses, you need to abide by two simple rules:
1. You must clearly identify commercial communications as such
2. You must give details of the steps someone needs to take to make a contract with you. If your copywriter’s doing their stuff properly, they’ll cover this in the call to action.
