Customer Minds survey highlights poor practices

A survey by Customerminds.com has revealed that the majority of Irish marketers are failing to meet their obligations under the Companies Act when sending permission-based marketing.

More than 100 e-mail newsletters were rated against legal and data protection requirements.

The survey found that 82 per cent of senders are failing to include their registered company number, 79 per cent are failing to include a company telephone number in all e-mail messages and 62 per cent are failing to include their company's physical street address.

All of these are now required by the new Companies Act Regulations that came into effect on 1 April 2007, and a breach carries a fine of up to EUR2,000 (around GBP1,600).

As well as failing to meet legal standards, e-mail marketers are also failing to meet the highest standards of marketing practise, according to the survey.

An analysis of six market segments' communications - IT, publishing/marketing, travel, entertainment, sports and retail - shows travel marketers adopt the highest number of 'best practices', while IT companies were the lowest performers in most categories Each newsletter was rated against 10 best practice criteria: a working one-click unsubscribe link; company postal address; company registration number; company telephone number; advanced deliverability features; web version of their e-mail; link to privacy policy; personalisation; forward to a friend; and navigation links to their website.

Of the three most highly recommended best practices, only 38 per cent of senders included a working web version of their message to allow recipients to click through and view the message as a web page regardless of image or personal settings.

Only 28 per cent included personalisation in any part of their message, and only 31 per cent used a 'forward to a friend' link.

The survey also reveals that despite an unsubscribe link being a mandatory regulatory requirement, one in five Irish marketers still fails to include an obvious unsubscribe mechanism in their e-mail messages.

Mike McMahon, managing director of Customer Minds, said: 'By failing to ensure legal compliance and best practise we are risking the growth and credibility of a marketing medium that is still in its infancy.

'Right now most of our marketers run the twin risks of legal action and being blacklisted by ISPs.

'They are also making basic mistakes, such as failing to maximise their return from e-mail, and risk annoying their audiences.' He added: 'Permission based e-mail marketing is growing exponentially.

It's a highly cost-effective and accountable medium.

'But we need to make a much greater effort if we are to guarantee the success the sector deserves.' In response to these findings, Customer Minds is offering a free audit to marketers who are concerned about their campaigns' compliance.

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