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12.16.05
Best
Practices Guide For Email Marketers
 By
John Stith
The Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC) just released their "ESPC Best
Practices Guide." The book is a list of guidelines that help reinforce the industry
best practices for email communications and includes an updated version of the
"ESPC Email Marketing Pledge." The guide covers a number of areas including permission,
disclosure, address collection, content relevancy, unsubscribe practices and referrals.
"It is important to the email industry as a whole to establish this framework,"
said Trevor Hughes, executive director of the ESPC. "We need to help regulatory
agencies and ISPs enforce legislation and restore consumer trust in email. These
guidelines have been embraced by our members, and we look forward to establishing
them as industry standards for all senders."
To preserve the viability of email communications in the age of spam and fraudulent
scams, mailers should follow a standardized set of regulations and best practices.
The Guide is a reference of these practices, designed to improve consumer trust
in the email channel and uphold industry best practices for senders.
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the five best practices for achieving higher cost efficiency and revenue in service
As part of the process of creating the Guide, a standardized set of permission
definitions was developed to provide consistency for reputation systems and international
discrepancies in terminology. The ESPC's "Email Marketing Pledge," originally
issued in 2003, reflects the new terminology, which is in line with U.S. and E.U.
laws.
The Pledge provides a clear path towards distinguishing legitimate uses of email
from spam by giving concrete definitions as to what constitutes spam, prior business
relationships, informed consent, and various forms of opt-in.
These efforts were spearheaded by the ESPC Receiver Relations Committee under
the leadership of StrongMail Systems Inc. and CheetahMail with additional contributions
from Topica Inc. Many ESPC members contributed their specialized expertise and
insight to create the guidelines.
Often times, legitimate email can be mistaken for spam because sometimes consumers
don't realize what they get. It's important to adhere to certain basic rules,
like those listed in the best practices book. It can protect those who utilize
email for some marketing from certain liability issues and protect the very consumers
you're attempting to market too. If those consumers are better protected, they'll
be more receptive to your message in the future.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security. |
