Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Anyone Got A Good Corporate Email Policy????

Posted by Anonymous on 12/1/2010 at 11:11 AM ET 250 Points
I just found out my sales team has been sending out email on their own - without complying to CAN-SPAM. I'd like to create a corporate email policy document that I can send to the company as well as have on hand should an ISP question our email practices. Anyone know where I can find a free pre-built template that I can modify for my own purpose?

Thanks in advance for your help.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 12/1/2010 at 9:50 PM Accepted
    Google:

    https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=973&bih=658&a...
  • Posted by michael on 12/2/2010 at 12:35 AM Accepted
    Stephanie,

    I'd be more concerned with whether they are working or not. But that's only my opinion. The danger is that you spend so much time creating a restrictive template that is compliant but ineffective.

    Michael
  • Posted by Tracey on 12/2/2010 at 5:48 PM Accepted
    I can't add to the answers already posted, but I would also be questioning why the sales team is sending out these emails -- does this mean they're not getting what they need from the marketing team? Might be indicative of something larger that needs to be done to make sure marketing and sales are working together, and not against each other. I find that sales doesn't always respond well to policies and rules.
  • Posted on 12/2/2010 at 7:13 PM Author
    We are a very small start up company. I am a marketing department of one and just started with the company a few months ago. Up until now there hasn't been anyone doing any marketing at all - so the sales team has had to rely on doing it themselves.

    I've done the Google search and looked at the Ask.com answers. Doesn't help me. I was hoping someone out there has an already written, legal reviewed policy that I can use.

    I don't doubt that the sales team will ignore it. I'm even betting that they will. I want something that I can use to defend against any complaints we may get from an ISP....
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 12/3/2010 at 11:25 AM Member
    Dear Stephanie,

    It might—just might—be wise to slow down, take a
    deep lungful of air, and relax. You sound overwhelmed and under prepared.

    Might the thing to focus on be creating buy-in on the part of your sales team?

    Statements along the lines of "I don't doubt that the sales team will ignore it. I'm even betting that they will." might not serve you well.

    Were I on your sales team I'd be pretty riled by this outright and public display of a lack of trust on the part
    of my marketing person.

    Your sales team are on your side, but from the tone of your response above, might you be painting them as the idiotic enemy?

    As a representative of a very small start up company and area marketing department of one that just started with the company a few months ago NOW is the ideal time to build relationships WITHIN the company (CYA and all that) so that the whole team can serve clients and customers to the highest possible levels.

    So, from the link I supplied the other day, I've picked the following result that might offer the answer (or an answer) to your question.

    As a final document, this isn't perfect, and your will need to be adjusted to suite your needs. But it's a start, AND, it's a document you can present to your sales team and that you can then reword TOGETHER so that everyone has ownership of it.

    NOTE and DISCLAIMER: The example below is provided for illustration and example purposes ONLY.

    I have no affiliation or connection with the company https://www.emailreplies.com, nor am I a lawyer.

    Any use on your part of the following example is at your own risk and at the risk of your corporate officers and representatives.

    You are therefore STRONGLY ADVISED to seek professional legal opinion of any and all documents that you ask (or that you require) paid or volunteer staff (or representatives) of your company to sign as part of any terms and or conditions of their employment and representation of (or with) your company and its agents, staff, share holders, vendors, or other official representatives.

    EXAMPLE FORM

    https://www.emailreplies.com/Email_policy.html

    I hope this helps.

    Gary Bloomer
    The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
    Wilmington, DE, USA

  • Posted by Neil on 12/3/2010 at 8:40 PM Accepted
    Stephanie, many companies sign up with an Email Service Provider (ESP) that they use to do their email marketing. They generally have a marketing department or individual that does the email marketing, whereas salespeople rarely send to groups of people. The salespeople tend to correspond with prospects but don't send out marketing emails.

    So start out with signing up with a small account at an ESP and start the process of building a permission-based subscriber base. Start up an email newsletter that will be of value to your recipients. Think this through, of course, because you want to make sure you are offering value or your subscribers will unsubscribe and you then have lost them.
  • Posted by arthursc on 12/4/2010 at 9:41 AM Accepted
    Stephanie, I want to reinforce Michael's comments.

    Even in larger decentralized companies I've worked at, with effective marketing departments, sales often think they can improve their wallets by sending out their own efforts, often regardless of more structured campaigns. Sometimes the sales efforts are to their own clients, advising of upcoming opps, etc.

    But generally, whether these efforts are CAN-SPAM compliant or not (and often, not--until I found out) they are generally poorly crafted and do not enhance the rep of the company or increase sales. Sales teams are often unaware that there any such things as best practices, effective and proven tactics, let alone legal issues.

    So even tho you're a start-up, your problem is not unique.

    There's good sample policies and disclaimers offered by our colleagues, but I write this to suggest that even when your sales people comply, be sure to vet and guide their efforts for all the metrics we emailers use, like engagement, value, relevancy, and good writing, and all the best practices that lift response.
  • Posted by johnwhitepaper on 12/6/2010 at 7:13 PM Accepted
    Echoing Neil.

    ESPs like Constant Contact, MailChimp, cvite and zillions of others take a lot of the risk out this process. When you have opt-in or maybe double opt-in from recipients, you're in the clear relative to CAN-SPAM. And, they are much better-looking e-mail pieces with link tracking, autoresponders, and several other features.

    As Marketing, you walk in and say, "I've been looking at our outbound marketing, and I think we can go upscale by using an ESP. It's safer for our reputation as a company, and we can pack far more features into each message."

    You become the hero, the company doesn't have to worry about spamming, and Sales sees you really want to help them.

    John
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