A strong stance against spam

Since our inception and before any legislation had been introduced in the matter, Assertiv has played a proactive role in a bid to secure widespread acceptance of the best practices of permission based email marketing.

At Assertiv we believe that consensual, permission based email marketing is a highly effective tool and we take all aspects of consent and protection of personal data very seriously.

Thanks to our membership of the major relevant trade bodies worldwide, Assertiv has been able to impart its view of the crucial difference between permission based email and unsolicited marketing (Spam). We have succeeded in making the national and European powers aware of this distinction through intense lobbying, education and evangelisation

It should be noted that Assertiv does not allow the use of its technology solutions for unsolicited mass emailing operations (Spam) and only works with companies that abide by the principles of 'permission marketing', by the laws governing the protection of people's privacy and by the rules governing authorised messaging.

Email marketing best practices - some recommendations from Assertiv

What statements should one include in an email message?

Each of your email messages should contain a link enabling the recipients to unsubscribe or update their profile. Assertiv ePost automates the processing of list subscription, profile updates and unsubscribe requests and can send out a personalised acknowledgement message. In order to strengthen the trust between you and your existing or prospective clients and thus achieve better results, we recommend that you clearly mention the name of your company and include the relevant postal address and telephone number in your messages.

What details should one collect from prospects and clients who register for a newsletter?

Assertiv can build you webforms to learn people's interests and preferences during the registration process or following an email questionnaire. The rule of thumb is that the more profile information you request -the less names you gather but the higher the quality of your list. The most successful strategy is to ask for minimal information at sign up and subsequently work on forming a bond of trust that will enable you to collect more information about your prospective client over time. The more you refine your knowledge of your clients, the greater the impact of your campaigns -through targeting and personalisation.

How can one find reliable email address lists that are 'opt-in' guaranteed?

Assertiv does not supply email address lists for rental or purchasing but provides tools and services for managing email campaigns to opt-in lists. There is no "short-cut" for building a strong house list file for your email campaigns. We recommend that you focus initially on your own database of existing and prospective clients and implement an information gathering operation to enhance the lists that you possess. To grow your list, you can initiate or optimise an email address collection operation at all your customer points of contact (web site, point-of-sale, invoices, call centres etc.). in order to boost your house file, Assertiv can independently recommend the best opt-in email list brokers in your field.

European legislation and its effects in the UK