 |
There are a lot of misconceptions about email
marketing, when it should be used and how. Meridian
Delta is aware of this fact only too well - our job
is to represent our customers in the best possible
light.
On this page, you'll find out the real facts about
email marketing - if you have any questions, please
feel free to call us on 0800 652 6627. |
|
 |
 |
The most important thing for any direct marketing
company is the quality of its data. Before we
can sell our service to you, we need to be
absolutely clear about what we want to offer
you.
Ever since we began email marketing as a trial
service in 2002 (before its full launch in
2003), we set out to be the company that smaller
businesses come to for email marketing
campaigns. If you sell to other businesses, we
could put together a great advert for you that
got responses and send them out to the companies
most likely to buy from you.
Since the beginning, we've use publically-available
Companies House data as our primary source -
this means we can only go to limited companies
or PLCs (you'll see why that's important further
down the page).
Using sophisticated information retrieval
techniques, we use this data to ascertain
whether this company is actively and currently
trading with a web presence (this data is not
included on the Companies House information).
Once we have established that it is, we use four
different pieces of data to check the contents
of the website. If all four pieces of data are
not positively and exactly matched, the web
presence is rejected.
Approximately 18% of tests come back with four
positives - we set such high test standards
because we need to be sure of the information
we're offering as part of the bureau service.
Quick Fact - did you know that around 7% of the
four positives we get back use Hotmail, Yahoo,
etc addresses? A lot of companies do not use a @theirname.co.uk
email address, for various different reasons. We
reject all free addresses (as well as anything
other than .co.uk or .com domains) even if we
are sure that it is the company's active email
address for quality purposes.
If these four criteria are matched, our
retrieval system logs the details on our
computer. Nothing is more important than getting
accurate and reliable data.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Meridian Delta carries business adverts and messages for
other companies. All of Meridian Delta's email marketing
campaigns for over 100 UK companies a month are opt-out
- in other words, we do not ask permission of the
business recipient prior to sending your message.
Email marketing between businesses was finally
legislated on 11 December 2003, under the UK
interpretation of an EU law on privacy. It had never
been illegal. The Government decided to implement the
act in the way they did because they wanted to level
competition between smaller and larger companies.
The Government, in its interpretation of the EU law,
wants to encourage small businesses to grow, and email
marketing was seen as a powerful and affordable way for
smaller companies to get larger. The Government takes
the view that as a business does not need prior
permission to fax, mailshot or telesell another
business, the same should be so with email marketing.
The Government put in two very strict laws for email
marketing companies to follow on passing the new law,
and the vast majority of ISPs will not punish their
customers if they follow the rules. Meridian Delta makes
sure you follow these rules.
On our customers' behalves, we follow both laws (and
both of them are quite complicated) very carefully and
strictly. None of our customers have even lost their
internet services because of the work we have carried
out for them (even for the 15-or-so companies still
using the service more than 4 years on from the original
trial period) - this is the biggest fear for many new
companies.
We were one of the first companies in the UK
specialising in business-to-business email marketing.
We've got years of experience and knowledge that helps
your business grow, and we won't let you down.
We became associate members of the DMA in December 2006,
however we've been following their guidelines on
business-to-business email marketing since 2003. The
DMA's work is crucial - it encourages responsible
marketing and seeks to lobby the Government to outlaw
less desirable types of advertising. The DMA is the
bridge between the advertiser and the recipient.
The DMA's Code of Conduct states that if you send
opt-out emails to businesses, the offer must be for the
benefit of the business and not the individual receiving
it. So, for example, you can send adverts which offer
commercial mortgages and loans - you can not send
adverts offering residential mortgages and loans. We
believe that this vital distinction is crucial for the
continued effectiveness of email and we, along with all
of our competitors, will not break it. |
|
|
|
