Get Consent for Your Email Marketing Campaign

This post is the fifth of a five-part series on Inbound Marketing campaigns and the different pieces that go into them.

Website security is a challenge for every business, whether it’s a multi-billion-dollar company or your soloprenuership in Cary. We often write about security because it’s so easy for small business owners to overlook it. You might think hackers don’t target such “small potatoes,” but in reality, small companies are far easier to hack and thus, seem appealing to cybercriminals.

On that face of it, your website security may not appear to connect to inbound marketing campaigns. But as you gather data about customers and ask them to sign up for your newsletter, you must take into account several things.

General Data Protection Regulation - GDPR

The European Union law has a lot of restrictions regarding emails, far more than the CAN-Spam act we follow here in the U.S. Most small companies in Cary, North Carolina aren’t sending email to EU citizens, but if you are, you must adhere to the new regulations.

The thing is, you may not know if you’re sending emails to EU citizens. That one reason to clean your email lists on a regular basis, removing people each year who never open your messages. Also, most experts expect such restrictions here in the U.S. later, so many large companies are following some of the GDPR regulations ow as a way to be safe. Learn more about the GDPR and how you can follow it.

Consent

The main thing to know right now is that you need permission to email people. To get consent from now on, include a checkbox with your email signup forms that says something like, “I agree to receive email messages from you.” The box cannot be pre-checked for users; they must click it to fill it out.

Then, send out a message to current users asking them to opt-in. Your email software will help you with this process. Once you have consent, you must keep a record on file of it. Again, your email program is invaluable here and should offer options for this. (If it doesn’t, ask us for help!)

Consent Using Joomla!

Our Joomla!-based websites give you easy paths to request consent as you collect email addresses from potential customers. The tool includes a time-based privacy consent expiration and a way to inform users of any Privacy Policy changes on your site.

A Few Other Notes

• Track Team Members - Many cyber attacks come from disgruntled staff. Our websites come with action logs so you can see who has done what with your website. If something goes wrong, we can figure out why and then fix it.
• Privacy Policy - We know you probably don’t have a lawyer on retainer. But you should create a basic privacy policy and terms of use for your website and post them in the footer.
• Credit Card Numbers - If you accept credit card payments, make sure you are not hosting that information on your own servers with your website. Chances are, you are using a third-party payment processor, which should mean you’re OK. But if you’re not 100 percent sure, ask that vendor about their security.
• SSL - If you don’t already have a secure domain, get one!
• Backups - Backing up your website is another piece ignored by many. If you don’t back up your site, you will come to regret it one day. Backups are easy to put in place and cost very little.

If you’re not sure about security or consent for your website, contact us for a free consultation!