Laws re Email Marketing - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

morgwick · Senior Member

Laws re Email Marketing

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Gill,

I'm pretty sure that there is nothing illegal about this. If you go down this path at least make sure that you use the name of the person that you are writing to in the message. Also ensure that there is no mention of any other business that you are contacting in the message.

Keep the contents professional, don't be disparaging of other member practices or make unfounded claims about the superiority of one''s own services.

The message itself probably won't do much but use it as you would with credit control, send the message then three days later make contact and follow up the message rather than waiting for the clients to come to you.

You know the patter, "I sent you a message a couple of days ago and was wondering if you had had the time yet to consider the benefits that using our services could bring to your company"... Or something like that.

It might prompt them to read the message or you might get some expletives down the line. Always smile when your cold calling and you will come across more friendly on the line.

Don't chase after a refusal as that seems a bit desperate, just let them know that if ever they need a good bookkeeper you would be more than happy to pop along for an initial free consultation and then leave it at that. You might hear from them, you might not but it won't be you that's frightened them off.

Hope that this helps, good luck with the sales drive,

Talk soon,

Shaun.

Quentin Pain · Senior Member

Great advice Shaun. Gill, telephone them first. Say "I am a local bookkeeper and I would like to send you a letter or email to introduce myself". The magic word is 'introduce'. It has got through many glass ceilings for me over the years.

As Shaun so rightly says, don't push anything. But, if you get any interest at all on phoning, make sure you follow up, and be persistent. The likelyhood of someone taking up your offer is entirely dependent on whether they have a bookkeeping problem (no bookkeeper, struggling to do it themselves, fed up with their existing bookkeeper).

Last thing. If you phone and you get a no, keep their details on file and follow up a few months later saying that further to your phone call of such and such you thought you would make contact again to see if you could help them in any way.

Keeping a list is vital. Good luck :)

morgwick · Senior Member

Thanks for the replies. Wanted to make sure that it wasn't classed as spam, as not well up on the laws. There's so many does and don't these days, all I want is to introduce myself.

I would only be sending 1 email at a time, and each email would be personalised and addressed to the business in question.

I may give a go, and see what happens

Thanks

Merlion ABS · Senior Member

As far as im aware it is not illegal. You can buy business databases in .csv file format which can then be uploaded or imported to a database such as Sage ACT and these include a majority of email addresses.

What you will need to look out for is whether your ISP ie BT restrict the number of messages sent in bulk, I think BT restrict to about 50 a time so you would have to send out small batches if you are bulk emailing. You may encounter problems if doing this with Outlook.

You can buy programs or sign up to bulk emails online that are "white Listed" ie bypass the spam filters as they are approved email senders and you can send as many as you like depending on what you want to pay for.

As you state if you are only sending one email at a time, then there should be none of these issues, a quick phone call or perhaps a letter would be more beneficial to begin with.