Email outreach is an effective tool for finding clients and partners, but it is important to consider legal restrictions.
In Russia, mass mailing is regulated by several laws at once, and their violation can lead to fines or domain blocking.
Let’s look at how to ensure that your small business email list campaign remains within the legal framework.
What does the Law on Advertising say?
Federal Law No. 38-FZ “On Advertising” prohibits the sending of advertising letters without the consent of the recipient.
However, email outreach is not subject to it if the following conditions are met:
- A short personalized letter – it is addressed to a specific person, without links, buttons, images or advertising calls.
- A clear question instead of a sale – the message is written on behalf of a real person and is in the nature of business correspondence, not an advertising offer.
- Limited number of letters – no more than 50 letters are sent per day from one email account, which corresponds to normal manual business correspondence.
- A chain of letters with logic – if the first contact does not produce results, 3-5 letters are sent with a reminder or clarification, but without putting pressure on the addressee.
If the email does not contain any obvious advertising, discount offers or intrusive calls to purchase, it is not categorized as a promotional mailing.
How to avoid violations of the law “On personal data”
Federal Law No. 152-FZ “On Personal Data” regulates the processing of information about individuals.
In order not to violate it, it is important to follow several rules:
- Use corporate email addresses (for example, [email protected]), not personal ones.
- Do not include personal information about a person’s private life in the content of emails . This game, developed for mobile .
- Get contacts from open sources – official websites, LinkedIn profiles and professional databases.
Checklist for secure email outreach
- Personalize your letter – address the person by name and take into account their field of activity.
- Write clearly and concisely – state the purpose of the letter in a few sentences.
- Offer value, don’t sell – talk about potential collaboration, not discounts and benefits.
- Work with a verified database – again, contacts should be collected from open sources.
- Monitor the frequency of sending – no more than 50 letters per day from one email account.
Let us clarify once again: if the letters look like ordinary business correspondence, and not like advertising, then they do not violate the law.
Insights and non-obvious moments when using email outreach: how to increase the effectiveness of mailings
Even if your campaign is set up perfectly, small details can make a big difference in how well it performs.
Let’s look at factors that are often overlooked.
The time of sending emails directly affects their open rate.
As we and our Clients have seen, the india number list best days and times for sending are weekdays from 8:00 to 11:00 and from 13:00 to 16:00 local time of the recipient. At this time, people actively check their mail.
Monday and Friday are not always the best choices. On Monday, your inbox is full of emails that have accumulated over the weekend, and on Friday, your attention is already focused on the weekend.
Weekends and holidays rarely provide a high open rate, especially in the B2B segment.
It is worth testing different timings, analyzing the results and adjusting the strategy.
Who sends the email can affect the recipient’s trust and likelihood of a response.
If the letter comes from a top manager (CEO, founder, managing partner), it attracts more attention, but in mass mailings this approach is difficult to scale.
Heads of departments (development director, marketing director, head of sales) are the best option, as they are involved in business development and can conduct business correspondence.
Managers and specialists can be senders in cases where it is important to emphasize expertise in a specific area, but in negotiations with decision makers, their letters may be perceived as weaker.
If the strategy involves several stages of interaction, you can involve different senders at different stages of communication.
Recommendations for the design of the sender profile
- Use a corporate domain instead of public services (Gmail, Yandex).
- Complete your email profile: add your name, photo, and signature with your position and contacts.
- Make sure the sender’s email address matches the name in the signature. For example, if the email says Alexander Petrov, business developer, the email should be formatted as [email protected], not [email protected]. This will increase trust and reduce the likelihood of being sent to spam.
- Save your contacts and remember the name you used when you introduced yourself – this will come in handy if someone calls you.