If best practice for email marketing in the broadest sense can be represented as a pyramid, I would argue that the base of the pyramid is legal compliance. This means adherence to the prevalent legal framework, specifically in the UK, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 in conjunction with adherence to the tenants of the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998.

Moving up a level we find voluntary industry guidelines like the DM Code of Practice, which all DMA members are bound to as part of their membership. Further and above this the DMA's own Best Practice Guidelines, which the Email Marketing Council has written several iterations of.

There are however benefits to exceeding legal and industry best practice and reaching further toward the pinnacle of the pyramid. Is it difficult to exceed these standards? Actually, no it’s not. Sometimes the benefits of exceeding stated best practice may seem counter-intuitive, for example the smaller lists that can result from making confirmed opt-in standard practice when the legal framework is less restrictive. However the benefits are frequently greater and can actually increase return on investment.

Quite simply put, email is very different from direct mail in terms of postal operators make money from delivering the mail to the recipient, which is far from the case in terms of email, where the ISP’s are the guardians of their user’s inboxes. Exceeding compliance shouldn’t be about avoiding clashes with the regulator, or in the case of the DMA the self-regulatory framework. Marketers should implement best practice in order to increase our response rates.  And the ISPs don’t care whether or not we are in legal or industry compliance.  They just want their customers to be happy and free of spam.  This means that the ISP community has more control over the standards than the lawmakers or industry advocates.

As ISP’s control the relationship with their user and seek to keep out as much unwanted email as possible it is those marketers that seek to improve their own policies and practices and push their own best practice that will be rewarded for their efforts in terms of higher response.
Although I haven’t seen the results of the DMA’s 2009 Annual Client survey, which will be released in coming months, I predict that deliverability will remain a key point of pain for many UK marketers and whilst this issue is far from simple there are many areas within full control of the marketer, their supplier and how much they challenge the perceived definition of best practice, for those that do I’d argue the rewards are there for the taking. 

Richard Gibson
Channel Relationship Manager
Return Path