B2B email spam laws
A refresher for on the rules around sending email (and SMS) to prospects.
New Zealand privacy and email marketing
With regard to the NZ Privacy Act 2017 and updated 2020.
Top level obligations
- Be transparent. Don’t hide anything.
- Make sure you have consent.
- Always give people the opportunity to opt-out or unsubscribe.
Deemed consent is what most B2B marketing would be using for email marketing.
[Quote from article linked above]
However, the area of ‘deemed’ consent is still an area open to interpretation in New Zealand. What was Keith’s advice on this?
“In New Zealand, if you deem your service or product is relevant to the person whose data you’ve collected (or whose contact information is publicly available), then you have permission to send them communications as long as this is covered in your Privacy Policy.” However Keith pointed out that this is actually a requirement of the UEM Act, not the Privacy Act.
BUT you first need a strong privacy policy on your business website.
Here’s a sample NZ privacy policy (and one from Australia).
USA and Canada and GDPR (Europe)
These jurisdictions have different rules – but many of the underlying principles are similar.
- https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/understanding-emails-laws-regulations/
- and this article which explains Legitimate Interest (similar to deemed consent above)
- https://www.thedigitalagencygroup.com/email-lists-after-gdpr/
- https://www.gdprregister.eu/gdpr/gdpr-b2b-marketing/
Hope that’s useful for everyone.