Answer: When dealing with employees of corporates, ie limited companies, LLPs, partnerships in Scotland and government departments, the rules for telephone, direct mail, email or texting are the same – they need to OPT-OUT if they don’t want to hear from you, i.e. the default is that they’ve opted in. But when you make contact with them, you must provide the means for that individual to easily unsubscribe from future communications and you must make it clear who you are business-wise.
When dealing with sole traders or partnerships, the general position for email and text is that you will need opt-in consent before you can communicate (i.e. they must have agreed at some point beforehand to receive your communications, i.e. by ticking on your website or through a response card); but for telephone and direct mail, you don’t need an opt-in first, but you do need to offer the ability to opt-out from future communications.
For any B2B marketing communications, regardless of channel, the content must be about products and/or services that are relevant to the recipients’ job roles. This is why Alert’s drill-down facility on key contacts is so important for future communications because we can provide details about the individuals with specific job titles that exactly match your products and services.