The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/43128
Best Practices When Emailing • When using HTML email, create templates that are "clean." Converting a Word document into HTML results in a ton of extraneous code. Using an internal HTML editor provided by your emailing solution can help avoid this. What Individual Recipients Consider Spam The two major determinations that an individual generally uses to identify spam are volume and relevance. If a contact is receiving a "save the date" message every week for an event that is six months away, that would probably be considered spam. If two dozen messages are sent to a single recipient over the course of a month, even if those messages are on different topics, those would also likely be considered spam. Likewise, when a client in the healthcare business receives messages concerning semiconductors, these are likely to be thought of as spam. So how can you avoid this? • Don't email too frequently. For an event, an initial invitation and a single reminder is probably sufficient. • Target your mailings. Develop a process to provide your recipients with a means to identify the topics they are interested in. Work with your attorneys to identify contacts with probable interest in a topic, practice or industry. A contact that is subscribed to more than two or three of your lists might be oversubscribed from a volume standpoint. • Process opt-outs promptly. CAN-SPAM allows 10 business days, but don't wait that long. Confirm back to the contact that their unsubscribe request has been honored. • Maintain a list of contacts that have opted out of your mailings, and use this list to filter each of your distributions. • Establish a process to identify deceased and retired contacts to ensure that these aren't included in your distributions. Avoiding Spam = Happier Clients Spamming is both objective and subjective, and it is the legal marketer's responsibility to be aware of the various regulations and nuances. The legal requirements are straightforward, and processes can be set in place to comply with these going forward. Spam filtering and anti-spam providers have a basis in metrics, but the metrics can change and must be monitored. Subjective spamming, as viewed by the individual, is best avoided by limiting the volume of messages sent to any single contact and by not using a shotgun approach to determine who should receive a specific communication. ILTA 76 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer • Keep the body text as short as is practicable. For newsletters and client alerts, the best practice is to provide an overview or summary with a link to the full text somewhere on your website. • Be aware of red-flag words such as "free" and hyperlinks to words such as "click here." • Don't use embedded graphics. Instead, use a linked image. • Process opt-ins and opt-outs promptly. • Review your mailing lists on a scheduled basis, assessing for stale contacts and removing them from the lists. • Work with your attorneys to identify contacts with probable interest in your firm's practices and industry focus areas. John Veldkamp is Business Development Systems Manager for Latham and Watkins LLP, a position he has held for more than seven years. John joined Latham to engineer and manage their CRM rollout, visiting 20 offices over a period of 18 months. He has more than 11 years of legal marketing experience, is a steering committee member of the ILTA Professional Services Peer Group and a member of LexisNexis InterAction's Client Advisory Board. He can be reached at john.veldkamp@lw.com. Doug Ladendorf has been at Mayer Brown for the last four years providing oversight for the Business Development & Marketing department's technology initiatives. He led the firm's global rollout of InterAction and directed the implementation of the Tikit eMarketing Suite, unifying functionality and branding the firm's global email program. Other initiatives in which Doug is involved include social networking, webinar production, websites, video for the Web and data organization. He can be reached at dladendorf@mayerbrown.com. Bill Vannerson is the Database Marketing Manager with the national law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, residing in the Chicago office. Bill has been with Foley for more than six years and is responsible for developing the firm's CRM strategy, e-communication strategy, list management, market research, competitive analysis, application integration, end user training and support, and system maintenance. He can be reached at wvannerson@foley.com. MORE RESOURCES ONLINE watch the recorded webinar online at www.iltanet.org under the recordings tab