Email News Updates being sent out just using the ‘copy’ function on your standard email.
I was amazed to hear the news on Wednesday about the NHS London HIV clinic who had emailed 780 of its patients who had been tested positive and had disclosed all the other recipients on the email, not once, but twice when an apology for the first email was sent out pretty much straight away and again to all recipients in the cc instead of the bcc. Ok so they have apologised for “human error”, but was it just that, I wonder? Whilst I don’t know the facts, here’s some thoughts:
- Did the Trust fall short in their training, and was the task given to a team member who simply didn’t know the importance of cc v bcc? Didn’t they realise the importance of sending out newsletters and understanding data protection?
- Why is any serious company sending out news updates to a list of 780 just using their email system? Not professional, not sensible, and as seen, not safe;
- When emailing this way, you cannot check as to how many people are reading the newsletter or clicking on the links. There’s no test and measure.
The Clinic now finds itself in a serious data breach and will be subject to investigation and potential fines; not to mention the trust issue they now face with their clients who will have serious misgivings about receiving further communication from them and will want assurances that ‘this will never happen again’.
Using Mail Chimp (often free depending on circulation) or Constant Contact, or perhaps a mailing service through your CRM system, will allow you safely to send emails and to see and understand the results.
For my customers I keep the stats so we can see which emails are more popular than others, which links more popular etc. Test and measure is crucial in marketing. Not an option.
If you need help crafting your news updates and identifying the best way to send them out, call or email me. . I am just updating my ‘paper’ on sending out newsletters; happy to help if I can.