Sending Newsletters in a Legally Secure Manner: What Matters Most

1. If we had to give you a tip about your legally secure newsletter, it would be: always observe the
2. By using
3. Newsletter, die beiden Seiten Freude machen

The newsletter is still a popular marketing tool today that you can use to get in touch with your interested parties. By targeted use of emails and content that provides added value for your customers, you can increase your sales and enhance customer loyalty. Email marketing is cost-effective and efficient.

To ensure that everything runs correctly, you must take into account a few legal requirementsbefore sending your newsletter. You can find a large part of this information in the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. We have summarised all the requirements that you have to implement in order to send your newsletter in a legally secure manner and also show you how to distribute your content to your customers' inboxes using a step-by-step guide.How to send your newsletter in a legally secure manner

If we had to give you a tip about your legally secure newsletter, it would be: always observe the

GDPR. But what exactly does that mean? The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, regulates the handling of personal data on the Internet and has been in effect since 2018 in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It covers the collection, processing and exchange of data. Those who violate the provisions of the GDPR are liable to prosecution - in the worst case, fines of up to 4 percent of your annual turnover can be imposed. To prevent this from happening to you, we have summarised all important GDPR rules for you so that you always send your newsletters in a legally secure manner.Build your form in a legally compliant manner:

• The legally secure dispatch of your newsletter starts with your registration form. There are a few things to consider here. You can query all types of data from your customers during registration. The only mandatory field should be the email address, as you only need this for sending. All other entries are voluntary. You should also inform your customers about what you use the collected data for. This can be done with a short sentence like "We use your email address to send you the newsletter for XYZ Company". At the same time, you should mention how often you send emails and which software is used for delivery.Use a clear sender:

• In your newsletter registration form, you should clearly show who the sender of the emails is. The name of your company is enough. If you want, you can also include the logo. The main thing is that your customers can clearly assign the sender address.Send newsletters only after consent:

• Since sending a newsletter is considered advertising communication, you are only allowed to send it after explicit consent has been given by your customers. Otherwise, you violate § 7 Abs. 2 Nr. 3 of the Act against Unfair Competition (UWG). In addition, your subscribers must actively and voluntarily decide to receive it.Include your imprint:

• As your newsletter is a separate medium in the sense of the Telemedia Act, the imprint requirement also applies to it. It's best to integrate it directly into your newsletter. It must contain your first name and surname, the legal form of your company as well as its address and trade register details and should be identical to the imprint on your website.Link to your privacy policy:

• Your subscribers must agree to your privacy policy when registering. You should therefore make this transparently available to them at all times. Link it in the footer of every newsletter and on your website.Always allow unsubscription:

• Anyone who has once registered must stay - wrong! You have to give your customers the option to unsubscribe from your newsletter at any time. You can mention this in the registration form for your newsletter, so that your customers know that you send your emails in a legally secure manner.Use Double-Opt-In:

• The principle with consent to receiving the newsletter is "double is better". With the Double Opt-In, your subscribers receive an email after registration via your registration form. In this, they must click a link and thereby confirm that they really want to receive your messages.Ensure proof of granted consents:

• In case of disputes, if customers receive your newsletter, you need to prove they have actively registered for it. This burden of proof results from § 7 UWG and Art. 7 Abs. 1 DSGVO. The double opt-in procedure is the best way for you to document the consent.Take note of usage rights:

• If you use images in your newsletter to enhance it, you must legally acquire these usage rights. Only if you have paid a corresponding license fee, are you allowed to use the images in a legally secure manner.Provide correct prices:

• If you advertise products or services in your newsletters, you must indicate the correct prices in accordance with the Price Indication Regulation and show if additional delivery and shipping costs can be incurred. It must also be clear to your customers whether the specified price includes VAT.Sign a contract for processing orders:

• If you should outsource services to external service providers, you must conclude a contract for processing orders with them, as your partners may use tracking services and customer data may be passed on to third parties.When choosing your email marketing software, you should also make sure that the

company is based in Europe, as the same laws apply there. This also includes the GDPR.An exception to the requirement to consent to receiving the newsletter exists if the conditions of § 7 Abs. 3 UWG are met. This is the case if customers have given you their email address in context of a purchase, if you are already using their address for similar advertising purposes, they have not objected to the use and you have pointed out when collecting the email address that the use can be objected to at any time.

Sending your newsletter in legally secure manner in these steps

By using

GetResponse as an example, we will now show you how to design your newsletters appealingly and securely for your target group. The company is based in Europe and places the utmost importance on the security of your customer data.You start creating your newsletter in an email template of your choice or simply design it yourself. To prepare your newsletter in a legally secure manner, you must

offer your subscribers the option to unsubscribe from receiving your emails with every email. For this purpose, link in the footer of your template a note in the form of "unsubscribe from this newsletter" as well as to your privacy policy and your imprint. This shows your customers that you deal responsibly and respectfully with their data and wishes and have no concerns about transparently communicating your guidelines. This, in turn, creates trust and can have a positive effect on your customer loyalty.You should create your imprint according to this pattern:

IMPRINT

Maxi Musterhaft

Old Musterstr. 28b

12345 Velbert

Telephone: +49 (0) 1234 5678

Email: info@mustergueltig.de

VAT IdNr: DE123456789

If a customer should

unsubsribe from your mailing list, it is important that they no longer receive any further emails from you, as they would not feel taken seriously and would consider your company as untrustworthy. GetResponse ensures through consistent list hygiene that subscribers who have unsubscribed from receiving your newsletter also no longer receive mailings from you. As a result, the software minimises the risk of your mails being marked as spam. This is important because this negative flagging would negatively affect your newsletter's delivery rate over time. In the tab List hygiene, you can see which recipient has adjusted their newsletter settings or unsubscribed completely.Next, you should also bring your attention to

registering for your newsletter. To send your customers mails with your content, they must significantly register for it. By using the Double Opt-In procedure for your newsletters, you increase the legal security of your newsletter dispatch. This means that your subscribers have to confirm their registration again by clicking on a link. The use of Double-Opt In is not legally required, but it shows that you act conscientiously and you value that your customers really want to receive your news. To do this, you simply have to click on the button "Require additional confirmations" in your list settings.If you link to a landing page in a newsletter, where you offer a download for example or announce a special offer, you should ensure that you link your

imprint, privacy policy as well as your terms and conditions in the footer of the landing pages. So your customers can view them even if they are not on your normal website. You can easily create the links for this in the GetResponse editor and adjust them at any time if needed.You've likely heard of the next tip for the legally secure dispatch of newsletters: The

note on cookies. More precisely, you should point out your cookie policy on your website. This includes the purpose for which you save cookies, such as collecting information for advertising purposes. You also provide the duration of the cookies, which extend over a session, two days or three weeks. In addition, your policy must indicate a possible access by third parties to the set cookies, for example your partners in the advertising network. You can quickly and easily create and activate a legally secure cookie banner in the GetResponse editor.When your customers sign up to receive your newsletters, they must grant you a

GDPR consent. So you don't have to write this down each time, you can create your consent texts once, save them and then always add them to your registration forms.You could formulate an extensive

confirmation mail like this:"Dear user,","At our page http://www.example.com we have just (date, time) received an order for our newsletter with your email address entered. If you wish to receive information around the subject of email marketing from X GmbH on a weekly basis and have ordered our newsletter for this purpose, please confirm your order by clicking the link below. Only then you will be included in our newsletter distribution list. You can unsubscribe from our newsletter at any time by sending an email to unsubscribe@example.com or clicking the unsubscribe link included in every newsletter. You can find further information on the processing of personal data by us HERE [link to privacy policy]. Please confirm your newsletter subscription by clicking on the following link: http://www.example.com/confirmation link

If the mentioned newsletter order was not placed by you, we ask you to ignore this email."

If you want to use a

personalization

in your newsletters, you also need to obtain the consent of your customers for this. For this you can use this sample text as a template and adapt it to your company:

"I consent to the receipt of a, personalised according to my interests, weekly newsletters from X GmbH by email, informing me about their current offers in the fashion sector. For personalisation, my clicks on newsletter links and orders are considered. I can revoke this consent at any time. I can find more information about data processing by X GmbH HERE [LINK to your privacy policy]."If your customers want to unsubscribe from your newsletter, you can send them an Opt-Out link

, to ensure they have not cancelled by mistake. Please note that the cancellation does not necessarily have to be confirmed by an email. It is completely sufficient if the confirmation by your subscribers occurs in the browser window. However, if you decide to do so, this email must not contain any form of advertising as you were previously denied consent for this. Instead, you can use the following text for an Opt-Out email:

"You receive this newsletter due to your consent given for this. If you do not wish to receive our newsletter in the future, please click HERE."Newsletters that bring joy to both sidesEven though compliance with data protection regulations may seem like an insurmountable hurdle at first, you can implement them in no time with the right email marketing software. It helps you to consider all important points for your email marketing, so you can concentrate on the content of your mails and create real added values for your customers. This way, both sides benefit from well-prepared and legally secure emails and your customers will certainly be enthusiastic about your offers in no time.

„Sie erhalten diesen Newsletter aufgrund ihrer hierzu erteilten Einwilligung. Wenn Sie unseren Newsletter in Zukunft nicht mehr erhalten möchten, klicken Sie bitte HIER.“

Newsletter, die beiden Seiten Freude machen

Auch wenn die Beachtung von datenschutzrechtlichen Vorgaben erst einmal wie eine unüberwindbare Hürde erscheinen mögen, so kannst du sie mit der richtigen E-Mail-Marketing-Software im Handumdrehen umsetzen. Sie unterstützt dich dabei, alle wichtigen Punkte für dein E-Mail-Marketing zu bedenken, sodass du dich auf den Content deiner Mails konzentrieren und echte Mehrwerte für deine Kund*innen schaffen kannst. So profitieren beide Seiten von gut aufbereiteten und rechtssicheren E-Mails und deine Kund*innen werden sich sicherlich schnell von deinen Angeboten begeistern lassen.