Do you have a web marketing privacy policy?

If you are serious about web marketing, you should be collecting your customers and prospects contact details. It is especially important to collect email addresses to enable smart email marketing. Ultimately, whether this will add any value to your business will largely depend on how you collect the data and what you do with it.

For me, it is critical that you treat prospect & customer data as a valuable asset but also treat it with great respect. 

In a recent research report of leading US web marketers over two thirds said that they include a privacy link on their emails. I always include privacy links on the emails I create for my clients, on all web pages & on all data capture forms. Not many people actually click the link but that's not the point. It's about sending reassuring signals to the reader that you respect their privacy and have a policy in place if they want to take a look at it.

Capturing email addresses

I always encourage my clients to capture email addresses on their websites (and offline too) usually through some form of compelling incentive such as a special download e.g. a white paper. I generally use up 3 or 4 fields in my standard data capture forms. It is important not to have to many fields as it will discourage completion which will be counter productive. I was surprised to see in recent research that over 40% of companies had 6-10 fields in their registration forms and nearly 10% had over 11 fields. 

I would not usually complete a registration form with more than 5 fields unless they made it worthwhile for me by offering something like a free iPhone or free tickets to a MotoGP event! You don't have to get their whole life history in the first form. It's best to capture data 'little and often'. But, only collect data that can reasonably be expected to help your improve your offer and marketing to prospects & customers.

It is important to comply with the UK Data Protection Act. For some of the questions you need to consider take a look at Your Legal Obligations:

on the Information Commissioner's Office website.

Don't forget to always include an unsubscribe link on all emails.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.