To comply with existing and forthcoming Data Protection Legislation the WBU needs members to optin to receive email. We would like to provide you with content relative to the game of Bridge. We do not sell or share our email lists with others and the data is held on a secure server. The WBU would appreciate your new registration as we cannot continue to use our existing list after the General Data Protection Regulation, has been introduced. Its purpose is to give individuals more protection and a greater say in how their personal information is used. The effect of this is that we, in common with all other organisations, are likely to have to contact you to ask you to give us permission to use in specific ways the information we hold about you – we will no longer be able to simply rely on you telling us if you don’t want us to use it.
This is a rather dry subject and I’m sure many of our members will be inclined just to ignore it, but please don’t: if we contact you about this, either by email or post, do please answer fully, otherwise you may find that we are no longer able to contact you even if it’s necessary to provide you with the services you expect as a member. You have the facility to optout of mailings at any time, but the WBU hope that you will not consider such action without contacting us over any concerns that you might have.
The WBU will be using MailChimp for mass mailings.
What is MailChimp?
MailChimp is a web-based email marketing service. It helps us design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services we already use, and track the results.
Why do we need a special tool for email marketing?
Technically, we can send a newsletter or announcements about your upcoming events via our standard email. Email providers like Gmail, Hotmail, and Outlook, however, are designed for one person to send one email to just a couple people at once–not a whole list of fans. That’s a different kind of task achieved more efficiently, effectively, and professionally with a different tool. Here are a few reasons why an email marketing service like MailChimp is a better tool for this kind of task:
Approved bulk mailer. Most email services and Internet service providers (ISP) limit the number of emails you can send at one time. This is to prevent spamming. With a tool like MailChimp, we can send an email to an unlimited number of recipients at one time.
Greater deliverability. Services like MailChimp work with ISPs and corporate domains to ensure your emails are recognized as safe and approved. If there is a problem with delivery, MailChimp will attempt to re-send the email and tell you why an email might be bouncing.
Adherence to privacy laws. Bulk mailers are required by law to include an unsubscribe link in every email. MailChimp and other email marketing services include this automatically and ask recipients why they are removing themselves from your list.
Compatible with various email readers and devices. MailChimp gives our recipients the option to read our emails in fully-styled HTML or text only. They can also click a link to read the email in a web browser instead of their email. Also, did you know that over 50% of emails are now opened up on mobile devices, and this number is only growing? MailChimp also provides us with tools to see how your email campaign looks on a smart phone and other mobile devices.
Know if people are reading your emails. If you send an email through your personal email, you have no idea who opened it. Email marketing tools give you all sorts of analytics on successful deliveries and open rates so that we know our Member subscribers are listening.