POPIA Q&A: Marketing to Certain People Without Extra Consent

When closing a lead, can we continue to market to them? These are prospects that have come to us, but have not made a purchase, or we couldn’t contact them at the time. We typically close the lead off our system after six weeks but continue to market to them after this.

It depends how they ended up on the list. If you told them you’d be marketing to them, if the products or services you’re marketing are along the same lines of what they consented to, and if you’ve continuously given them the opportunity to opt out, then you can continue marketing to them.

When a prospect becomes a lead (e.g.: they have responded to us), can we continue to market to them if we’ve made the T&Cs and privacy policy available to them?

This depends on if you told them you’d be marketing to them, if the products or services you’re marketing are along the same lines of what they consented to, and if you’ve continuously given them the opportunity to opt out.

We’ve been seeing our customer face-to-face – do we need consent to market to them? They know who we are, but we’ve never digitally marketed to them before, so we haven’t received official consent. Do we need to get consent now?

If you told them, in the face-to-face session, that you’d eventually use their details for direct marketing, got them to sign for this so there was a record (or you kept a recording of a digital meeting), and gave them the opportunity to opt out, then no. If you didn’t do this in your face-to-face sessions, then yes, you will need consent.

What about lead nurturing, like when a prospective client contacts you for more information about your products and services and, during the discussion phase, you send them more information about your products / services in the form of testimonials / case studies, etc. – can you send these types of messages?

If you’ve been upfront that you’ll be sending these types of messages and they agree, then that is considered consent. You can nurture leads in this way.

Remember the rule of thumb: would this person be surprised to receive this information?

If you communicate to a membership base regarding an element of their membership, i.e. service-related communication, must these communications have an opt out?

No, if it’s a service message you don’t need an opt-out as you want to be able to contact them about their services. Just make sure you don’t mix your service messages with direct marketing.

Can we email market to people who have enquired on a contact from on our website?

If they know that this is what you’ll be using their information for, they explicitly opt in for it, and you continuously give them the opportunity to opt out.

On ecommerce websites, users can add products to their carts, but some don’t complete the checkout process. Can we send abandoned-cart emails reminding them to check out?

Elizabeth from Novation Consulting would argue that this is a service message and not direct marketing, in which case consent would not be required. Until POPIA is in effect, one can’t be certain, but for now, this is her position.