Are you allowed to send someone a personal letter…

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… if they haven’t subscribed to receive emails?

For background, we recently bought a franchise with a contact base of 1,230 clients. We are discovering all sorts of things after buying the franchise, such as the fact that the last franchisee gave all his clients to other franchisees out of the territory when he left. We were told at the sales meeting that you are not allowed to service clients in other franchisees’ territory, however it seems “it is a bit of a grey area” 🙄.

I want to send all of our contacts a personal letter introducing us as the new franchisees with a leaflet and some marketing material.

The thing is, am I allowed? The last owner of the franchise did not sign anyone up for EDM, so I’m unsure if we’re allowed.

Please no criticism: my DH gave up a decades-long management career to do this. We have taken out a massive loan to pay for the franchise. We thought we had done our due diligence, but it seems that there were a few things that were hidden from us.

Thanks.

Anyone? Thanks.

Individual customers, no absolutely not, and you can be fined for unsolicited contact.

That's not strictly true. There is something known as the 'soft opt-in' which allows you to send marketing material to someone who has bought similar goods and services from you before. You can find more information on the ICO's website here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/advice-for-small-organisations/frequently-asked-questions/marketing/#:~:text='The%20soft%20opt%2Din',on%20the%20soft%20opt%2Din.

Of course, if they have explicitly said they don't want to receive marketing emails from you then you must respect that.

If I were you I would call the ICO helpline to get their view on it. There may be some complications caused by the nature of your business purchase - for example, if the ICO consider that you don't have the right to contact customers of the former franchisee (assuming you bought a business and not a company). But the ICO should be able to guide you.

Thanks @chickpea1982. I want to send them a letter through the post rather than an email. Does that make any difference, do you think?

Yes it does. Emails and post are subject to different rules. The ICO says that you can send letters by post without requiring consent (which you would require for email communications if the soft opt-in was not available). See here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/advice-for-small-organisations/frequently-asked-questions/marketing/#:~:text=If%20you're%20sending%20direct,re%20sending%20the%20marketing%20to.

It's also worth saying that, from a practical perspective, while it is possible that the ICO could fine you for breaching marketing rules, this is not the kind of thing they want to prosecute. They have limited resources, and want to concentrate those on people blatantly flaunting the law, not carrying out legitimate marketing in relation to existing customers of a business as you are proposing. That's not to say they couldn't prosecute if you do something wrong, but just a common sense comment that what you are proposing seems low risk to me.

Thank you @chickpea1982, really appreciate your response.

The ICO are very good at responding to enquiries. Check with them first if you don't want to be slapped with a massive fine