Walking the Data Strategy Walk: Our First Newsletter Test

As both a data strategy lawyer and a communications expert for the last decade, we have both seen our fair share of data horror stories. But starting our own company? That’s a whole new level of challenge. No longer were we just advising, we were walking the walk.

The first big test? Our newsletter, The Fri-Up, which went out this Friday. 

In the spirit of full transparency, here is the full run down: 

1. Commercially: Why a Newsletter?

We know data governance and strategy aren’t always the hottest topics in an inbox. But we think they should be— put simply, the way businesses collect, use, and protect data is becoming mission-critical. 

At Friday Initiatives, we’ve spent the last year advising clients that first-party data is king—so it was time to put our money where our mouth was. Instead of relying solely on social media or third-party platforms, we needed a direct channel to our audience—one that builds trust, engagement, and long-term value.

So, why does The Fri-Up matter for our business?

Demonstrating Our Expertise – We don’t just advise on data strategy; we actively implement it ourselves. The newsletter helps us practice what we preach while showcasing the latest insights, trends, and best practices.

Building a First-Party Data Asset – Instead of renting audiences from LinkedIn, Google, or paid ads, The Fri-Up allows us to own and nurture relationships with people who actually want to hear from us.

Creating a Trust-Based Sales Funnel – Our goal isn’t to sell, sell, sell—it’s to make data human again and to create a market for holistic, human-focused data services. By breaking down complex topics into practical, engaging insights, we’re positioning Friday Initiatives as the go-to resource for businesses looking to unlock data value without the compliance jargon.

Long-Term ROI – We expect The Fri-Up to drive higher engagement, better client relationships, and inbound leads over time. Unlike short-term ad campaigns, this approach compounds in value—helping us stay top of mind when businesses need data strategy, governance, and AI expertise.

2. Practically: How did we curate our mailing list?

As a founder-led company, we leveraged our personal LinkedIn and Gmail contacts—people that we interacted with in the last 12 months (since launching Friday Initiatives). We also made it a habit of adding business cards from networking events straight into our CRM.  

If you came to this blog post to find out why you were on our list? Well… you received our because you’ve either engaged with us, know our founders, snooped on us on LinkedIn, attended an event, downloaded a resource, or expressed interest in what Emma, Lauren or Friday Initiatives do. If that still sounds surprising, we’re more than happy to explain (because transparency and good data practices are what we live for!) - just reach out!  And if newsletters aren’t your thing, no hard feelings—you can always unsubscribe!

That gave us a starting mailing list of over 2800+ contacts, which we then meticulously reviewed to ensure relevance, meaning:

• No family friends

• No “friends of friends”

• No one who wouldn’t care if we started a business, or we wouldn't think is keen to support us

• No one job roles completely unrelated to data 

After that, we were left with a much cleaner but smaller list of 1,226 people. Our theory, that we tell to clients (and therefore have to action ourselves) was that a smaller more engaged and interested audience is worth 10 x what a bigger less engaged audience is! 

So, how did we perform? 

• 21 unsubscribes (I'll take that as a win!)

• 26 click-throughs (not Vogue or Amazon-level, but hey, we’re just getting started)

• 72 bounced (Not great, but at least we didn’t get blocked by Gmail!

• 248 opened (more than the 200 we were aiming for!)

We did have some technical issues (see below), so our newsletter went out much later than expected. I suspect that impacted our stats as people got our email very late on a Friday in UK/EU and very early on Saturday morning in Aust/Singapore. Lets hope automation for next month can help iron out that wrinkle! 

3. Legal Considerations

   
   

With our audience spread across the UK, EU, US, Singapore, and Australia, I knew direct marketing laws would not all align, but equally - we are too small to take a jurisdictional approach.

The outcome:

• UK & EU: 

  • Business contacts? Fair game.

  • Personal emails (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.)? Required explicit consent, so we only used work emails.

  • Legal basis? Legitimate Interest under GDPR, since I personally knew my whole audience, and the risk was minimal (easy unsubscribe included!). We also made sure our newsletter focused on informative content, not marketing our services.

• Australia: 

  • Legal basis? Implied consent under the Spam Act 2003—since I’d interacted with all contacts in the past year (even if it was just a LinkedIn check-in).

  • Extra compliance step? We kept the marketing minimal, knowing it was going to an audience that did not expressly opt-in, focusing on informative content rather than a hard sell.

• US -  While the US is less strict - it's not the wild-west (contrary to popular belief the CAN-SPAM Act (2003) applies!) Luckily for us, Business emails don’t require explicit consent, but: We had a clear sender identity. We didn’t mislead the audience. We provided an easy opt-out

• Singapore - Consent is required for marketing, unless the recipient provided their contact details voluntarily, for this reason we only used those who provided us with their business cards to get in touch with. That meant that since all our contacts were from networking, LinkedIn, or professional interactions, we had a reasonable basis for reaching out. We also ensured we had a clear opt-out! 

Bottom line: We took a balanced approach to compliance —maximising relevance to our audience, avoiding the hard sell and managing our mailing list, while ensuring compliance across all our key regions.

4. Technically: Oh, the CRM fun…

I’ve handled countless CRM migrations and disputes over the years, so I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t expect this level of chaos either!

• We evaluated 25+ CRM providers

• Got some outrageous quotes

• Trialed 6+ platforms

  
  

We finally picked an open-source provider (who for legal reasons, shall remain nameless) but just when we were about to click go, we hit a data migration nightmare, and were told it would cost $3,000+ in training fees to fix it.

PIVOT TIME 

So, we pivoted to a cheaper, temporary solution—not our long-term partner but good enough for now. The downside? Messy delivery and a not-so-happy team on launch day. 

A huge thank you to the founders of Clay, Dedupe.ly and Surfe for helping us navigate domain and migration challenges! If you haven't tried their services - you are missing out. 

First big test: (Messy but done!)

Next up: Automating, refining and making sure we keep walking the walk.