How to Make Sure Your Next Email Campaign Complies with CAN-SPAM Regulations
by Carrie Hinkel on October 26th, 2007
There’s no doubt that in the past decade, unsolicited emails have gotten increasingly out of control. To curb this mass of junk e-mail, Congress has enacted the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act," or CAN-SPAM Act. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on December 16, 2003 and it became effective on January 1, 2004.
Here are the key points of the CAN-SPAM Act for bulk emailers to follow:
* No deceptive subject lines
* No false or misleading headers
* Must include a clear and conspicuous way to opt out/unsubscribe out of your email list
* Must include a valid physical postal address
Not complying can subject the spammer to stiff criminal penalties of three years in prison for a first offense and five years for a subsequent offense. For a more detailed rundown of the CAN-SPAM act, you can go to the Federal Trade Commissions website and learn more: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm
When putting together an email campaign for your company, you should take the above CAN-SPAM points into consideration as well as other customer-comforting additions such as:
Don’t Share Customer Email Addresses – It’s bad business practice to sell or give a customer’s email address to a third party. Some companies are in the practice of selling emails to list companies or trading their own list with another company’s. It’s unfair to your customers and if they trace the source of their new flow of emails, they will undoubtedly never consider doing business with your company.
Confirm Every Subscription -The best way to ensure that only interested parties are receiving your emails is to have a double confirmation (or "double opt-in"). With this method, a company sends an email to new subscribers requiring them to click on a confirmation link, at which time the new email address is added to the list. Subscribers who do not confirm their email addresses are not added to the list and will not receive further communications from you.
Avoid the "Negative Opt-In" – This is when a company pre-checks a box that automatically has a person agreeing to receive emails in the future. A company’s opt-in subscription box should be clearly visible and un-checked, making sure that subscribing to your list is an intentional act.
Identify Yourself Clearly In Every Message – To be completely clear to your subscribers, your company name should appear in the both the sender and subject line of every email you send out.
For email campaigns, if your end goal is to eventually sell something to your subscribers, then it’s best to make them feel comfortable and trusting of your company. Take a look at how some large and reputable companies (like Microsoft, Apple or Amazon) structure their emails and learn from their techniques. There are billions of scam emails being sent out each and every day, it makes good business sense to distance yourself from these illegitimate con artists as much as possible. A proper email campaign should be beneficial to your customers and something they actually want to open and read.
Complying with the CAN-SPAM act is simple, but making your campaign really effective means going a few steps further and making your emails a win-win for both you and your subscribers.
And the answers to kommety be?
Daniela
November 5th, 2008
at 11:35 pm