Email blasts, done correctly and ethically, can be a very effective way to promote your company. It still amazes me how many people still do not understand email laws and do not adhere to them. I think the attitude from customers towards paying for email blasts can be negative, as a lot of customers think of email as free to send and don’t realize that there are specific rules to follow in order for their email not to be considered spam. The following outlines these guidelines.
The CAN-SPAM Act bill permits e-mail marketers to send unsolicited commercial e-mail as long as it adheres to 3 basic types of compliance defined in the CAN-SPAM Act: unsubscribe, content and sending behavior compliance:
Unsubscribe compliance
- A visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism is present in all emails.
- Consumer opt-out requests are honored within 10 days.
- Opt-out lists also known as suppression lists are only used for compliance purposes.
Content compliance
- Accurate from lines (including “friendly froms”)
- Relevant subject lines (relative to offer in body content and not deceptive)
- A legitimate physical address of the publisher and/or advertiser is present.
- A label is present if the content is adult.
Sending behavior compliance
- A message cannot be sent through an open relay
- A message cannot be sent to a harvested email address
- A message cannot contain a false header
Once again email blasts are a powerful way to keep clients informed about information pertaining to your business. If you have lots of events going on such as the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, weekly emails (or more) are effective. If you just want to keep in front of customers with interesting information and ensure they do not forget about you I suggest you hire a professional company to graphic design and advise on correct content to make you quarterly newsletter as effective as possible.
Once again thanks for listening.
