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What You Need to Know About the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 Are You in Compliance? You've heard talk about e-mail marketing: How e-mails can improve your relationship with customers and clients as well as increase sales of products and services. You've seen the statistics: How, according to a study by a well-known online marketing firm, 88% of consumers reported they made a purchase either online or offline as a result of receiving an e-mail. Whether you're an active e-mail marketer or you've been thinking that you'd like to give e-mail marketing a try, you've probably heard the buzz about the "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003," or the CAN-SPAM Act. It's legislation recently enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Bush that regulates the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail messages. Are you too late to make use of e-mail marketing without worrying about incurring a fine or even a jail sentence? The answer is: Not if you do it right. To begin with, the CAN-SPAM Act legislation isn't intended to prevent legitimate businesses from marketing to current customers and interested prospects. The legislation is, however, intended to crack down on the pornographic e-mails, the get-rich-quick-schemes, the cheap mortgage offers and other types of unsolicited e-mails that most of us hate to receive. The Guidelines Defined In order to send legitimate commercial e-mails, you should review and follow the guidelines set forth in the CAN-SPAM Act. Guidelines 1, 2 & 3: The Basics --E-mail Address, Physical Address, Subject Line
Guideline 4: Opt-Out/Unsubscribe Mechanism If you use another company's software to send out bulk e-mail marketing messages, check to make sure that your messages contain an unsubscribe link. Most of these programs have functionality built in that allows your users to automatically unsubscribe from your list. Additionally, it should also update your subscriber lists to avoid the chance of your sending unwanted emails to visitors who have unsubscribed. Call or e-mail your provider for clarification, if you're unsure. If you're using Interland's E-Mail Marketer, then the unsubscribe function is automatically taken care of through the link at the bottom of every marketing e-mail sent from your account. If you send commercial e-mail messages manually from your own e-mail address, you will need to provide a valid return e-mail address to which recipients can send an unsubscribe message in order to be removed from the list. Then, you will need to manually remove them from your distribution list. An important note about the opt-out requirement: The CAN-SPAM Act also states that if a subscriber chooses to opt out, you must comply with any requests to remove their address within 10 days. Furthermore, the opt-out system must remain capable of receiving opt-out or unsubscribe messages or communications for no less than 30 days after the transmission of the original message. Here's an expert tip: Some savvy marketers keep records of opt-in and opt-out requests, so that compliance can be proven, should that become necessary. Simply removing the user from the list might not be enough, especially if you buy independent lists of names in the future. You want to make sure that you don't send the same person an email again. If you're using Interland's E-mail Marketer, you have access to a complete list of everyone who has unsubscribed to your e-mail campaigns. Once an e-mail recipient has legitimately opted-out of your commercial e-mail message, it's unlawful for a business to send that person another message. (That's why it's important to have access to the names of those people who have chosen to opt-out of your e-mailings, especially if you buy bulk lists from outside sources.) Furthermore, you also are prohibited from selling or transferring the e-mail address of someone who has opted-out. Also, be aware of forms that you might have within your marketing e-mails containing an opt-in button already selected-those in which recipients are automatically signed up for a mailing unless they actively opt out of the mailing. These will not be in compliance of the CAN-SPAM Act. So, if that's the case for you, you might want to remove the automatic opt-in now and replace it with a form where no responses have been pre-selected. Guideline 5: Sexually-Oriented Commercial E-mail Guideline 6: Relationship or Transactional E-mail The six guidelines summarized above should be sufficient for most honest business to get started with an e-mail marketing campaign. The following six offenses are also set forth in the CAN-SPAM Act, but will probably not be familiar to most legitimate businesses. Hopefully, most legitimate businesses already comply with the following: Guideline 7: Falsifying Header Information Guideline 8: Falsifying E-mail Address, IP, Domain Guideline 9: Disguising Origin of E-mail Guideline 10: Hacking into Another's Computer Guideline 11: Using Protected Computers Guideline 12: Registering for E-Mail with False Information Guideline 13: Registering for IP addresses with False Information Cheers and Jeers for CAN-SPAM While many have applauded the CAN-SPAM Act, some argue that the new law doesn't go far enough. Interestingly, many anti-spam organizations opposed the law for this reason. If you were planning to start e-mail marketing, or if you have e-mail marketing campaigns in the works, you can move forward so long as you are careful to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act and the guidelines summarized above. Here's an expert tip: Go a step beyond the law and only mail to current customers or to prospects who have specifically asked to join your mailing list. Such e-mails are called permission-based, to distinguish them from spam. When you use permission-based e-mail marketing, you know your recipients will welcome and read your e-mails-and not think of you as a "spammer," which can damage your business credibility. The part of the CAN-SPAM law that requires you identify your e-mail as an advertisement doesn't apply to permission-based e-mail marketing. |
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