Responsible Email Newsletter Marketing: Common Mistakes and The CAN-SPAM Act

February 24th, 2011

I periodically see confusion as to what is legal when it comes to email newsletters. Even when people are reading the actual CAN-SPAM Act. I’m not going to cover every part of it. I’m going to address the most common mistakes.

Sometimes I get email from spammers that claims their email is sent in accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act. No, it’s not. If I have no prior relationship with an organization and haven’t signed up for their newsletter, they are in violation. Putting that in the bottom of an email does not make them compliant. Not at all.

So here’s the first thing you need to be clear on: buying a mailing list, even one that the seller claims is opt-in, is often a bad idea. More often than not, they’re not opt-in. It doesn’t count if the email addresses were harvested from sites where the Terms of Service tell users their email will be sold (because who reads those? Mostly just weird people like me). It doesn’t count when users are notified by small print at the bottom of the page, or hidden elsewhere on the site. That information needs to be right in front of the user’s face. Hiding the fact that an email address will be sold is not informing people their email will be sold. It’s, um, hiding the fact that their email address will be sold. And this is a common tactic from those selling “opt-in” email lists.

What is Opt-In?
Opt-In means someone signed up to receive your newsletter, usually via a form on your website. They did it knowing they would get a newsletter from you. It’s that simple.

Can I Ever Send A Newsletter to Someone That Hasn’t Opted-In?
Actually, yes. BUT…only in certain situations. The CAN-SPAM Act says that if you and the person you are emailing have a prior business relationship, and you are sending emails that assist in continuing that relationship, then you can email them without them having fill out an opt-in request. You can include commercial content (where you are trying to sell them something) but the primary message must be transactional (information that continues the business relationship).

For example, I can send emails to my current clients to give them information about changes at GeekArtist Web Solutions. I can let them know about new procedures or other changes in the company. However, if I want to send an email that is just selling them new services, they must have opted-in to the email newsletter list. If I were sending a notice to my clients notifying them of a new staff member, I could include links to our other services on part of the email. But the main message must be about the new staff member. I can’t just give one line about the new staff member, then fill up the email with sales content.

I Don’t Want to Include an Unsubscribe Link
That is not optional. If you want to send a compliant email, you must have an unsubscribe link. Some people are afraid to put them in because they are afraid everyone will unsubscribe. If you’re that concerned about it, I would ask you why this worries you. If you have helpful information, or users have signed up for the newsletter, or these are current customers, most will likely stay subscribed.

I Don’t Want to Include My Mailing Address
This is also not optional. If you run your business out of your home and don’t want to give your physical address, get a Post Office Box. A P.O. Box address is fine for email newsletters. But either a physical or P.O. address MUST be on the email.

The CAN-SPAM Act has a few more details you will want to be aware of. I have only addressed the more common pitfalls. You may find your situation is not addressed here. Make sure you visit the Bureau of Consumer Protection website and read their The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business.

Related Posts

Related Posts From Other Sites

Bookmark and Share

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 24th, 2011 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Email, Marketing, Myths. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

«Previous Story:
Next Story: »
  • http://twitter.com/backngroovemom rachel h blaufeld

    wow! thanks – this is so helpful! I am thinking of adding a newsletter option to my new site and this is perfect timing of this info. Not to mention that write it in a way that anyone can understand! Thanks – Rachel

  • http://www.smallbusinessfinanceforum.com/blog/ Nicole Fende

    Thank you for putting this out there! I HATE getting SPAM emails. It is absolutely the quickest way to ensure that I will never buy the product or anything else from the person sending it. Keep fighting the good fight :)

  • denissemarie.com

    Because I do a lot of research and sign up to receive information related to my business, I receive a lot spam email for things I didn’t sign up for so I know they are selling my information. Its really annoying.
    Thank you for explaining this in such a simple way.

  • Andrew

    Thank you for your post. I’m a web designer and am interested in e-mail companies regarding my web designer services (for a specific niche, actually). I basically want to go through the phone book, identify companies with websites that need improvement, and e-mail them a one-time e-mail, addressed to them, briefly explaining who I am and what services I offer.

    I read through the Can-Spam act and it doesn’t seem to have anything that would disallow this, so long as I comply with their subject line, address, etc, requirements.

    Now, this may or may not be an effective strategy, but aside from that, I’m curious if there’s anything you feel I need to think about before pursuing such a strategy. Thanks in advance for your help!

  • http://www.geekartist.com Janice Schwarz

    While “The law makes no exception for business-to-business email.”, your ISP, web host, and email marketing company (such MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Vertical Response) all tend to include any unsolicited email as spam. I would check with those organizations if I were you. Odds are good that what you are planning will be counted as spam by them and you risk getting your services shut down and blacklisted.

    I suspect I should follow up with a post with still more details on spam. :-)

  • Andrew

    Thanks for the fast reply. My thought is actually to just do everything manually, from finding the websites that need improvement and e-mail addresses (actual people to contact) to sending the e-mail by hand. My guess is that if I pursued the approach I’d soon find it’s not worth the time investment, but in any case, it seems the concerns at this point I can identify are (with your addition):

    1. Website Terms of Service (if the website I visit specifically does not allow me to contact them except about their services) — reading through the TOS might for each website/address might be unrealistic

    2. My host/ISP Terms of Service

    and lastly

    3. Harvesting e-mail addresses

    99% of the articles I’ve found talk about harvesting e-mail addresses using bots and spiders. The one that mentioned doing it “by hand” said it’s actually legal, although you could find it difficult to prove you did it without a bot if anyone complains, which is probably a good point. On the actual Can-Spam website I couldn’t figure it out, one way or the other.

    All things considered, what do you think… gets stamps, envelopes and business cards and send out my note by regular mail, instead? (seriously)

    Appreciate your advice.

  • http://www.geekartist.com Janice Schwarz

    Glad to help!

    In answer to your next comments and questions…

    There’s nothing illegal about buying email lists. Doing it by hand or buying a list are equally legal.

    That said: your ISP, web host, and email marketing services may have other thoughts on the matter. Some specifically forbid mailing lists created from purchased lists. What is legal, and what the TOS says for those services, tend to be different. The law has a much more lax view of what spam is than those who maintain servers.

    If you have never had any kind of prior contact with any individual or business, regardless of how you gathered the contact information, your web host, ISP and/or email marketing service may deem this to be spam.

    Personally, I won’t send out those types of things (you describe) via email, but do as you said: postal mail.

    The main difference between unsolicited postal mail and unsolicited email is: you are paying for each mail you send via post office. Everyone sending unlimited emails would bring the Internet to a standstill. The processing power needed would be massive and no one would be able to afford the servers to keep up with the demand.

    If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

  • http://www.geekartist.com Janice Schwarz

    One of the things I do is keep a separate email address for things like that. And I only use it for signing up places where I suspect I’ll be spammed. This way, if I get flooded with spam, it won’t interfere with my working email address.