Posts Tagged ‘Email’

Commercial e-mails must conform to the CAN-SPAM Act

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

As business owners take their marketing plans to the Internet, a viable component of those plans is the commercial email. This type of advertising works, brings potential consumers to your site and generates sales. But, there are very specific rules that you should follow to avoid being in the spam category.

Enter the CAN-SPAM Act. This law sets requirements for commercial messages and gives your recipients the right to have you stop emailing them. This law is also applicable to business-to-business email, including messages to former customers announcing a new product line.

False or misleading header information is unacceptable. The “From,” “To,” “Reply-To” and routing information must be real and identify you or your business as the initiator.

Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately identify the content of the message.

Tell recipients where you are. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This could be a street address, a USPS post office box or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency.

An opt-out feature is required. Recipients must be able to stop receiving your emails. This is called an opt-out. Design the opt-out so it can be easily located with a clear explanation. Usually this a return e-mail address at the bottom of your message.

Honor opt-out requests promptly. You must process opt-out requests within 10 business days and any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process these requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial e-mail.

Selling or transferring opt-out requests is illegal. Once people have told you they don’t want your e-mails any longer, you may not sell or transfer this information.

Pay attention to what others are doing for you. Even if you hire a company to manage your e-mail marketing, you are still responsible for any mistakes or non-compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act.

Penalties for violating these rules can be very stiff–up to $16,000 per violation for both you and the company that managed your commercial e-mail.

EMarketing | EBlast | ENewsletter for Businesses

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

If you’re a business owner, or you simply work for a business, chances are you use email marketing to get things done almost daily. But what’s to ensure that your emails to clients/subscribers are perused and read, rather than simply deleted without even opening. Is your e-blast a benefit to the receiver, or a nuisance?

Make it Visual

Put some pictures in your email. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, and it certainly shouldn’t cost you any more. It can be as simple as a graph, or some colored diagrams to illustrate what the email is about. Consider a colored header or a footer to make things cleaner and more appealing to the eye. Lines, tables, and simple fonts can also help increase the readability of your email.

Make it Relevant

As with a newspaper, an article in a magazine, or even a Twitter account, the information presented must be relevant enough to the reader for them to continue reading. Relevance takes on a greater importance in the digital world where it is ten times easier to just click onto the next piece of information when one becomes disinterested. Information in your companies e-blast must be interesting enough for recipients to continue reading. Don’t include information that is redundant, or not relevant. Don’t send out an entire e-blast for a few lines of something new. Make your emails to-the-point, while containing relevant and useful information surrounding your topic. Links can and should be used, but they should not generate an entire newsletter.

Consider Your Audience

An e-blast should never go out to a particular audience based just on assuming that they want the information you have to present because they asked for other information about your company or its services. Always allow quick, easy, and visible opt-in and opt-out procedures. If a recipient is expecting an e-blast from your company say, monthly, and on a particular subject, they’ll be happy to receive it and eager to show it to their colleagues in the same field.

Consider Your Technology

Never send e-blasts from your personal email account. Always rely on your e-marketing people to handle your e-blast’s delivery. Sending e-blasts from your personal account looks very unprofessional and can also lead to your account being suspended.Email looks and feels more professional when sent from dedicated email-list software, which will in turn lead to greater readership, and growth of your subscribers.

Email is a powerful tool in the business world to deliver business-related content to your clients.  By following a few simply guidelines and letting the right people handle your email, you can successfully e-market your business. Use a company like Wilson Monnig Creative to handle your email and online marketing needs.