Using the internet as a way to help you build your business, whether it’s an online, or offline business, is extremely cost effective. When it comes to mass email marketing, you can literally reach hundreds of thousands of potential customers, all with the click of a mouse, and with very little overhead (just the price of your internet connection, your website hosting costs, and an autoresponder).
The low cost of this type of adverting has a downside. Companies started sending out millions of messages to unsuspecting email recipients, who then started complaining about spam, unsolicited bulk commercial emails.
The sky-rocketing number of spam emails, that were being sent out, created a back lash from the public, which eventually led to new laws to prevent the abuse of the email message system, the CAN SPAM laws. These laws basically state that you can’t send out a lot of emails to random email addresses.
In order to be in compliance with the law, and not to be accused of spamming, there are a few things you need to do:
- 1. Your email message must have an accurate “from” heading, where you put in your name, or the name of your company.
- 2. The subject line on your email must be accurate, and relate to the actual content of your email.
- 3. As the sender you must provide an actual physical address for you, or your company.
- 4. Make sure to clearly label your email, if it contains adult content.
- 5. You cannot use a false header on your email.
- 6. You must provide a clear, and free, link for the recipient to “unsubscribe”, and if they click on that link, they should immediately be removed from your email list, and you should never send them another email.
- 7. Having an “opt-in” list is the very best defense against being accused of spam. This method will encourage your website visitor to sign up, to receive your emails. They are giving you permission to send them emails. In order to get them to sign up to your list, you can offer them an incentive such as a free report, or a multi part mini-course, that they will receive over a period time. Whatever you offer them to get them to sign up, make sure it has a real value to your subscriber. Take some time, to develop a report, that has some real value and substance to it.
These are the basics of the law. I’m not an expert, or a lawyer so make sure you take a little time, and learn all the ins and outs of the CAN SPAM law, so that you can make sure that you, or your company is in compliance. Don’t let the new laws scare you off, though. Using email marketing can be a very effective marketing tool for your business.
If you take the time to find out what all the regulations are, and then you follow them, you will be in compliance, and you will be able to add a lot of customers to your business, which in turn will eventually lead to more sales, and that is what we all want, isn’t it.
