Can-Spam flooded my inbox. 3 tips for e-mail marketing
By Rodney Boettger
Posted Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Don't know about the rest of you but the spam received in my email has bINCREASED DRASTICALLY/b since Jan 1.
No surprise though the law's name says it all Can Spam. Those that were spamming still "can spam."
The law effects those in the United States and aside from the US companies that hire offshore and other country
emailers to send their spam, has no effect on where the majority of SPAM originates.
FYI The aforementioned US companies are the FTC's primary target, not you and I the legitimate marketer.
As an upstanding marketer you should have no fear since the email you send prospects and customers already:
1. Uses subject lines relevent to your email
2. Contains a valid working unsubscribe link.
Doesn't it??
The only thing you should add, according to the new law, is your mailing address.
Three tips to keep you out of trouble:
1. Only provide content relevant to your targeted market on each subscriber list.
In other words, don't send pet supply offers to your car maintenance list.
If you want to "fish" for cross market prospects in your lists, do it in the form of a cry for help.
Using the above you might say:
"John as an avid reader of The Tip Top Car Care Ezine I'd appreciate your help. Over the past week the pet supply
industry seems to have spiked in popularity. I put together a brief article and would like your feedback.
John I realize pets may not be your thing, so if you trusted someone else that would be great.
The goal is to provide valuable content just as you are used to receiving.
Again thanks in advance for your assistance."
2. Use an autoresponder that logs the IP address of the subscriber.
Contrary to what others may say, there is nothing in the 2003 Can-Spam act that requires any type of opt-in or double opt-in when building your list.
The law is still slanted to the "opt-out" philosophy. The act provides that you must comply to opt-outs within 10
days. Seems this was attempted before.
Clicking on unsubscribe links in spam verified your email address was good so you were flooded with more spam. Some gurus say with the new law you don't need to worry since they must be working links...
This author says not. Remember those sending the majority of spam email are not effected by this law, so their links
still don't work.
3. Do not accept AOL email addresses.
Let's face it people forget they signed up for things at times. So IP addresses help, however if you live by tip #1 you should never have any problems.
No offense to the people using AOL, it's the company not you...
The facts are AOL is:
1. The government's largest watchdog and censor.
2. Automatically filtering emails on their own without subscriber permission, so your emails aren't getting there anyway. (even if you have a small list and you send a message AOL will see all these emails coming at the same
time and filter them out.)
Bottom line is continue to provide valuable content to your lists and always remove those that request it. (Good for
you...they weren't going to buy anything anyway :)
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