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More On Spam...
6/23/2008 8:03:59 AM
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Do You Spam?
Trina L.C.
Sonnenberg
I get an awful lot of email, which is no surprise,
considering the number of email addresses I have, but one thing that is
surprising is the amount of mail I get from marketers that do not comply with
the CAN SPAM
ACT. There are laws out there regarding the sending of email folks; you'd
better make sure you're in compliance with them, or you could be in for a world
of hurt.
That isn't a threat, but a statement of fact. The fine for a
single violation could cause a person to lose their house, car, or even life
savings. Yes, they are that steep. Ignorance of the law is no defense either, so
everyone should pay attention... Including the Gurus out there! Are you
listening?
Here goes...
Recently, I published an article called:
Pre-written Affiliate Ad Copy Sucks, and the biggest reason for that statement
is that most affiliate programs do not supply ad copy and subject lines that are
legal, and if you use it to promote the product or program, you're the one who
will take the fall, not the guru who gave it to you to use.
The first
rule of sending commercial email is that you MUST have permission from the
recipient to send it. This means that you had better have a record of people
allowing you to send them email. You need to have their name, date of
subscription, and the IP address they used to subscribe. The better your records
the better protection you have against complaints. If you are using any type of
mailing program, such as Triple Your List, or any of a number of other programs,
you already have permission to send mail to the rest of the group, but you'd
better hope that the program keeps good records. If the program you use goes
down for spamming, you will go with it.
The use of deceptive subject
lines is strictly prohibited, and this law is broken every day, especially
by the millionaire gurus. I get email all the time from these self appointed
gurus, with deceptive subject lines. Here are some examples of what not to say
in your subject line:
Notification of payment received
You've just
made...
I guarantee you will...
It does not matter if the
recipient has agreed to get email from you or not, if you use a deceptive
subject line, you're guilty of sending spam.
"PROHIBITION OF DECEPTIVE SUBJECT HEADINGS- It is unlawful for
any person to initiate the transmission to a protected computer of a commercial
electronic mail message if such person has actual knowledge, or knowledge fairly
implied on the basis of objective circumstances, that a subject heading of the
message would be likely to mislead a recipient, acting reasonably under the
circumstances, about a material fact regarding the contents or subject matter of
the message (consistent with the criteria used in enforcement of section 5 of
the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 45))." Next on the
list is a return email address. You must provide the recipient with a valid
return email address that they can contact you through, and your message
needs to indicate who it is from. In other words, when a message appears in the
inbox of another, it should show your name or company name, not something like:
Huge Profits From Home.
If the recipient cannot just click reply
and send you a message, you had better make sure that your message contains a
method of contacting you; a link to a help desk, or another email address,
where you can receive and answer messages from.
The law also requires
that you provide a valid postal address. How many people comply with that
one?
Your message must also clearly indicate that it is an
advertisement or solicitation, and it absolutely must have a way for the
recipient to opt out of further messages. Furthermore, if you are sending
email related to sexual subject matter, you must have a warning to the reader
that the material is of this specific nature. This includes all Viagra pushers.
If you use a reliable autoresponder
service to send messages and build a contact list, you're covered on some of
these issues. Most automatically generate an opt-out link at the end of the
message, and keep track of subscription information for you, but the rest is on
your shoulders.
So, as I have said before, don't use the pre-written ad
copy you get from those you promote unless you check it and/or modify it for
compliance. Don't assume that just because some guru wrote it and gave it to you
to use that it is compliant, because many times their copy is not. Modify those
subject lines, add your postal contact information and an opt-out method, not
just a line at the bottom stating that to opt-out just reply with 'remove' in
the subject line. That is just lame, and professional spammers often use this
method to confirm that email addresses are functional.
One final
note: Do not harvest email addresses from the web to build your list. This
can land you in jail. It is 100% illegal to harvest email addresses by any
method.
Keep in compliance and show the world you're better than some of
the gurus out there. It doesn't matter how good the product may be, if you
promote it without being in compliance with the law, you could go to jail. Send
spam, and you could be eating it instead, from behind bars. Is pushing an
affiliate product worth that?
Copyright © 2008
The Trii-Zine
Ezine
www.ezines1.com
About the Author:
Trina L.C. Sonnenberg
Publisher - The Trii-Zine Ezine - Your Trusted Source for Internet Business
and Marketing Information. Serving online professionals since 2001. ISSN#
1555-2276
http://www.ezines1.com/triizine
http://www.ads-on-q.com/intro
Author of: My Journey A Lifetime of Verse http://stores.lulu.com/triizine
Internet Marketing
Mavens
http://internetmarketing-mavens.com
Keywords:
spam, commercial email, CAN SPAM ACT, email compliance
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