Spinfield: Web marketing trends today, tomorrow, and beyond…

Do you use e-mail as a way to market to existing and potential new customers? Do you know if you are compliant with CAN-SPAM?

CAN-SPAM stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. It is a list of requirements that a commercial e-mail marketer must adhere to when sending consumers advertisements through e-mail. It also spells out the penalties associated with failing to meet these requirements.

The FTC, or Federal Trade Commission , is the U.S. consumer protection agency. It governs and enforces CAN-SPAM along with the DOJ (Department of Justice). The FTC recently announced it has approved four new rule provisions to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 that will take effect this summer (2008).

There are several things that the CAN-SPAM Act requires. You can read all about it on the FTC spam Web site. Here is a quick rundown of some of the high points:

• Accurate Header Information - When sending an e-mail to a consumer who has opted-in to receive communications from you or your company, you must accurately display the information of the person who initiated the e-mail. This includes the area of the “From”, “To”, and “Reply-To” areas. For example, if your company sells multiple brand name items and a consumer opts-in to receive information from one of those brands, you cannot e-mail that person information identified as sent from another one of your brands. Doing so could result in a fine, or worse imprisonment.
• No misleading subject lines - This is pretty straight forward. Your subject line should be about the content of your e-mail. In other words, don’t tell people in the subject that your e-mail is all about the best fuel efficient cars, then try to sell them a SUV that gets 10 MPG.
• Allow recipients to opt-out - You must allow your recipients to tell you that they no longer wish to receive e-mails from you, and you must honor that request. You have 10 days once they opt-out to stop sending them any more e-mails.
• Identify advertisements and include your physical address - You must let people know that you are advertising something and that they can opt-out of receiving more commercial e-mail from you. You must also include your physical mailing address somewhere in the e-mail.

There are several other requirements that you can read about on the FTC spam Web site. There is also a nice podcast from The MarketingSherpa featuring Jeff Mills, Director of Sales and Strategy at eROI about the new FTC additions that you can listen.

Failure to adhere to these requirements can result in severe fines or even imprisonment. If you’re already e-mailing using “best practices” then these changes will not have much effect on you. If not, then I suggest you get yourself and your company up-to-speed on CAN-SPAM and start. It can make a big difference for you and your company.

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