SMB Marketing Automation Blog » Email Campaigns

What Are The Legal Restrictions Around Email Marketing?

Lindsey Bowman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:00:42 +0000

Email marketing is an extremely cost effective and efficient way to promote your business. Unfortunately, many small businesses are reluctant to engage in email marketing for fear of legal implications surrounding the practice. This post is intended to clearly spell out what elements should be included in your email marketing campaigns (and what should not).

The CAN-SPAM Act was originally passed in 2003 and recently expanded in 2008. CAN-SPAM sets legal requirements for all emails that have a promotional nature. This is not limited to mass email as you might expect; CAN-SPAM also includes any type of email you may send with a primary purpose of promoting your product or service, whether it is business-to-consumer or business-to-business. However, the CAN-SPAM Act is not nearly as restrictive as some tend to think. If you follow these simple rules you will ensure better deliverability and response in addition to avoiding legal ramifications.

Email Content:

HEADER INFORMATION: All emails must include accurate ‘from’, ‘to’, and ‘reply-to’ lines to indicate the actual person or business sending the email. They cannot be misleading and must include the correct originating domain and email address.

SUBJECT LINES: All emails must include relevant subject lines that are indicative of the offer in the body content and must not be deceptive. Subject lines in violation would include (but not limited to), “Hello”, “Happy Holidays”, and “Thank You”. Many Email Service Providers also reject any subject lines that contain over usage of characters like exclamation points; over usage of capital letters; using subject line modifiers like FW:, RE:, and FWD:; intentionally misspelled words; and HTML code.

POSTAL ADDRESS: All emails must include a legitimate physical address of the publisher and/or advertiser.

ADVERTISEMENT DISCLOSURE: Somewhere in the content of the email or the subject line, you must clearly tell recipients that your email is an advertisement for your product or service.

Handling Unsubscribes:

PROVIDE MEANS TO OPT-OUT: All commercial emails must include a clear and simple way for recipients to opt-out of receiving future emails from you. This can include a link to an unsubscribe mechanism online (1 page only) and/or a reply-to address where customers can email their opt-out requests. You cannot require the recipient to give you any information beyond an email address or charge a fee to opt-out.

REMOVE OPT-OUTS PROMPTLY. All opt-out requests, whether through a manual email reply process or an automated system must be handled within 10 business days of the request. Once opted-out of receiving communications from you, you cannot sell or transfer their email address.

Sending Emails:

NO OPEN MAIL RELAYS: A message can not be sent through an open mail relay; an open mail relay occurs when a server is configured to allow anyone online to send email through it. Spammers often use these types of servers to avoid detection.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR VENDORS. If you hire another company to handle outbound email marketing on your behalf, be it an email service provider, consultant, or creative firm, you are still responsible for their compliance with CAN-SPAM. Both you and the company that sends your messages will be held legally responsible for compliance. This includes affiliates/publishers who may promote your promote your product/service through a marketing network.

The fact of the matter is that every reputable business in the United States has to follow the CAN-SPAM rules – but doing so can only help your results. Most of these rules are simply best practices you’d want to employ even if you weren’t required to do so by law. If you have any questions about these requirement, please ask or post your comments below!

External Resource:

Federal Trade Commission Website, Updated September 2009: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm

Integrating Automated Lead Nurturing with Old School Sales Techniques

Lindsey Bowman — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:39:24 +0000

I met with a client this morning who currently uses Net-Results to track website visitors and identify companies coming to her site. When she sees one who could be a good prospect, she picks up the phone and attempts to call the person who came to her site. She doesn’t always get to the right person, but she does typically make contact with someone in the organization and has a good initial prospecting call. When I asked her how she normally follows up with those prospects, she said she generally handwrites notes and mails them. I thought that was a great idea – very few people do that because email is just easier – so it really makes her standout. But, I felt that the combination of handwritten notes and automated lead nurturing could further enhance her follow-up strategy and give her greater insight into the actual interest level of her prospects.

So, I showed her how to set up a lead nurturing campaign in Net-Results. First, she would create an email template using our text editor and include personalized fields such as first name, company name, and any custom attributes she wanted to include. Then, she would create a perpetual campaign based on a list. When she obtained the prospect’s contact information over the phone, she would enter it into Net-Results and add them to a list. When the contact is added to the list, an email from the lead nurturing campaign is automatically triggered. This is her “thank you” email that she would normally send from her email (and will look the same), but this email will contain Net-Results tracking. So, when the lead opens the email and clicks through it, she will then know every page they look at, how long they spend on the site, their navigational path, if they’ve been to the site before anonymously, and every time they return. She can even automatically adjust lead scores based on these actions so she will undoubtedly know who her best prospects are.

We will also set up the campaign to continuously follow up with those less-qualified leads. Those prospects that do not click through her initial follow up email will be automatically sent an additional follow up three days later, and then a final follow up the following week if they continue not to respond. The client is also going to post a PDF brochure on her site and link to it from her emails so she will know who is looking at her sales collateral.

Of course, among all this she will continue to produce handwritten thank you notes; but Net-Results will automate and enhance the entire process.

Using Net-Results will allow you to understand who is actually interested in your product or service after a sales call and who is simply being polite. Identifying those most interested will allow you to focus time and energy on real sales opportunities while nurturing those less interested in an automated fashion. Save time and close more business by integrating old techniques with new technology… brilliant!

The Pipeline is Starting to Dry Up. Do You Know Where Your Leads Are?

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:53:35 +0000

By Elizabeth Sklaroff, Access Marketing Company

I’m a pretty laid back person. I don’t get excited about much – and not much impresses me. But I have to say that I’m jazzed about lead gen again, and it’s because of the web intelligence I’m able to get now. With the help of a smart demand generation “solution” (forgive me for this grossly over-used term in marketing – but in this case, it truly fits), our clients know what their leads are doing and when they are doing it – and most importantly WHO their leads are. After installing the snippet of Net-Results code onto our clients’ websites, I have been amazed, intrigued and slightly addicted to the intelligence.

Until a visitor has completed a specific information-seeking activity, my best intelligence is the IP address’ company name, duration on site and pages viewed. But, once I have associated a lead’s name with an IP address by virtue of an email campaign or a completed form on the website, my insight into the lead’s activities is amazing. If you aren’t doing this – then you are truly missing out on what could amount to numerous opportunities for new leads and sales.

I can see when and what the prospect viewed plus analyze their visit trends over time. As a nice bonus, I can also set alerts so I receive an email a notification when a specific lead is on the site. The beauty of the intelligence is not limited to email campaigns and leads captured through online forms. I have recently found that integrating it with an outbound calling campaign adds a level of detail and granularity that data-freaks (like me) have long desired.

Here’s how it works: The outbound call company/appointment setting service sends me a list of prospects with verified names and email addresses of people they’ve talked to who are interested in our clients’ information or in learning more about their products. I load this list into Net-Results and associate it with a follow-up email. I also set an alert so I will know anytime one of these prospects visits our clients’ sites. I can then view the campaign’s stats and alerts to tell the outbound call company how they did, who might be interested in an additional call, if anyone downloaded a PDF, etc.

Talk about threading the needle!

Unlike those clumsy, ill-timed, generic follow-up calls and emails of years past, I now have amazing insight and data regarding each lead’s site visit and level of interest. And we can now have more data on effectiveness of certain call campaigns because we can see who is taking action after they hang up the phone and get the follow up email. I can use this knowledge about pages visited and documents downloaded to help the call company tweak the script or offer. Furthermore, when a member of the internal sales team or the outside call company follows up with one of these leads, he or she can reference products and services specific to the lead and site visit. The call becomes much more targeted, efficient and effective as a result of this intelligence.

I know in this ultra-chaotic and oftentimes impersonal online world, nothing beats customization and relevance. How great is it to provide this personalization by intelligently using an online demand generation tool? You decide.

Elizabeth Sklaroff is an Account Manager with Access Marketing Company, specializing in B2B marketing strategy, tactics and execution. With a combined sales and marketing background, she is focused on ways to help clients bridge the gap between the two disciplines to get better results more efficiently and cost-effectively. With the help of Net-Results, Elizabeth manages comprehensive marketing, lead gen, lead nurturing and reputation management programs for a variety of clients. Elizabeth uses Net-Results in her day-to-day activities to develop leads, facilitate the sales cycle and promote loyalty and referral opportunities. To contact Elizabeth with questions about how she’s leveraging web intelligence, marketing automation and demand generation to drive results, email her at elizabeth “@” accessmarketingcompany.com.