TrueInsight Newsletter

The CAN-SPAM Spirit
Brushing Up On Your CAN-SPAM Compliance Can Be an Email Best Practices Lesson in Disguise

CAN-SPAM compliance probably doesn’t keep you up at night. Odds are, the FTC isn’t going to bang down your door if you fail to comply—click on your spam folder and you’ll see they’ve got bigger fish to fry. And if you’re look most marketers, you probably only engage in permission-based email marketing, which is, by definition, the very opposite of spam.

But a quick refresher on CAN-SPAM compliance reveals that many of the Act’s regulations are actually email marketing best practices in disguise. So TruePresence has decided to dust off this four-year old law and see what we can learn from it.

The Law:
Don’t use false or misleading sender information

The Marketing Lesson:
Brand your from address with a sender name

In the fight for higher open rates, a well-branded sender name is half the battle. (A good subject line is the other half.) An anonymous from address like admin@xyzcompany.com can kill your email’s chances for success. A branded sender name—even something as simple as your company’s name—is far more likely to be opened.

Once you’ve established your sender name, stick with it. This is particularly true if you're just starting out with email marketing; your open rates may be particularly low because you're a new or unknown entity in the recipient’s inbox. Keeping a uniform sender name helps familiarize recipients with your emails and often drives up open rates over time.

The Law:
Don’t use misleading subject lines

The Marketing Lesson:
Create straightforward subject lines —and watch your conversion rates go up

Check out this recent subject line from Amazon.com:

It tells us exactly what the offer is, and who it’s from (notice they brand the subject line and the sender name!). It also addresses a specific need I might have (Mother’s Day gift).

When a subject line is as direct as this one is, open rates may go down. After all, only recipients who are in the market for a particular type of Mother’s Day gift are likely to open it. But those same users are also far more likely to purchase a gift card, sending conversion rates way up. Remember, high open rates are good, but high conversion rates are even better.

The Law:
You do not have to state that an email is an advertisement, provided that you have affirmative consent from the recipient.

The Marketing Lesson:
Confirm, confirm, confirm.

In this instance, spam filters often prove to be stronger than the law. Virtually every email with an advertisement disclaimer gets automatically quarantined to a user’s spam folder—the disclaimer is a red flag that the sender does not have the recipient’s permission.

But even if you do have consent—and can therefore send out disclaimer-free emails—you’re still not safe; nearly one out of every five permission-based email messages still lands in the junk mail folders (Lyris ISP Deliverabilty Report, April 2008).

So what can you do to protect yourself? Protect your reputation. Every time a user clicks the “Report as Spam” button on one of your emails, ISPs become less and less inclined to deliver your messages to their clients. Subscribers often report legitimate email as spam simply because they didn’t realize they opted in, or they forgot they signed up altogether. Here’s how to make sure neither one happens to you:

• Double confirm consent—send an email to a new subscriber, requiring her to click through a confirmation link
• Ask your subscribers to add you to their trusted senders lists
• Send thank you and welcome emails to each new subscriber
• Set customer expectations upfront regarding the frequency of your emails

The Law:
Include a clear and conspicuous unsubscribe mechanism in every email.

The Marketing Lesson:
Offer opt-out alternatives—not everyone wants to leave you for good.

Yes, you definitely need to have a global unsubscribe link on every email you send out. (CAN-SPAM also requires you put your postal address on every email for those who like to opt-out the old-fashioned way).

But give your subscribers other options as well. Let them elect to receive less frequent emails or subscribe to a different email that’s more targeted to their interests. Make it easy for them to give you feedback on what would make your email more relevant to them. And be sure to honor any requests immediately (the law gives you 10 days).

Following the letter of the CAN-SPAM law isn’t just about being a good corporate citizen—it’s about delivering good customer service. TruePresence’s TrueMailer email marketing solution makes it incredibly easy to do both. Contact your local TruePresence consultant or click here to learn more.