Author Archives: nephthysnile

Spam or Ham? Are your emails lawful?

Are you accidentally spamming your client’s inboxes? Are you up to date with the legal requirements for the marketing emails you send out? I will share the basics of keeping on the right side of the law when it comes to email marketing.

The Spam Act of Australia (C2013C00021) is the main legislation that you need to adhere to when you are sending out emails to anyone. The 60 page-long document details exactly what is and is not allowed when you are engaging in electronic communications. Thankfully, you don’t have to read the full Act. I’ve summarised it here for you.

Spam Can

image credits: Vince_Lamb on Flickr

There are three things to keep in mind when you are putting together an email campaign or sending out emails to your client base.

  • Do you have consent from the person who will be receiving the message?

  • Does your message have a clear indication of who is sending the message?

  • Does your message give the receiver an option to unsubscribe from the emails?

Sound simple, doesn’t it? Now, let’s look at each point in a little detail.

Do you have consent from the person who will be receiving the message?

Consent is either express or implied. Express consent refers to the person receiving the message subscribing directly to your mailing list, deliberately ticking a box agreeing to have messages or ads from you, or they have expressly requested from you over the telephone.

Implied consent is the grey area of consent. There needs to be a reasonable expectation by the person receiving the emails that you will send the messages. This can be through:

– an existing relationship with you and they have previously given you their email address;

– they’ve purchased good from you and have given you their electronic address in the general expectation there would be follow-up emails;

– the person receiving the emails has provided you with their address in the understanding there would be day-to-day transactions and that address might be used for additional communications;

– the receiver has registered a product online or a warranty;

– the person receiving the emails has conspicuously published their electronic address unless it’s accompanied by a message stating that it’s not to be used for the purposes of advertising material;

– the person receiving the emails has given you a business card with their email address on it and there’s a reasonable expectation the messages would be sent by email.

So, what should you do if you’re not sure if you have received consent to send marketing emails to them? Don’t send them emails. It’s really that simple. Remove them from your lists. If you are not sure that you have consent, you might get into trouble for sending the emails, even if you provide all the unsubscribe options required by law.

When in doubt, if you are making an option on your website for people to sign up to your email lists, give them “double opt-in” to make sure they understand that you will be sending them messages.

Does your message have a clear indication of who is sending the message?

The sender information to be included in the email is expected to be valid for 30 days after the message is sent. This is in case anyone needs to get in contact with you in a way that isn’t online. This can be easily included into the signature of your email.

Does your message give the receiver an option to unsubscribe from the emails?

Always include an unsubscribe feature in your emails. This can be as simple as a link to another page that automatically removes their email address from your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software or email lists. Automating this means less work for you and adds a surety that you’re not spamming anyone.

Spammy spam spam

image credits: timag on Flickr

So, there are three easy steps to make sure your email marketing campaign is running by the book.

  • Do you have consent of the people you’re sending to?

  • Have you clearly identified your business?

  • Have you given an unsubscribe option?

Got an hour or two to spare? You can read the Spam Act of Australia here:

Spam Act 2003 C2013C00021

Things I Believe In.

This is an incomplete list of some of the things I believe in. There’s no real point to this post, other than to categorise myself as someone with a very complicated belief system and perhaps let others realise that their belief systems don’t have to necessarily make sense when viewed as a group.

I believe science has done good, and bad.

Image

Image credits – Flickr: J J “Macys-Believe”

Scientific advancements have done some incredible things for society. It has also done some very bad things for humanity. Take the atom bomb for instance. It started as an endeavour by Einstein to produce essentially free, seemingly inexhaustible energy for the world. Then it got turned into one of the most destructive forces on the planet. Now, some might say that it was the human factor that turned good into bad. I’m still undecided on this opinion. I think that yes humans were definitely the factor that led to the atom bomb, but it was also the human factor that developed the idea for good in the first place.

I believe in the universal divine.

I think there is an essence of divinity in everything. Everything. Every human being, every animal, every plant, the sky, the sea, the dirt, cars, buildings. Everything. Everything is a reflection of a facet that which created it, and so there is a sense of magic and beauty in that that just cannot be explained… yet. Perhaps science will lead to this answer. I’m just not sure that I would necessarily want the answer presented to me. I’m sure I would embrace it and find a way to coalesce it into my belief system, but all the same – I like to hold onto the childlike naivety that belief in something beyond myself provides.

I believe all knowledge is worth having.

Good. Bad. Indifferent. All knowledge is worth having, or having access to. With more knowledge, you are better positioned to make better decisions regarding yourself and others around you. Lack of knowledge can lead to poor choices that have far reaching ramifications beyond what you can possible foresee. Even the information that makes you sad at the time of gaining is worth having. Would I want to know if a partner was cheating on me? Absolutely! Would it make me happy to know it? Definitely not. IS the knowledge worth having? 100% yes! Having that knowledge would allow me to be better positioned to make a decision regarding the continuation or discontinuation of the relationship, based on other information regarding the situation.

I believe that climate change real, but that humans didn’t cause it.

Sure, our activity on the planet – burning fossil fuels, digging the face of the planet to pieces- certainly didn’t help abate the process of global warming. I think it was inevitable that the climate of the planet was going to change, as it has in the past, but that human activity has sped up the arrival. I see people who deny that climate change is real and that they shouldn’t have to change their ways as idiots. How is changing your habits and consumption to make the planet a better place a bad thing ever?! Using less, recycling and reusing more is only going to make the world and humanity better. With such a small percentage of the population using such a large percentage of the world’s resources, it just seems senseless to argue that you shouldn’t have to change your habits to benefit someone else. Leaving the world a better place for generations to come is a good thing, regardless of whether or not it will affect the degree to which climate change occurs.