« Saying ‘I Do’ In Email | Main | Weekly Whitepaper Room Refresh »

Good Email Hygiene Doesn't End with CAN-SPAM

Is it just my imagination or is there a resurgence in CAN-SPAM interest in the news recently? Between the INBOX session on “Getting Email into the Inbox,” where we chatted on a couple-few issues related to what being CAN-SPAM compliant really means, to press coverage by Inc.com selecting a CAN-SPAM-compliance monitoring solution for a “Best for… Making sure your outbound mail works” award, it seems there’s a surprising increase in interest in this topic. I checked with our own support team and lo and behold…higher volumes of questions last week about what it means to be CAN-SPAM compliant. It’s gotten so bad our email policy director has taken it upon himself to write a white paper enumerating what it means and, more importantly, what it does not mean to be CAN-SPAM compliant.

Frankly, I find this all rather odd.

Odd because CAN-SPAM compliance should be called what it truly is…ineffectual legislation from the one part of our industrial economy that is least likely to produce efficient policies—the government. I hear folks intimate this all the time. CAN-SPAM compliance is the most negligible form of email marketing compliance that you can actually do. If you are building a program and infrastructure to effect CAN-SPAM compliance as your only goal, then by all indications you will essentially appear to be a spammer. You may ask yourself why that is, and while there are many reasons, it basically comes down to permission. CAN-SPAM doesn’t require permission from the end user while the industry at large does.

Congratulations! You won’t be able to get your email delivered but your CAN-SPAM compliance will be beyond reproach.

There are a great number of checklist items that EEC members in aggregate will advise people to do for effective email marketing. Certainly CAN-SPAM compliance is on that list. But always remember that this is very basic stuff that you simply have to do. In the way of a simile, it’s like going out on a first date. You know you need to perform a set of personal hygiene acts. CAN-SPAM compliance is akin to just brushing your teeth and throwing cold water on your face. If you hope to get a second date or even a phone call, you need to put your best foot forward. The latest threads and a bit of cologne might be in order. Aiming for the bare minimum shouldn’t be your goal and that is what CAN-SPAM is—the bare minimum.

—J.F. Sullivan

Posted on June 7, 2007 7:51 AM |

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.emailexperience.org/bins/mt/mt-tb.cgi/40

Comments (1)

J.Bradford:

One of the reasons CAN SPAM gets attention is because it is sometimes considered the only "legitimate" reason not to act on any and every ethically shady acquisition idea that comes along. If we can say "CAN SPAM prevents us from doing that" (making it a Legal issue), decisions makers will listen. But to say "That's not a Best Practice" or "That's not good for our reputation as a sender" is hardly ever regarded as a good reason not to do something that sounds great to the marketing folks.

Posted by J.Bradford | June 15, 2007 9:53 AM

Posted on June 15, 2007 09:53

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

the voice of email
Welcome to the Email Experience Council's blog, a forum for the email marketing industry's leading voices. On these pages, you'll find the opinions and thought-leadership that's driving the next evolution of email.

feed sign-up

Subscribe to the Email Experience Blog Subscribe via RSS or email.

newsletter sign-up

After subscribing to this blog feed, also sign up for the Email Experience Council's weekly newsletter, which contains information on the latest email marketing initiatives, research, news and events.

Become a Sponsor of the Email Experience Council

search this blog

recent posts

July 2008

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

archives

categories

the voices of email

The Email Experience Council's membership includes many of the brightest and most committed email marketing experts. We're pleased to have some of them share their insights here on these pages. Our blog contributors include:

Elie Ashery is the president and CEO of Gold Lasso, and is responsible for the company’s vision and strategy execution. Before joining Gold Lasso, he co-founded Newsletters.com in 1997, selling it to The Tribune Cos. in 2000. He then worked for IncenSoft, focusing on email marketing while there. Read more.

Amy Bills is the senior manager of field marketing at lead optimization company Bulldog Solutions. She is responsible for lead generation and the go-to-market execution of Bulldog's new products and initiatives. Amy was previously the editorial team leader of Freescale Semiconductor’s internal creative agency and a senior editor at Hoover’s Online. Read more.

Nicholas Einstein is director of strategic and analytic services at Datran Media. Specializing in email and CRM strategy, he helps some of America’s top brands leverage online channels to communicate more effectively with their customers and prospects.

Lisa Harmon is a principal at Smith-Harmon, a creative services consultancy dedicated to email marketing strategy and production. She works with marketers to increase clickthrough, maximize revenue, and infuse delight into their email creative. Lisa is also the blogger behind edm.smith-harmon.com, an ongoing commentary on the best (and worst!) in email marketing creative. Read more.

Chip House is ExactTarget's VP of marketing services, leading the teams responsible for client success. He was named to BtoB Magazine’s 2005 “Who’s Who in B-To-B,” for being a vocal proponent of legitimate commercial email and an active lobbyist regarding spam and privacy issues. Read more.

Spencer Kollas is the director of delivery services at StrongMail, helping maximize customers’ email deliverability rates. He was previously director of deliverability services for Premiere Global Services. Spencer is an active member in the Email Sender & Provider Coalition, Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group, the Anti-Phishing Work Group and, of course, the eec. Read more.

Stephanie Miller is VP of strategic services for Return Path, the leading email performance company. She works with marketers to earn a higher ROI and response from their acquisition and retention email programs—developing content, contact and segmentation strategies, along with testing, measurement and production programs. Read more.

Erick Mott is the director of marketing and corporate communications for Habeas, the leader in email reputation management services. He has a rich background in marketing and communications strategy and execution for such companies as Nokia, MarkMonitor, GlobalFluency, Cisco Systems, Creator Connection, Sun Microsystems, Philips NV, Elm Products and CBS Television. Read more.

Jeanniey Mullen is the Email Experiene Council's founder and the global EVP and CMO of global online publishing company Zinio. She is a thought leader and visionary in the email and digital marketing field. A columnist for ClickZ, she has published numerous papers and is a frequent speaker. Read more.

Charles Stiles is the VP of worldwide business development at Goodmail Systems. In his role, Charles is focused on helping generate a better understanding of the email environment and potential solutions for a better consumer experience. He currently serves as the chairman for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group. Read more.

Jeremy Swift is director of client relations for email service provider BlueHornet. He helped form BlueHornet’s founding team in 2000 and has been responsible for client services and marketing strategy since the company’s inception. Jeremy is known for his ability to articulate technical information in ways that clearly resonate with today’s online marketer.

DJ Waldow is an account manager at Bronto Software. He works with Bronto’s largest clients to help them achieve and surpass their marketing goals. An active member of the email marketing community, DJ posts regularly on the Email Marketer’s Club, publishes a bi-weekly email marketing best practices newsletter, and films BrontoFire.

Chad White is the Email Experience Council’s director of retail insights and editor-at-large. He founded and is the author of the Retail Email Blog, a blog dedicated to tracking the email marketing practices of the largest online retailers. Chad regularly writes major research reports on email marketing and is an Email Insider columnist for MediaPost. Read more.

recommended blogs

  • RetailEmail.Blogspot
  • Epsilon Insights
  • Listrak's Email Marketing Blog
  • The Agitator
  • Datran Media's Outperformance Marketing
  • Gold Lasso's The From Line
  • eROI's The Email Wars
  • Email Marketing Strategy from Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey
  • eROI's Email Days
  • Return Path
  • Bill's Blog
  • eROI's Return on Subscriber
  • Goodmail's blog
  • Chris Baggott's Email Marketing Best Practices
  • Blue Sky Factory's The Thinking Inbox
  • MindComet's Email Marketing Voodoo
  • SubscriberMail's Best Practices
  • Tamara's Email Marketing Best Practices Blog
  • The BrightWave Blog
  • Smith-Harmon EDM Review
  • MailerMailer's The Touch
  • MediaPost Email Insider blog