Don’t Be Afraid of Email Marketing In Canada

Canada's Anti Spam Legislation We all hate spam.

I get hundreds of emails a week that are spam.

Every time it seems I sign up for something, I get new spam emails. It has caused me to be cautious of what websites I give my email too.

I’m not alone.

You are cautious. And so are your website visitors.

Enter the Canadian Spam Anti Legislation (CASL). As far as I know Canada is the first country to take such a stand. It’s not prefect however.

Why?

Because most of the spam we all get is from other countries. Very rarely do I ever get a spammy email from someone in Canada.

But it still has many Canadian business owners scared to use email marketing.

You shouldn’t be.

Read on to learn how to protect yourself from the CASL.

How To Protect Yourself from the CASL

If you have been collection email address from current and potential clients for some time now, it’s best to get people to resubscribe to your email newsletter.

Victoria Naturopaths Dr. Shannon and Dr. Alexis had close to 600 emails on their list. Then the CASL came in.

Cautious, they wanted to follow the rules. So they wanted to get people on that list to resubscribe. We drafted up and email and sent it out.

In doing so they and you need to have three requirements covered. So if you are starting a new email list, you must follow these requirements.

Obtain Consent

There are two types of consent, implied and expressed.

Here’s a quick infographic for the CRTC helping explain the difference between the two.

CASL Implied vs Expressed Consent

 

As you can see you want to get express consent from people. When building a list online, that’s easy to do.

If you get collect people’s email addresses in your store front, be sure to disclose what you plan to use the email address for. If you plan to add it to your database and market to them, tell that you you plan to email them about your businesses sales and promotions.

 

Provide Identification Information

At the bottom of your email that goes out to someone confirming their subscription to your emails, list who you are.

Provide your business name, address and phone number at the bottom.

Once again a provider like Aweber will get you to add that information when you setup your list.

Provide and Unsubscribe Mechanism

At the end of every email you send out, provide a link for people to unsubscribe from your list. Aweber or any provider will do that automatically when you setup your list.

Record Keeping

Once someone subscribes to your email list, keep a record of that.

Any email software program already has script double opt in requirements. But when someone does say yes to your emails, they’ll get an email confirming once again they want your emails. They’ll have to click a link again.

A record of that will be kept in your account settings. This way if someone does file a spam request to the CASL against you, you have a record saying they subscribed.

It’s highly suggested you use an email software program like Aweber.

The fines are extremely high, but by following the three requirements above, you will have covered yourself.

Our last post talked about the one thing you haven’t considered when using Facebook for business. Our next post will talk about why you should be building an email list instead and how you can provide value through email marketing.