Newsletter
| December, 2003 In my last newsletter, I talked about email marketing and how it can be a great way to stay in contact with clients and also drive traffic to your site. See my examples at: http://www.pylonstudios.com/portfolio/email_marketing.html. In the mean time some interesting developments have recently taken place that will effect email marketing and how you go about it. On December 16th, President Bush signed into law the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. It will go into effect at the end of this year and will preempt any existing state laws (including a California law that was supposed to go into effect 1/1/04). This new federal law will regulate the sending of commercial email messages. CAN-SPAM makes it illegal to: - Use false or misleading headers and identities. - Use deceptive subject lines. CAN-SPAM requires: - A clear and conspicuous opt-out mechanism within every commercial email. - The inclusion of a valid physical postal address within every commercial email. In essence this law is designed to crack down on delinquent spammers who have abused email communication for far too long. This new law is more in line with the type of email marketing that I practice and that encourage my clients to conduct. However, in order to stay within the regulations it is best to use an email sending service. There are many to choose from. The pricing structures are all different from one another. However, all are affordable. Online email sending services are better than using the email application on your computer like Outlook express, Eudora or Netscape mail because they automatically put a legitimate opt-out link at the bottom of the page. They require that you (the sender) identify yourself in the "From" field, and they identify that the email was sent through their server and not redirected through a third party server. Here's a short list of some of the many email sending services out there: Constant Contact htmlemail.com Topica Vertical Response There are other plenty of other advantages in using one of these services too. If you have questions about the CAN-SPAM act or email marketing in general contact me at: jpc@pylonstudios. Back to the Newsletter page Sign up to get your copy of the Pylon Page |
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