Step one: Audit your subscription process
This is the single most important step you need to take to make sure
your email marketing activities are fully compliant with federal law.
At Arial Software, we conducted research on the email subscription
handling at Fortune 1000 firms, and we've found that a vast majority
of companies do not adhere to a double opt-in confirmation email subscription
process. This is shocking information, because it means that as these
companies are building their permission email lists in-house, they
really have no way to verify that subscribers actually asked to be
subscribed. Thanks to the lack of a double opt-in confirmation process
on their web site, virtually anyone could sign up anyone else without
their permission. These companies would then be in the position of
sending email to subscribers who’ve never asked for it. And this,
of course, is the definition of spam.
So the first thing you must do is enhance your email subscription
process is to make sure it operates on a double opt-in rather than
a confirmation principle. In other words, when someone subscribes to
your email newsletter or whatever information you're offering via email
subscription, you must send them an email with confirmation hyperlinks
that the subscriber must click in order to confirm their intention
to subscribe.
Furthermore, you must log the IP address, date and time, and email
address, of every subscription request so you can prove to the subscriber
(and possibly the Federal Trade Commission or FTC) that this person
indeed requested a subscription.
If you lack this information, then you're setting yourself up for
accusations and attacks by subscribers and, potentially, the FTC. To
be safe you must be able to prove that every person you are emailing
has, indeed, requested to be emailed by you.
As simple as this precaution sounds, a shockingly large number of
well-known companies do not yet adhere to these principles. These are
legal time bombs just waiting to go off. Yet there is no need to subject
yourself to this sort of legal risk, since moving to a double opt-in
confirm email subscription process is exceedingly simple.
If you don't have the programming talent in your company, you'll be
glad to know that Arial Software is launching a service that does all
this for you. The service is called Zeop, and it automates the double
opt-in confirm subscription process through the use of a web-based
tool that you can easily add to any web site you control. Check out
www.zeop.com for more information.
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