Done properly you can expect your email marketing to increase sales, increase your brand recognition and build customer loyalty. What you don’t want is for your emails to be considered spam - displeasing your recipients as well as breaking, Australian regulations.

This article primarily relates to Australian law, however similar restrictions are in place with the Can-Spam Act in the USA and other countries throughout the world. Spam regulations are in place to protect people from receiving junk email.

As a business owner using email marketing you should be following these guidelines not only because they are legal requirements but simply because they are best practise and will give you better results with your email marketing activities.

So what’s Email Marketing? And when is it Spam?

Email Marketing managed correctly is not spam. Although many people confuse the two, they are actually very different. Email Marketing is permission based - meaning that the recipient has volunteered (opted-in) to receive e-newsletters and other email promotions from an organization. The user can opt-out (unsubscribe) at any time using the unsubscribe information available within every email communication.

Spam, however is unsolicited email. Spam is the common term for electronic ‘junk mail’ - unwanted commercial electronic messages. Spammers gather their email addresses from a variety of sources without the knowledge of the recipient. Although spam may offer an unsubscribe facility, they are often not functional or will mean the recipient receives even more unsolicited emails. Spamming is highly unethical and we all hate to receive it.

To ensure you comply with the Spam Act, you should consider the following three steps. To ensure you comply with the Spam Act, you should consider the following three steps. These steps are based on Australian Spam Compliance, however they are also considered best practice and similar guidelines exist in the USA.

Step 1 - Consent Your commercial messages should only be sent when you have consent. This may be express consent from the person you wish to contact - a direct indication that it is okay to send the message, or messages of that nature. It is also possible to infer consent based on a business or other relationship with the person, and their conduct.

Step 2 - Identify Your commercial messages should always contain clear and accurate identification of who is responsible for sending the message, and how they can be contacted. It is important for people to know who is contacting them, and how they can get in touch in return. This will generally be the organisation that authorises the sending of the message, rather than the name of the person who actually hits the “send” button.

Step 3 - Unsubscribe Your commercial messages should contain an unsubscribe facility, allowing people to indicate that such messages should not be sent to them in future. All commercial electronic messages must contain a functional unsubscribe facility, allowing people to opt-out from receiving future messages. Such a request must be honoured.

The Australian Spam Act specifies that the person’s consent has been withdrawn within five working days from the date that the unsubscribe request was sent (in the case of electronic unsubscribe messages) or delivered (in the case of unsubscribe messages sent by post or other means).

Further information on the Australian Spam Guidelines: Australia’s anti-spam legislation was introduced in 2003 in response to concerns about the impact of spam on the effectiveness of electronic communication and the costs imposed on end-users. To view the full guidelines visit: http://www.dbcde.gov.au/communications_and_technology/policy_and_legislation/spam