Canada Government to email marketers – Connect if you have consent

Author: Mike Connolly

We understand that email marketers will now have to bring in new strategies and learn [tweetable]new tactics of handling the Canada’s anti-spam Legislation (CASL)[/tweetable] from 01 July 2014 onwards. Here are few tips on how to do it.

• Plan a welcome program immediately – Including a welcome program for your customer base is crucial under CASL. The mail should welcome your new customers and explain them the benefits of associating with you. Seek their consent on receiving emails and also give them an option of receiving the mailers on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, or only during major events. Also, make sure that you educate your customers on the importance of adding your email address to their address book for improved delivery. Email appending will also come under the CASL scanner, however, if you have the consent and a proof to justify it, then you can go ahead with it.
• Extinction of Forward-to-a-friend (FTAF) button – This button was bound to disappear and now with the CASL coming into practice, it’s time for it to disappear. CASL focuses around obtaining proper consent, and this button does not comply with that. Hence, replace the ‘forward to a friend button’ with the social icons. Promote them on liking and sharing your links on various platforms.
• Consent is valid only for 2 years – If your customer has given you the consent to send emails, then their consent is valid only for the next two years. To retain your customer base you have to plan re-engagement programs without being commercial.
• Social media is not spared as well – This means that [tweetable]anything commercial on a social media site will be considered a CEM[/tweetable]. If your customer has posted a complaint about you on your twitter handle, you are just allowed to apologize and tell them to write to your service email id or contact your people in person. In case you apologize and then offer a discount or a freebee on their next visit, then it will be considered as a violation under CASL. So managing the social media intelligently without any commercial intention is the key.