12 replies to this topic

[Bob Collett]

I have a prospective new client who has built a sucessful business in part by having an assistant cutting & pasting email addresses from relevant websites. He sends one email offering a free sample of his product. A lot of his email recipients request the free sample, recieve the sample promptly, then go on to become customers. 100% of his customers love his product and his service. He gets a lot of referrals. His product is a clean and G rated.

His process is clearly is not "best practice" and I have advised him that his practice is a violation of the policy of most ISPs and hosting companies. Reluctantly, he agrees with me and has asked me for advice.

The only thing I have come up with is to create some high impact pages to entice customers to give their email address and request the free sample directly.

Is there any acceptable method to proactively harvest targeted emails from websites; and send out a single unsolicited email with an opt-in and opt-out provision.

[Jill]

There's nothing wrong with the way he's doing it. It's basically a personal message to people he thinks might like his product.

[Randy]

If he knows the type of people who make up his target market, and it sounds like he does given the success he's had so far, he may want to consider identifying a newsletter or two that caters to this type of person. Purchasing an ad in such online publications tend to give one a lot more reach for a small expense.

He may also want to find a blogger or two who fits his customer profile. Sending them a free sample may get them to blog about his products, thus helping him spread the word to a wider audience with basically no cost involved.

[piskie]

There's nothing wrong with the way he's doing it. It's basically a personal message to people he thinks might like his product

Not so as I understand it in the UK and probably other EU Countries.

[Bob Collett]

There's nothing wrong with the way he's doing it. It's basically a personal message to people he thinks might like his product.

I was not expecting a positive reply. Thanks.

[Randy]

That's a good point piskie. If memory serves most of the laws in the EU and Asia prohibit the sending of any commercial email that is "unsolicited", something that isn't part of the US CAN-SPAM law. To the chagrin of many states in the US who have tougher anti-spam laws that were superceded by CAN-SPAM.

Even with this flaw in CAN-SPAM there's at least one thing you'd definitely want to check out with an attorney Bob. Again if memory serves I beileve CAN-SPAM makes the act of harvesting email addresses illegal. Even if you never send an email to your harvested list yourself it's still illegal. (eg if you harvest and then sell the list.) The act of email harvesting in conjunction with sending commercial email makes any violation move from a mere misdemeanor to an aggravated offense, which can of course carry stiffer penalties if you end up getting prosecuted either by the FTC or a state attorney general.

It's really a legal question. So I'd encourage you to see advice from legal counsel who is up on the latest developments and case law. Better safe than sorry.

[Jill]

So you're not allowed to personally email people who have their email address on their website? If not, there sure are a lot of people breaking the law.

My assumption was that you weren't allowed to email them in bulk. Didn't think there was anything about personally emailing people one on one.

[Randy]

It's a legal question Jill.

Per the regs you cannot do a lot of things people do every day. Regarding harvesting email addresses from sites the additional penalties section says additional fines and penalties can apply if the email sender:

CAN-SPAM Requirements

"harvest(s)" email addresses from Web sites or Web services that have published a notice prohibiting the transfer of email addresses for the purpose of sending email

That's in addition to all of the normal requirements. And one needs to remember CAN-SPAM isn't nearly as restrictive as the laws in other countries.

So unless Bob's client if following every single requirement of CAN-SPAM to the T and has trolled through each site an email address was pulled from to see if they had a statement disallowing commercial email (it's not required to be next to where an email address appears on the site, just somewhere) there are potential problems on the horizon. Of course this assumes one would call a free sample email commercial. A good attorney could make an argument either way.

FWIW, I have a feeling if an attorney were consulted about it the first question said attorney would ask is if it's really worth a possible 5 figure fine and possible criminal prosecution for every email being sent. The sad fact is real people who trip across the line are a lot easier for them to find and prosecute than the real spammers.

[Jill]

Honestly, I don't think anyone is enforcing CAN-spam, based on the spam I get.

That said, I've not seen many sites that actually publish a notice prohibiting the transfer of email addresses for the purpose of sending email.

[Randy]

Mine all have that statement. Usually buried in the TOS/Privacy notice.

Not that it matters since I don't have any sites that actually list email addresses anymore. Contact form and that's it. It's the only way to keep from having to change commonly used email addresses every 6 months to hold down spam. Even with this I can tell you there are apparently a lot of people out there with infected computers. Because I still have to change 'em every year or so to keep from getting spammed to death.

[Zishan Ahmed]

The only thing that came without a prize is SPAM, in this internet era.. i get thousand of them everyday.

[Bob Collett]

Mine all have that statement. Usually buried in the TOS/Privacy notice.

Not that it matters since I don't have any sites that actually list email addresses anymore. Contact form and that's it. It's the only way to keep from having to change commonly used email addresses every 6 months to hold down spam. Even with this I can tell you there are apparently a lot of people out there with infected computers. Because I still have to change 'em every year or so to keep from getting spammed to death.

Thanks for the interesting dialog. I think I have convinced the client that we can accomplish the same result in the long run by putting the offer on his website, getting the page ranked for certain "free sample" type keywords, and encouraging prospects to opt-in to receive the free sample. This way he is in full compliance which in the long run will enhance his brand.

By the way, I have tried to find a forum simlar to highrankings but with an email marketing focus. I can not find one anywhere.

Bob

[Affan Laghari]

Hello Bob

I think you shall consult a lawyer about wha Randy said:
If your employer sends the free sample without asking anything like purchase the premium version, would it be classified as a commercial spam email.

If not, you can mention your website address (or appropriate webpage) in the sample in a suitable way that would get recipient's attention. And if the sample has some limited functionalities and it seems evident (like in software trial versions), then the recipients may visit the website for more info.

Especially if you publish the URL something like www.domain.com/getfullversion