Nobody likes spam. In fact, according to the Australian Spam Act of 2003, it is illegal in Australia to send unsolicited emails. There are three basic rules that you need to know about when sending out marketing material:

Recipients of your message must give consent;

You must provide identification; and

You must provide an unsubscribe facility.

Our NewsMark newsletter and email marketing system is set up to help you be compliant with the rules. Here's some more information about the three rules. 

Consent

When building your subscription list, make sure that your subscribers know what they are getting themselves into. By respecting the privacy of your clients (or potential clients) you can develop and maintain a trusting relationship.

Regarding adding email addresses from your existing contact list, the Spam Act makes a distinction between:

people with whom you have an existing business relationship, and

people who are merely contacts.

In the first instance consent can be taken as inferred, but in the second instance it would appear that an explicit consent process is neccesary. Consult the Spam Act itself to clarify this for yourself.

In the process of collecting email addresses, make it clear if they will be added to your subscription list to receive emails. It is not sufficient to have a pre-filled checkbox indicating a request for subscription. If you provide useful information the client will want to receive your emails, instead of feeling they were tricked into subscribing.

It is also important to provide a double opt-in registration process. This is a double-check that the owner of the email address is actually giving consent to be subscribed. A confirmation email is sent to the requested email address and the recipient must click on a link to confirm their intent to subscribe. This prevents a subscription by someone who does not own the email address.

Identification

When sending a letter via 'snail mail' you wouldn’t think of omitting your own contact details, so the same should apply for sending out an electronic message.

According to the Spam Act 2003 you need to provide:

Your legal business name;

Your ABN, where applicable; and

Your contact details, such as your physical or website address, telephone number and email.

The easiest way to remember to include this is to embed it in the template you use for sending campaigns.

Unsubscribe facility

Probably the most important aspect of being compliant is providing a facility that allows recipients to unsubscribe. It is required by law that this facility is easily visible, easy to use and requests are actioned within five working days. An automatic process is always easiest.

NewsMark makes it really simple to do this. You simply insert this string: %%unsubscribe%%. This gets replaced when you send your campaign with an address that your recipient clicks to unsubscribe. Your work is done and so is theirs.

Further information

The above information is intended as a guide only. For complete and up to date information, you should consult the Australian Communications and Media Authority website, which provides detailed guidance for interpreting the Spam Act of 2003.

That takes care of legal requirements. NewsMark can also help in other ways to maximise the success of your campaign, such as searching the content of your email for words likely to be picked up by spam filters. Please contact us if you'd like to know more.