Many companies have switched from sending bulk “snail” mail (to prospects and leads) to bulk email. Loren MacDonald, vice president of corporate communications at Lyris Inc., (formerly J.L. Halsey), discusses what should be your current best practices for sending bulk email in MediaPost’s Email Insider, When ‘Best’ Email Practices Become ISP Law:
While reviewing Gmail’s guidelines for bulk email senders, I noticed a startling development: Best practices for email sending that my colleagues and I have advocated for years have now become requirements or “highly recommended” (hint, hint).
A quick tour through the bulk-email or postmaster pages at other major ISPs and email providers shows that they, too, have moved beyond technical requirements to specify procedures such as getting explicit permission before sending email, sender authentication and list hygiene.
It confirms my stance that for U.S. senders, just meeting CAN-SPAM regulations for commercial email, such as a working unsubscribe, a street address, and permanent removal within 10 days, is no longer enough.
Instead, CAN-SPAM is now just the jumping-off point. As they used to say in old Western movies, the ISPs are the law in these parts. And they lay down that law on their postmaster pages.
Here are five examples of best practices that ISPs have codified into requirements and recommendations (which you should interpret as requirements) …
1. Use double opt-in subscription: Sure, CAN-SPAM permits opt-out. But everybody else, including European Union countries, mandates a minimum of single opt-in. Yahoo even specifies double opt-in.2. Don’t pre-check the subscription box: “Negative consent” works for the Book of the Month Club, but not email marketing. Although CAN-SPAM allows opt-out, it also defines permission as “affirmative consent.” In other words, make sure your page loads with an unchecked box.
3. Authentication: Do your eyes glaze over when we talk about Sender ID or DKIM? It’s time to learn, because ISPs are beginning to insist on it.
4. Purchasing lists: Renting a list, especially one that can certify the permission level, is okay. Buying a list is not.
5. List hygiene: Why do I urge you to read your delivery reports every time you send email and to remove hard bounces when the law doesn’t require it? Besides being a foundation of Deliverability 101, the ISPs say you have to.
Maybe in the past you’ve brushed aside best-practice discussions by countering that it’s just somebody’s opinion. But now, the ISPs have raised the bar, and you must jump higher now.
Raising your own standards will pay off, though. Meet the ISPs on their terms, and you should see more email delivered to the inbox, which in turn should improve your outcome, whether you measure it in fewer spam complaints, lower list churn or higher ROI.
