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While Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is not a company we work for or have any affiliation with besides some small financial support, they are a fantastic organisation and we’ve watched their email newsletters roll in for some time now.  

They have in the last 12 months made a dramatic revision in the formatting of their HTML email newsletters and their evolution is worth considering if you have been adhering a certain type for a while now in your own email marketing.

I’ve attached a screenshot saved from a 2008 newsletter we received from MSF.  It may remind you of the odd newsletter you’ve seen, or maybe of your own. :)

While we received these regularly and it kept MSF in our minds, they were rarely read due to the heavy amounts of text and the inability to clearly see any subjects of interest to us.  This ‘heavy’ format inhibited MSF’s ability to communicate by forcing the user to stop and read lengthy copy they may not be interested in in order to find something they might.  Almost as fun as eating Weet-Bix with no milk.

Significantly this older style of email makes assumptions about what content is relevant to publics rather than helping recipients to select areas of interest to them within the organisation’s sphere of activity.  I have illustrated the effectiveness of such emails in a graph I generously made for you here.

So, in the words of Dana Carvey from that-movie-I haven’t-seen-and-don’t-intend-to, ”This is what you doing.  This is what I want you to do.”

So, we were particularly interested when MSF recently transitioned to a very different email format (see second image). Beyond providing an emotional appeal through images of their work, I am now able to quickly see if there’s anything of interest in less than two seconds. Often I find myself clicking through to one or more areas. That possibility may have been there before, but, I just didn’t see it.

Succinctly, their emails have transitioned from a  monologue to a question/opportunity.  This is a far more acceptable method of digital communication respecting the recipients online sensibilities and time poverty.

Readers now follow through on areas of interest to them and click into an environment where they can fully engage with the area that they care about most and easily donate/register/forward/comment etc.

They choose, rather than being told.  This facilitates an even greater likelihood of further action.

So, what are you doing with your email newsletters?  Are you stuck in a marketing rut, where the only way to get a message out there is to cram it down like fairy floss in a fat kids face, or do you entice the user, respect their time and achieve a far more, er, healthy result.

MSF since launching their revised template has been very careful never to overload or grow it beyond the current ‘hero’ image, two article images, two paragrah-type-text areas and persistent footer links.  

Just looking at it now you can see how attractive and easy to decipher it is.  They are still careful to ensure all the images are ALT tagged and a kind disclaimer resides down the bottom.  But beyond that, I believe their understanding and consideration of their constituents has resulted a far more effective email.

Another great spin off is that you will be able to better judge what people actually are interested in as they follow through on particular topics.  You’ll be able to tailor your emails and begin a cycle of increased effectiveness.  So while you may not have powerful pictures relating to important issues of justice, you might just be able to change the way your emails are sent to facilitate easy communication and action using few words and clear links.

Love to know your thoughts,

~ Rob

This, the third and final piece on our overview of Australian Spam Law walks through the important but clear topics of Identification and Subscription. Be prepared to be wiser.

Identification

Doesn’t mean clicking ‘enhance’ on your super pixilated Google image. And unlike the Biblical principle, it is, in this case, all about you.

Essentially it means that if you are the person sending a commercial electronic message you must provide clear and accurate information about yourself including details and contact information.

If you’re using a third party make sure you provide them with accurate contact information regarding your business.

Of course this is to be contextually appropriate - an SMS will have less contact information (perhaps a phone number rather than an address) than an e-mail. However it needs to be accessible and clear.

Information needs to be accurate for 30 days after the day you send the message. At which point you may fly to the Cayman Islands.

Easy.

Unsubscription

“You need to provide people with the choice to opt out” says ‘Spam Act 2003 – A practical guide for business’.

This ability needs to be a) clear and b) easy to use. Requests must be followed up promptly.

These can take the form of phone numbers, email addresses, online-forms, fax numbers and more. Just like identification this function must be available for 30 days after the transmission of your message.

The Spam Act states that a request to ‘withdraw consent’ will have been deemed to take place from 5 days after the request is sent (in the case of email) or received (in the case of post or other means). So make sure you follow requests up promptly!

The Practical Guide suggests a same-day unsubscription regime or an automated process with checking previous unsubscription against new imports. Both these features are supported in Brown Box’s MailBox if you are using it to send messages.

Other final information

The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) is the regulating body for activities to which the Spam Act relates. If you infringe the act and are reported they may issue a formal warning if your trespass has been inadvertent, would not be repeated and the warning is deemed sufficient to ‘change contravening behaviour’.

The legislation is designed to prohibit spam originating in Australia being sent anywhere, or originating overseas being sent to an Australian address. So if you live in Ukraine and are sending email to Iceland then you can disregard everything I’ve written.

We also recommending checking your ISP’s Acceptable Use Policy if you are using them as a relay for commercial electronic messages, as their terms and conditions may differ from those laid out in the SPAM Act.

Some links as provided by the Business Guide.

• Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) ;
• Coalition against Unsolicited Bulk Email (CAUBE) ;
• Internet Industry Association (IIA);
• Internet Society of Australia (ISOC);
• Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA);
• Small Enterprise Telecommunications Centre (SETEL); and
• Presidian Legal Publications.

Conclusion

We’ll, if you’ve managed to persevere through these three short articles you’ll have yourself a great handle on what’s required to satisfy the Australian Spam Act and be well on your way to successful commercial electronic messaging.

The three main principles are Consent, Identify and Unsubscribe. If you keep these three in mind as you construct campaigns and manage lists you can sleep safe knowing you won’t find the ACA banging down your door.

Again this is all outlined in ‘SPAM ACT 2003: A Practical Guide for Business’ which is a handy download for reference purposes.

Thanks for joining me for this journey through SPAM law.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions, I’m happy to help.

Thanks for reading :)

~Rob

We spend a lot of time advising on best practice for our many clients who use our email marketing services, but for those of us in Australia, we happen to be the beneficiaries of some of the most progressive (and strict!) spam legislation in the world, so it’s worth getting to know and ensuring that your campaigns are conforming with some reasonable rules.

Please note I am NOT a lawyer and my writings do not constitute legal counsel of any kind. But hopefully I can present some good information and links to relevant law to help you in formulating your companies SPAM policy. There’s a lot to digest, so I’m going to break it down into this introduction and three bite-size chunks for you to get your heads around over the next month or so.

Now if you’re feeling keen, the Australian government has produced a helpful document called “Spam Act 2003: A Practical Guide for Business”. It’s an invigorating read and if you want to dig deeper it’s a good place to start. However, I’ve read it, chewed it, thought about it and have emerged victorious. So let’s start at the bottom, what is ‘SPAM’ according to the Aussie pollies?

According to the SPAM Act, SPAM is, ‘unsolicited commercial electronic messaging’, and can be a single message sent via Instant Messaging (IM), SMS, other mobile phone messaging (MMS for example) or email. What isn’t covered is non-electronic matter, voice phone calls, pop up windows (sadly) and ‘Messages without any commercial content that do not contain links or directions to a commercial website or location’ (Spam Act 2003: A Practical Guide for Business: 4). For the messages to covered by the law they must either a) originate in Australia or b) contain and Australian link.

Address harvesting software or addresses gained from this type of software must also never be
used. Ever. Ever Ever Ever.

Some of the penalties which might interested you are: A single day of contraventions of the law can result in a fine of $220 000 and multiple breaches can lead to exposure to 1.1 million of fines. So if you’re planning on being caught you better have extra close ties to the Nigerian government and the hidden money of which you are the only beneficiary.

Back to business, how does one work to ensure complicity and avoid legal action and ensure your sending facility isn’t blacklisted through poor practice? There are three primary areas where a business needs to take care and I’m going to give a brief overview as best I can. Again, I recommend taking a look at the government’s document and also other relevant information on the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s website. The three areas are:

1. Consent
2. Identify
3. Unsubscribe

We’re going to look at each of these in a little more detail in the coming days, but so that I can leave you with something practical here are two quick points on what a message must contain by law.

1. Accurate information about the sender of the message
2. A functional way for the message’s recipients to indicate that they do not wish to receive such messages in the future – that they wish to unsubscribe.

So, easy. If know your list is clean and not sure about what actually has to be in the email to satisfy your legal requirements, just make sure you have accurate and legitimate contact information regarding your business and a way for the recipient to opt out. Easy! But don’t get too excited about your awesome fulfillment of these two simple directives, we’ve got the big three areas in SPAM law to come. Stay tuned!

~Rob :)

You can find it at http://www.roblincolne.com