Recent legislation designed to stop aggressive and intrusive spammers could impact an unsuspecting group: small-business owners who don’t clog mailboxes with junk but who rely on e-mail as an indispensable and money-saving marketing tool.
According to a recent survey, about 62 percent of small-business owners either don’t know what the CAN-SPAM Act is or they don’t know what punishment they could suffer if they violate it.
“I knew nothing about it,” said Michael Ruskin, managing partner at DiBona Designs, a specialty paper and scrapbooking company in Roswell, Ga. “We do a lot of
e-mails announcing new products. It’s the main way to get the word out … it saves me a bundle of money.”
The act, effective Jan. 1, requires a uniform national standard for marketing to customers and prospects via e-mail.
All messages must contain the sender’s physical address, must note the e-mail is an advertisement and must include an option to unsubscribe, along with other requirements.
The time and technical expertise required for compliance could be too much for some cash-strapped, overworked entrepreneurs to handle. Others may assume their e-mails don’t violate the law–and they may end up paying a steep price. Each violation can carry a fine of up to $250, with total penalties of up to $2 million.
“An opt-out? We don’t have that now,” said Ruskin, who sends friendly e-mails to about 200 loyal customers on a regular basis. “No, we don’t have something that says it’s an advertisement, either.
“In a way it’s good. I get spam all the time.”
The survey–conducted by Interland, an Atlanta-based Web-hosting and online services company–found that 85 percent of small-business owners use
e-mail to communicate with existing customers, and 67 percent use it to reach potential customers.
E-mail marketing is “absolutely vital” for entrepreneurs, said Kim Gordon, president of the National Marketing Federation. “We need to use e-mail marketing for new customer lead generation. … We need to keep customers and upsell them. It costs so much more to win a new customer than to keep an old one.”
Complying with the law likely won’t be difficult for companies that can afford to hire outside help.
“It seems geared toward stopping porn, rather than just bulk e-mail, but they’ve put the two in one basket,” said Scott Crawford, an Atlanta restaurant owner. “That’s going to make it hard for us.”
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Edited by Lara Weber ([email protected]) and alBerto Trevino ([email protected])