Social Networking and Email Marketing
I am a Linked In Open Networker – this basically means that I accept most connection requests and will archive a request rather than hit it with an “I Don’t Know”. I have made some interesting contacts but I am surprised to see how many of my new contacts automatically subscribe me to their mailing lists. Not the Linked In contact lists, but their own mailing lists through services Aweber, Getresponse, Constant Contact and the like.
As someone who has built a solid Email Marketing database (and experienced some interesting situations along the way) and also consults with Small Businesses to develop and implement an Email Marketing campaign, I find this practice to be counter-productive and a possible breach of the CAN-Spam laws.
A possible breach of the CAN-Spam laws? Yes – I am, in effect, being sent unsolicited commercial email – marketing material – from these contacts. I haven’t provided express permission to receive these updates, and they are far from personal levels of contact – some of the updates are incredibly professional newsletters and marketing updates.
Could I argue then, to an ISP or autoresponder provider that these updates are being sent to me without my permission? Yes. Would the ISP and autoresponder provider take action – maybe, if they received enough complaints over a period of time.
Am I going to complain? No, I won’t. I’ll see if I can unsubscribe from the updates and if I can’t and I really object to the material I’m being sent, I’ll disconnect from that contact. Ultimately, I use a separate email address for these connections and deleting email is relatively easy. (This is what I mean about counter-productive for the contact sending the message).
Permission Based Email Marketing
Permission Based Email Marketing, is about gaining the recipients permission to send them information of a commercial nature. Pure and Simple – if you haven’t received their permission, don’t send the material.
The question that is raised, is does connecting on a business or social network like Linked In, imply permission to receive commercial and marketing updates? Does it imply permission to be added to an autoresponder service to receive those updates?
I think not. I believe that by connecting, we are allowing ourselves to explore how we can work together, if at all. It also allows us to expand our contact base and make introductions, if the fit is good…. It’s about networking first, business and sales later.
I get the fact that one way to get to KNOW about your new contact is to receive their email updates – but I would prefer to make that determination myself. I would like to assess what my new contact is really doing and whether their information is relevant to me and will add to my business or personal development.
Even adding people from offline events in this manner should be considered in the same light. When you received their contact details, did you ask them if they wished to receive your updates – or have you just assumed that they would be interested and sent them updates anyway?
Business Reputation
What does this mean for your business repuation, or reputation in general?
I am happy to provide referrals for people, when I believe they have integrity – I’m not likely to refer one of my contacts through to someone that just assumes they add a contact to a mailing list, on the strength of the contact being made.
Think about what your current networking practices are saying about you – and consider how the recipients of your updates feel, when the updates are literally forced upon them and they have to opt-out of receiving them.
Read my next article for practical strategies about connecting on a social or professional network and adding people to your email marketing list.
Charly Leetham - Wordpress Optimization Expert & Small Business Coach
Charly Leetham is an online business implemenation expert who helps solopreneurs and small business get their business and online presence in order. She has many aspects of my business, including small business coaching.
Charly approaches web services work from a holistic point of view and her mission is to help people map their online presence to their business processes, ensuring that the website is an enabler and supporting the business rather than determining the direction of the business.
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James O'Brien
on December 18th, 2009
Charly, LashBack monitors commercial email for compliance and I can tell you while you are right to be angry about these practices they do not expressly violate the Can-Spam Act. The Act does not require permission to send commercial email but does place nine other requirements on the messages inclusing that they unsubscribe you when requested. One potential violation is that if the sender is using software to systematically mine email addresses from any website, this is considered harvesting and is a violation of the Can-Spam Act. I would advise if you don’t want to complain directly to Linked-In that you should hit that spam/junk button and file your complaint with your ISP. This is a very effective way to stop the se sender from engaging in poor practices as the more inbox owners provide that feedback, the more ISPs will throttle and block repetitive bad senders. Happy Holidays!
Charly Leetham
on December 21st, 2009
Hi James,
I agree that the practice does not expressly violate the CanSpam Act.
My aim in discussing the issue is to raise the ‘discourtesy’ of automatically subscribing your connections to your emailing list and the possible consequences of doing so.
Thanks for the tips and I mostly certainly do make use of the unsubscribe and junk email functions as well.
Cheers!