Is your email inbox under attack?
Mine is bombarded with unsolicited emails. The latest explosion comes from Public Relations (PR) firms.
- It’s aggravating
- There is no link or instructions for getting off their list
- All because I signed up for a newswire
It had me wondering if PR firms are subject to the CAN-SPAM Act.
No sooner did I have that thought than I stumbled across Jason Falls’ post, The PR Guide to Email Pitching, at Social Media Explorer.
Great minds.
What is the CAN-SPAM Act?
In case you are unfamiliar with the CAN-SPAM Act, here is a quick rundown.
Enacted in 2003, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act) set standards for sending commercial emails.
What are commercial emails? Basically, any email in which the primary message is advertising or promoting a product or service. That includes promoting content on commercial (business) websites.
Here is a brief summary of the requirements for a commercial email.
- Header information – such as From, To, Reply To cannot have false or misleading information
- Subject line – must accurately reflect email content
- Advertisement Notification – the email must be identified as an advertisement
- Location – the email must contain a valid physical postal address
- Opt-out option – the email must explain how recipients can opt out of receiving messages in the future
- Opt-out process – you have 10 days to honor the request for opt-out and the process must be a single step of a reply email or a visit to a single page for opt-out.
- Liability – even if you use a company for email marketing, you are liable for compliance and the company may be as well.
Amendments in 2008 added a designated sender rule for emails with multiple senders/contributors (e.g., email newsletters) that designate a single sender for compliance with the law.
PR Spin
I am the first to admit ignorance on the PR industry. I also believe few issues are black and white. I read the Social Media Explorer post with great interest and appreciated the viewpoint from both sides.
Here is my understanding of the different views of the issue.
- The view of some PR professionals is the CAN-SPAM Act does not apply to them as their emails are introductory for networking purposes
- Others feel the emails are unsolicited and meet the definition of commercial; therefore, they should comply
- That includes the opt-out option
In responding to Comments. the post’s author, Jason, offered a simple solution.
“So you can just say “Let me know if you don’t want me to email you” an [sic] be compliant with that part of the Act.”
Perfect.
My Spin
I have no one but myself to blame when I sign up for countless email lists or newsletters.
I take responsibility for that.
As a business owner, I understand the need for marketing, BUT –
- There is a difference between networking and sales pitches
- If you are going to pitch me, don’t send me a mile-long email I never asked for
- If you are going to pitch me, keep to a topic I write about
- Respect me and I’ll respect you right back
And, oh yeah – don’t be surprised if I don’t respond. After all, I don’t know that you’re not spam.
Your View
- What do you think?
- Should PR be exempt from the CAN-SPAM Act?
- When does an introductory email (from anyone) become a commercial sales pitch?
Notice of Disclaimer –Cathy Miller is not an attorney and cannot provide legal advice. The information provided is for your general background only, and is not intended to constitute legal advice as to your specific circumstances. We recommend you review legal issues with an attorney.
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I think the CanSpam Act and the DoNotCall list are about as useful as are the inspections to which we are subjected at airports. Old technology saving us from old problems. With loopholes as large as the tax code has. Fake charities call all the time, claiming exemption. When you call ONE bank for a loan, they add your name to a list that subjects you to multiple calls from others. Spammers use repeaters and foreign country domains to send you trash forever. Moreover, NO ONE ever prosecutes the morons who call illegally (you can complain, list, and repeat ad infinitum- and you can see the complaints when you do a google search for the number involved), no one will prosecute (I will, in small claims court) for illegal fax sending, etc.
If we are going to pass a law, then enforce it. Otherwise, please placate someone else. And, don’t make my life more complicated with your fake “safety measures”!
Funny you should say that, Roy. My 1st headline read: CAN-SPAM Act Can’t Win. Then the post took a different spin so I changed it.
I agree, like most legislation, there is always unintended fallout and policing it is really impossible. I do think Jason’s post had several good points. If I didn’t ask for your email (in this case from PR firms) hawking some product or service AND I don’t even have any kind of relationship with you or your client, why wouldn’t I treat your email like spam?
Reconsider the approach on the introductory email and maybe we’ll talk. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Roy.
Press releases are definitely not “commercial” as long as they’re done right. There isn’t even any question about that. They aren’t selling you something. They’re pitching a story that they think you or your audience might be interested in. That’s no different than you emailing a magazine editor you’ve never spoken to before to pitch an article idea. Well, actually it is. The latter post really is commercial, because you’re trying to get a paying gig. So if you don’t want one, you really can’t do the other without being a hypocrite (and I’m not saying you do pitch mags, but the same would go with pitching services for business writing via queries).
When there is an actual newsworthy or timely story, there really is little to no time for pleasantries and “introductory emails.” That’s not how it works. It’s great if you already know each other, but frequently you won’t. My policy in my old firm was to include a 3-4 sentence intro followed by the release. That’s it. And it was highly effective.
That said, everyone and their brother thinks they can do PR these days, and writing press releases is no exception. They take a template and fill it with useless commercial drivel and try to call it PR instead of the advertorial it is. That’s spam, plain and simple. A PR person should be pitching you news or something timely, and highly relevant to your audience. Or they’ll ask if you’re interested in reviewing a product or service. If it’s anything else and disguised to look like a release, I just ignore it, delete it, or unsubscribe if there’s a link (and there should definitely be an option to unsubscribe — out of common courtesy at the very least when we’re talking about bigger firms especially).
I also look at it this way from the blogger perspective. If you publish your email address, you’re leaving an open invitation for anyone and everyone to contact you within reason. And networking of any variety is within reason — after all, if you weren’t interested in networking you wouldn’t be blogging, sharing social media links, etc. The responsibility starts with the site owner.
For example, on this site you just have a link that immediately opens an email to you. You don’t put any limitations on those emails. If you’re getting a lot of unsolicited material, that’s probably a large part of the problem. I’d recommend setting up a Contact page on the site. Include a contact form (and still email address if you want it, although preferably in a way more difficult to automatically harvest for spammers). And above that form include your contact policies — whether or not you’re open to news releases, whether or not you’re interested in product review pitches, average turnaround time, what emails you don’t respond to, etc. depending on what you want to share. I just to get a lot of product pitches at All Freelance Writing from people hoping I’d hock their wares. When I clearly mentioned what I would and wouldn’t accept via email, that slowed down drastically (I make it clear I don’t accept unsolicited end review materials, and that most review requests never actually happen on that site — they don’t want to waste their time, and I don’t want them wasting mine). I also make it clear I don’t accept releases there unless it’s from someone I already know. So they know up front I won’t promote something for them to my audience unless we’re already networked. They can reach out with a soft approach and get to know each other first so they’re good for the next pitch, or they can suck it up and move on to someone else. So far, making contact policies clear on the site has been the best solution to the over-pitched problem.
Just want to share a few resources as well if you don’t mind (this was a pretty hot topic in the PR / blogging community a while back). Readers be warned: 2 of these articles (not so much the interview) are full of potty mouth language given that they were on a rant-heavy PR and social media blog (NakedPR.com at that time), where I regularly took the industry to task.
1. This article is commentary I published when things were actually reversed — bloggers wanted news releases to be less newsworthy at the time, and as a result it’s no surprise to me that some PR folks still think bloggers want or need a different kind of approach (the very kind you talk about disliking).
http://socialrealist.com/blogging/how-far-should-we-really-go-to-please-bloggers/
2. Here’s part of an interview I did with Darren Rowse on the issue of pitching bloggers back in ’08. I think a lot of bloggers probably agree with him. I also think some recommendations are a bit unrealistic when you really know the nature of releases done right (meaning following a new site for a couple of weeks isn’t realistic when a story is truly newsworthy — implying it needs to go out asap).
http://socialrealist.com/blogging/darren-rowse-on-targeting-and-pitching-bloggers/
3. This last one is called “If Bloggers and PRs Played Nice” and it details ideal dos and don’ts for both sides, from someone who straddled both sides of the fence for quite some time. I’d say this one is just as relevant today as when it was written. What can I say? We still haven’t learned. 😉
http://socialrealist.com/blogging/if-prs-and-bloggers-played-nice/
Hi Jenn: I was kind of hoping you would offer your expertise. 🙂 And thanks for sharing the links. I will definitely check them out.
None of the pitches I received had an opt-out link or instructions, which is what prompted this post. It got me wondering if they would be required to. I thought the simple solution of putting in a statement of let me know if you are not interested was a good one. Even as just a courtesy, forget compliance issues.
I also appreciate the suggestions for the contact information. This site is often what “sells” my business so I don’t like putting people through a lot of hoops to get a hold of me. I would be interested in how you set up email in a way more difficult to automatically harvest for spammers.
Thanks, Jenn, for the education and taking the time to provide the feedback.
To prevent harvesting, don’t just link to your email address (what you currently do) and don’t simply write it out in text that can be automatically harvested from your site. I simply write it out — jenn(at)allfreelancewriting(dot)com. It’s not ideal, and doesn’t stop everyone, but it lets people see the actual address if they want to contact me manually for some reason. But most never need to because I also include a contact form right on the site. They don’t even have to open their email to contact me. It discourages those who want to send attachments (which a lot of spammy “PR” people do which is a long-time no-no without an attachment being requested), but it makes it simple for people who legitimately want to get in touch.
Thanks, Jenn. I appreciate the information. It hasn’t gotten out of control, but this will help keep it that way.