It looks like Canada’s finally getting onto the Spam protection bandwagon – and about time, if you ask me. Bill C-27 will now be debated in the Senate, after being passed by the House of Commons. This bill states that consent is required to send any form of communication to an electronic address. This term “electronic address” is very extensive, including e-mail, instant messages, and messages on other accounts, which include all social networking sites. This even includes text messages sent to cell phones. It will also require people to provide related contact information, as well as identify the sender. It will also make it a requirement to include an “unsubscribe” option, which is often available from reputable firms.
With this bill in place, it will be nearly impossible for firms to continue with interruption marketing. As such, permission based marketing will be taking over. What is permission marketing? Well, permission marketing is what I consider to be respectable internet marketing. At least, it’s the e-mail marketing that I’ll actually consider reading. Permission marketing means that in order to receive the e-mail/message in the first place, you have to provide your information. This means that before they send you anything you have provided them your information, or shown that you have some interest.
How will this affect your business? As spam has become so extreme in the past few years, it is making electronic communication more inefficient, and wasting our time. In 2003, it was actually recorded that the number of spam (unsolicited commercial) e-mails had exceeded the number of legitimate communications (http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ecic-ceac.nsf/eng/h_gv00246.html). By regulating the e-mail marketing world, this will make your overall day more efficient. Also, since the regulations of the Bill seem to be fairly easy to follow (provide contact information, have an unsubscribe option, etc), this should not limit businesses any more than the Do Not Call List has. By only e-mailing people that have shown some interest in your company, you may actually benefit as you are contacting people who will likely spend time looking at what you’ve sent them. Focusing your efforts on these people who have expressed interest will actually likely increase your number of electronic marketing sales leads.