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True or Not

My daughter is home schooled, so from year to year I buy various text books and computer programs as part of her curriculum.  Sonlight Curriculum Ltd. out of Littleton , CO has always been a dependable source. They specialize in courses with a Christian focus… and I have to believe the following is 100% true. But true or with a slight marketing spin, the following is one of the best email marketing letters I have received recently.

Subject: Explanation of how to get $25 off your Sonlight order (for a very limited time)

Dear Tom,

I am deeply embarrassed. Yesterday afternoon, in preparing my letter about five reasons to order sooner rather than later, we accidentally attached the wrong subject line to the email you received. I had prepared that subject line for a different email headed to a group of people who had never purchased from Sonlight before. I wanted to see if a special offer might help these non-customers place their first order.

The subject line for that email offered $25 off the recipient’s Sonlight order. The email these non-customers received specified a time limit on the offer, as well as a minimum order total of $250.

This morning I discovered we sent that subject line to everyone who has bought anything from Sonlight in the last two years!

Yikes … NOT what we had intended! Talk about expensive mistakes.

But I talked with John and Sarita, who said, “You gave your word. You must fulfill your promise … Since you’ve got lemons, do what you can to make some lemonade.”

So we’re going to do something we pray doesn’t completely swamp our computer system and warehouse crew. I can imagine it may slow our ability to process orders for a few days, but…

We have decided to honor the promise of my last email to you in the following manner:

Since you’ve ordered from us before, we’re extending the offer (originally intended for families new to Sonlight) to you for a very limited time. Place your order worth $250 or more (not including shipping) no later than 11:59 p.m. (MDT) tomorrow (7/23) and you will receive $25 off. That’s in addition to any Sonlighter Club discounts you may receive.

Just enter PRXDY in the box marked “Special Offer Code” at Step 2 of check out.

I hope this little bit of “lemonade” is a blessing to you.

Sincerely,

Tim Heil

Customer Relations Manager

Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd.

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The FTC Hands Down New CAN-SPAM Rules

I follow a lot of blogs, including one by Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey. Silverpop is a email marketing company the provides users with wizard driven email marketing campaigns – and a lot of reporting features. IN a recent posting Nussey talks about new rules which may affect you if you do any kind of list based email. This is a direct partial copy of that item, and a link to the blog is found in my blogroll.  Enjoy.

In case you haven’t heard yet, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission last week enacted new rules intended to clarify the original provisions of the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act. The supplementary ruling, which goes into effect June 26, may have important ramifications for your email marketing program. I encourage you to seek the advice of your legal counsel about how these new rules may affect your programs. In the meantime, here’s a summary of the key provisions for discussion purposes:

Mandated Simplification of Opt-out Processes
The new rules clarify the opt-out required under CAN-SPAM. You’ll want to examine your opt-out process to determine if it is in compliance with this new rule, which states:

The opt-out may not be conditioned on the payment of any fee.
The recipient must not be required to provide anything more than email address and associated opt-out preferences for that email address (i.e., no password, account number, name, etc. can be required).
The opt-out mechanism must rely on either a reply email or a visit to a single Internet Web page and nothing more (i.e., multiple Web page opt-out processes are no longer allowed).
P.O. Box Usage Confirmed
Businesses may publish a sender’s P.O. box or private mailbox in a commercial email message to comply with the valid physical postal address requirement.

Designated Sender Rule Established
This new rule provides a framework whereby multiple advertisers that appear in the same commercial email message, each of which normally would satisfy the Act’s definition of “sender,” may designate a single sender among them as the sole sender of the message. If you routinely engage in list rentals or joint promotions, you will want to examine this provision closely.

Rules Regarding Incented Forwarding
The new rules confirm that if a company offers something of value (e.g., sweepstakes entry or discount) to incent a user to forward a commercial message to a friend, the company providing the incentive is held responsible for complying with CAN-SPAM as a Sender of the resulting message.

The FTC was widely expected to collapse the amount of time senders have to comply with an opt-out from 10 business days to three business days, but no change was issued. The 10 business day opt-out rule remains in effect.

The Email Sender & Provider Coalition has issued a summary of the new rules, which you can check out here. Or, you can access the full FTC text by clicking here.