About the Canada Anti-Spam Law (CASL)

The Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL) is in effect from July 1, 2014. If you’re in Canada or send to Canadian residents, you’ll likely need to comply with CASL. Luckily, there’s a three-year transition period, until July 1, 2017, during which you can take steps to ensure your list stays in compliance under the law.

This article is provided as a resource, but does not constitute legal advice. It’s important to note that we’re not legal professionals. It may be best to seek professional legal advice in these instances just to be sure any practices are in compliance with the new CASL legislation.

Liability

There are new consequences for spammers, including fines of $1-10M per violation. It’s important to note that individuals and companies, including directors, officers and other agents, are responsible and liable for the messages they send. After July 1, 2017, any individual will also be able to sue any entity they believe is sending spam messages.

Exempt Messages

These types of electronic messages are exempt from CASL for various reasons:

• Messages to family or a person with established personal relationship.
• Messages to an employee, consultant, or person associated with your business.
• Responses to a current customer, or someone who has inquired in the last six months.
• Messages that will be opened or accessed in a foreign country, including the U.S., China, and most of Europe.
• Messages sent on behalf of a charity or political organization for the purposes of raising funds or soliciting contributions.
• Messages attempting to enforce a legal right or court order.
• Messages that provide warranty, recall, safety, or security information about a product or service purchased by the recipient.
• Messages that provide information about a purchase, subscription, membership, account, loan, or other ongoing relationship, including delivery of product updates or upgrades.
• A single message to a recipient without an existing relationship on the basis of a referral. The full name of the referring person must be disclosed in the message. The referrer may be family or have another relationship with the person to whom you’re sending.

If your message does not meet one of these criteria, consent is required under CASL.

Implied vs. Express Consent

Our partner, Market 2 All, has an Anti-Spam policy that is opt-in only, requiring explicit permission from all subscribers. This means that what has been the policy of Market 2 All complies with both the previous laws and this new legislation, which means if you comply with our permissions you should comply with CASL.

The law defines two types of consent: implied and express. Implied consent is a looser interpretation, whereas express consent requires action from both sender and recipient.

Implied consent includes when:

• A recipient has purchased a product, service or made another business deal, contract, or membership with your organization in the last 24 months;
• You are a registered charity or political organization, and the recipient has made a donation or gift, has volunteered, or attended a meeting organized by you; or
• A professional message is sent to someone whose email address was given to you, or is conspicuously published, and who hasn’t published or told you that they don’t want unsolicited messages.

If your recipients don’t meet any of the above criteria, then express consent is required before you can send campaigns to them.

Express consent means written or oral agreement to receive specific types of messages, for example “You want to receive monthly newsletters and weekly discount notifications from Company A.” Express consent is only valid if the following information is included with your request for consent:

• A clear and concise description of your purpose in obtaining consent
• A description of messages you’ll be sending
• Requestor’s name and contact information (physical mailing address and telephone number, email address, or website URL)
• A statement that the recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

The requestor can be you or someone for whom you’re asking. If you’re requesting consent on behalf of a client, the client’s name and contact information must be included with the consent request.

During the transition period, July 1, 2014-July 1, 2017, you may continue to send messages to recipients from whom you have implied consent, unless they unsubscribe. After the 2017 cut-off date, you may only send to recipients with express consent or whose implied consent is currently valid under CASL—that is, 24 months after a purchase or six months after an inquiry.

Market 2 All Terms of Use

In many cases, Market 2 All’s Terms of Use are more strict than what’s outlined in CASL, particularly regarding third-parties and implied consent. As a rule of thumb, you want to have written permission from every subscriber.

Sticking to Market 2 All’s policies is not only required, it also helps improve your campaign deliverability and subscriber engagement. Here are some of Market 2 All’s Terms that differ from CASL.

• An email newsletter subscribe form on your web site.
• An opt-in checkbox on a form. This checkbox must not be checked by default, the person completing the form must willingly select the checkbox to indicate they want to hear from you.
• If someone completes an offline form like a survey or enters a competition, you can only contact them if it was explained to them that you would be contacting them by email AND they ticked a box indicating they would like you to contact them.
• Customers who have purchased from you within the last 2 years.
• If someone gives you their business card and you have explicitly asked for permission to add them to your list, you can contact them. If they dropped their business card in a fishbowl at a trade show, there must be a sign indicating they will be contacted by email about that specific topic.

What Can You Do Now?

To ensure your subscriber list is in good shape and you are sending emails only to engaged subscribers, we recommend removing any subscribers that have not opened an email in the last 6 months and also reconfirming subscribers that have not used your services in the last year.

- See more at: http://www.paulmycroft.com/email-marketing/canada-anti-spam-law-casl/#sthash.ImmtwotY.dpuf

Source : http://www.paulmycroft.com/email-marketing/canada-anti-spam-law-casl/

Tags : email marketing, email marketing software, singapore email marketing, email blast, singapore email database

What Do You Mean, 'Email Marketers Need Not Apply'?

It seems as if the marketing world has a new slogan. Once upon a time it was “email is dead,” but most have come around to believe that email definitely has a place within the marketing construct. But the new slogan seems to indicate that email marketers are a dying breed -- at least when it comes to a marketing organization’s need for them.

Instead of damning the channel, marketers are now rallying against the specialists that build and execute email programs themselves. An article entitled “Email Marketers Need Not Apply”cites statistics from a Forrester study that claims only 6% of respondents deem email a desirable skill when hiring staff.

As you can imagine, having spent the better part of 15-plus years living and breathing the world of email marketing, I approached the article with a fair amount of skepticism. The article says the market is swinging to an increased demand for generalists; we don’t need specialists in marketing channel applications. To that I say: “Malarkey!”

Part of the problem I find in this stance is that the perception of an email marketer as a channel specialist may be a little misguided. Over the course of many years, email marketers have had to hone their skills at marrying technology with marketing strategies -- skills, oddly enough, that align very closely with the definition of a modern marketer.

According to the article, a modern marketer is “someone who knows how to use technology to learn about their customers, apply those learnings to create personalized conversations and content, and execute programs that measure their effectiveness in doing so.” Don’t we do that daily anyway? Let’s examine how we, as email marketers, position our skills to be more relevant in the day of the modern marketer.

Let’s examine how email marketers’ skills align with the top three marketing skills in demand.

Brand management. Partnering with and enhancing the brand is a daily task for email marketers. Every email touch has an impact on brand perception and ultimately carries a profound impression. While most email marketers have not ultimately maintained direct responsibility for managing the brand inside of an organization, every single email specialist I have ever worked with is an advocate for doing what’s best for brand marketing efforts and positioning -- sometimes, even more so than the brand managers inside their organization.

Strategic planning. While email planning inside many organizations comes at the end of the development process, some of the best multi channel strategists I have ever worked with are email experts.

That being said, just because someone is an expert in email doesn’t mean that’s where her knowledge starts and stops. Email marketers are constantly thinking about the strategic application of the channel and how it complements and/or impacts other channels the brand leverages.

The mental shift needs to happen outside of the email team, where other areas of marketing recognize the value their email team can bring to the conversation. Email marketers can strategically marry goals and objectives with technologies available to them for execution. They can measure that success and do it all over again.

Data analysis. At the very heart of email success is a firm understanding and application of data. Not just email response data, but customer data -- and all the analysis that goes with it. Email marketers, much like direct mailers, are committed to a fundamental understanding of the outcomes for their marketing efforts. Lending insights and asking questions is core to the recommendations made for the next campaign, target audience or new program opportunity.

My recommendation for finding yourself a solid “modern marketer” is to look to your email experts  -- or encourage application from those who have a strong email or digital marketing background, as these are the folks that can meet your needs today -- across channels. Don’t sell talent short simply because they are email experts.

Source : http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/237932/what-do-you-mean-email-marketers-need-not-apply.html

Tags : email marketing, email marketing software, singapore email marketing, email blast, singapore email database

Know The Things To Ask About Carpet And Vinyl In Healthcare Floorcoverings

Carpet and vinyl in healthcare flooring offer some special considerations. Know the things to ask:

Carpet. Carpet used in healthcare should be a type that will deliver high performance and appearance retention. It should be colorfast, stain-resistant, and as easy to clean as possible. It is important to select a pattern that will hide soil. Relevant to patterns, it should not be visually disorienting to patrons in a nursing home or elder-care facility. The pattern should be simple and not have the effect of flowing lines of motion, large and small squares or dots in the same pattern; something floral or organic would be better. The carpet surface should also not impede the rolling ability of wheelchairs, beds, or any other device with wheels. Some carpet constructions stagger the stitch of the yarn or have a patterned surface that will cause rolling traffic to veer in directions other than straight ahead. This is not something to discover after the carpet has been installed. In addition, if there is a cushion or a cushion back, it must not impede rolling traffic by being too soft; it must be firm and stable.

Vinyl. In hospitals, the biggest problem with sheet vinyl flooring is indentations from wheels on heavy beds. At least one PVC sheet flooring product on the market will recover from these indentations and eliminate these concerns. Some beds are so heavy they will also pulverize the cementitious patch and leveling materials used to prep the concrete. Wider wheels on the beds will help dissipate the weight exerted in one spot but won't completely prevent the problem.

Another concern with sheet vinyl flooring is the welds being compromised; that is, the weld material either comes out of the seam or allows separation of the sheets of flooring. This can be the result of the welds not being properly made or of aggressive cleaning efforts and over-wetting the floors; it can also be caused by moisture beneath the flooring from the concrete substrate.

Facility managers need to understand that all concrete, no matter how old or seemingly dry, contains moisture which can rear its ugly head at any given time — for example, when a different type of flooring is installed — to create problems that will make life miserable. Old flooring may have allowed for the moisture to evaporate; new flooring material that won't allow for moisture to evaporate may cause the flooring to release from the substrate. For example, suppose that vinyl tile flooring is replaced with sheet vinyl. The old tiles allowed moisture to escape from the joints. Sheet vinyl flooring will cap the concrete and not allow for moisture to escape. The tiles breathe; the welded sheet vinyl doesn't breathe.

Vinyl tile in the form of VCT (vinyl composition tile) or LVT (luxury vinyl tile) comes in squares or various shapes, including planks, which go down in pieces and may not be affected by moisture. All flooring materials, including these products, can be affected by residual abatement chemicals, however; the effects of these chemicals are exacerbated by moisture in the substrate. If the installation is not compromised, these products perform extremely well.

Source : http://www.facilitiesnet.com/flooring/article/Know-The-Things-To-Ask-About-Carpet-And-Vinyl-In-Healthcare-Floorcoverings--15466?source=next

Tags : laminate flooring, vinyl flooring malaysia, laminate flooring malaysia, wood flooring malaysia, flooring malaysia, laminate wood flooring