Top 5 Tips for CASL Compliance

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) has its second anniversary on July 1st but a surprising number of Canadian businesses still haven’t taken the time to update their email practices and customer databases to ensure they are compliant with the law.   If you are one of them, it’s time to stop putting off the task.

Fines for violating CASL rules can be significant — as high as one million dollars for individuals and 10 million dollars for businesses.  The amount of the fines levied is at the sole discretion of the government, and so far, the government has signaled it is serious about penalizing CASL violators.  Several prominent companies have been fined for CASL violations including Rogers, Porter Airlines and Compu-finder, but smaller businesses should also take heed, as they are not exempt from the rules.

On top of this, when CASL’s transitional period ends on July 1st 2017 there will also be the threat of civil actions for CASL violations.  If you think […]

5 new CASL takeaways straight from the Chairman of the CRTC

On March 22nd the Chairman of the CRTC, Mr. Jean-Pierre Blais, spoke to members of the Canadian Marketing Association in Toronto. Mr. Blais’ speech focused on Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and served to give marketers an idea of what to expect in the near future covering a variety of topics from cybersecurity, the imminent second phase of the CASL law, to the legislation’s scope.

We’ve gone ahead and distilled the talk into some key takeaways:
CASL is here to stay
In his speech to the CMA, Mr. Blais made reference to the idea that many marketers consider him their enemy, likely speaking to some of the negative feedback the CRTC has received from Canadian marketers about the legislation. The message was clear: CASL “is here to stay”. In fact, Mr. Blais believes these laws will only get tougher with time as electronic fraud becomes more prevalent.
Not slaying dragons
While CASL isn’t going anywhere, he was quick to allay some of the fears that the CRTC was going to use […]

Improve email performance by up to 20% with list cleaning.

Not many people get excited about cleaning, often because it involves a lot of dirty work. On the contrary, most people love that feeling when they look around their home and everything looks tidy, the air smells fresh and they can relax in a comfortable space. Of course, list cleaning does not exactly have the same effect but the results on your reporting are just as significant, if not even more positive. The problem is that because undeliverable email addresses or unengaged contacts do not surround you like a mess does in your home, you do not realize how much they are cluttering your database and distorting your statistics. Marketing success is measured in numbers therefore if your numbers are off than you cannot accurately determine what campaigns are working in your favour or not. List cleaning is an essential practice for successful email campaigns.

Let’s start by a review of what we mean by list cleaning. It seems different individuals […]

Hit your targets: Using data segmentation to increase your bottom line.

Targeted Marketing, in its most simplistic definition, is all about getting the right message to the right people, however we all know that achieving this is much more complex. Narrowing down your target, crafting your content and then manipulating your data is not a simple process. When it comes to email marketing, although it may be easier to broadcast your message out to your entire database and hope that the more people who are exposed to it, the more conversions you will get, this may actually hinder your brand perception among contacts that have no interest in the message. If you send every communication to your entire database, a large number of your contacts may get annoyed from receiving irrelevant information and choose to unsubscribe. Alternatively, when you send relevant content to contacts based on their areas of interest, geographic location and demographic variables, the probability of engagement and therefore conversion increases drastically. A targeted strategy will also reduce the […]

Businesses trouble ahead without CASL Compliance.

Is your business completely compliant with the Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL)?
The Canadian Anti-Spam law (CASL) has been in effect since July 1, 2014 and businesses are still struggling with how to manage the rules properly. The Government has already served notice that it intends to come down hard on companies that have clearly not complied with the new law. A few companies have already been penalized for various infractions with the largest fine being $1.1 million dollars.
Try our Free CASL Business Audit Quiz
So are most businesses out of the danger zone when it comes to being penalized for non-CASL compliance? Far from it actually. The government has limited resources to follow up on anti-spam law complaints. However, there is another level of risk that many people are unaware of and that is the mighty consumer.

As of July 1st, 2017 consumers have the right to private action against companies that are not following the CASL rules. While many companies may believe there is […]

Drip-Drip-Sold: Nurturing Leads With Drip Campaigns

How do you know when your prospects are sale ready? Do you waste resources chasing leads that are not actually interested? Wouldn’t it be great if there was an automated process to nurture your leads and let you know when they are ready to approach? Enter the drip campaign. Send your leads a series of targeted emails depending on whether they open the previous one and get notified when they have made it through the entire process. At that point the apple will be ripe for picking and all you have to do is close. Alternatively, you will know if they are not sale ready and you have the opportunity to bring back their interest with targeted content for those that did not open the previous email.

How does this process work? The itracMarketer automation tool allows you to trigger actions based on specified conditions. For example, once the lead enters your database, an automatic welcome email is sent to them […]

CASL: A Year In Review

Since the Canadian Anti Spam Law came into effect on July 1, 2014 we have seen three major penalties enforced by the CRTC. These enforcements were not a joke. All three were significant fines against the companies for violating CASL. As we all now know, the CRTC is serious in their efforts to try and reduce spammy electronic communications as well as proper permission management processes.

There were a number of reasons why these companies were fined. Essentially, there are three rules that you must abide by in order to stay on the right side of the law and these companies did not abide by one or all three of these basic rules:

1. Consent has to be obtained and proven; implied or expressed.
2. The sender’s contact information must be provided.
3. An unsubscribe mechanism must be in place and unsubscribes must be processed within 10 days.

To dive into number 1 a little further, […]

To the Cloud! – How the lines between email marketing and marketing automation are disappearing

Email remains one the most effective and popular marketing communication paths in 2015. Consistently offering unique methods of delivering communications, and increasing ROI in a wide range of campaign styles, types and promotions; and yet, email is only getting more sophisticated.

Putting your company on the leading edge of technology requires leading edge tools to multiply your email marketing campaign into a fully automated, personalized and contextual marketing automation system. The success rates are undeniable, but many sales and marketers don’t realize that they could increase the power of email substantially with marketing automation.

Marketing automation allows companies to use their gathered intelligence, and existing or newly gathered customer data to create advanced automated workflows to (automate repetitive and difficult tasks that will) generate/promote leads and to compile useful and valuable customer data. This data is then used to provide a personalized, and customer aware campaign immediately relevant and specific to your promotion and communication.

The field of Marketing Automation is growing at […]

Engage new customers with a well thought out welcome process.

Getting new customers is hard. Landing pages, social media, and email marketing are valuable tools for acquiring new business leads and potential clients. It is important to establish a flow of communication between your business and the client using a well planned welcome campaign and ‘on-boarding’ emails. Convert your clients post-signup using the tools and tips from itracMarketer.

So you have acquired a new sign up on your site using a contact form, or sign-up option. What’s next? Our customers already know they can build an automated workflow to send custom, personalized replies – a properly welcomed new customer is an ideal candidate to activate for relationship building and advocacy time and time again. What to write? Check out our tips below.

Explain why you are sending an email, with a clear call to action – A welcome email should have a clear statement and purpose. If the receiver is expected to perform a certain action, it should be obvious, straightforward […]

4 Factors To Consider When You are Planning An Email Marketing Campaign

Email Marketing is one of the most effective means of communicating with an audience to drive business.

If you’re not already using email marketing, I strongly suggest you hop on this band wagon.

For those of you who are already engaging in email marketing, there are a few things to consider before you start blasting out emails.

As with all marketing, you must first begin with an email marketing plan and strategy.

Here are four areas for digital marketers to consider as you plan out your email marketing campaigns:

1. Timing:

Deciding when to send out your emails is important. Sending out your emails at the right time will increase the likelihood that your emails will be opened and clicked. Essentially there is no exact time that will lead to successful email marketing campaign results all of the time, it all depends on a number of factors which are discussed below as well as some trial and error on your part. For example, if you test out different timing and […]