The implementation of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an effort to ensure data privacy in the European Union, will take place in just four months.
With that milestone quickly approaching, it seems like a good time to provide a brief GDPR primer and look at two other regulations of critical importance to email marketers.
GDPR: Protecting EU consumer data
GDPR, which imposes strict data protections within the European Union and limits the export of personal data outside of it, goes into effect on May 25. This is important news for email marketers who do business in the EU, even if they are not based in a member country.
The new regulation “applies to any organization that processes EU consumer data, no matter where the company resides or where the servers that collect, store, and process the data are located,” writes Sven Dummer at MarketingProfs. It “will completely upend what is considered acceptable usage and management of consumer data.”
Dummer reports that companies that do not comply with GDPR will risk fines of up to 4% of their annual revenue or up to $23 million.
“A change of this magnitude requires a dedicated and serious response from any organization that either does business within the EU itself or has a customer base or employees that include European residents,” Dummer writes.
For more about GDPR, check out this post on our blog by Forster Perelsztejn and the deep dive we did into it in September.
Additional resources:
GDPR Portal – The “official” GDPR website
GDPR: Report – How marketers can take action on GDPR today
Direct Marketing Association – What U.S. marketers must know and must do about GDPR
ADA: Protecting the rights of people with disabilities
If you aren’t making sure your emails are accessible to those with vision problems and other disabilities, you are definitely doing a disservice to your bottom line. “People with disabilities represent $1 trillion in disposable income,” writes Sharon Hurley Hall at Optin Monster. “Unless you handle email accessibility correctly, your business could be missing out.”
And you could also be breaking the law.
“Making content accessible is also a legal requirement in many countries,” Hall writes. “Around the world, there is disability rights legislation intended to ensure that people with disabilities aren’t unduly disadvantaged in their daily lives. In the U.S. these provisions, including accessibility standards, fall under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). Failure to be ADA compliant opens you up to possible legal penalties.”
Although complying with accessibility regulations adds complexity to email marketing, practitioners would do well to view compliance as a feature, not a bug, since compliance ensures all consumers have access to their messages.
“Accessibility serves as one of the founding pillars of user experience and design,” writes Jaina Mistry on the Litmus blog. “For email, it means making sure that everyone can receive and understand your message, regardless of any disabilities or assistive devices they may be using.”
Ensuring accessibility is not difficulty, she writes: “It only takes a few small steps to make your emails more accessible for all of your subscribers.”
Those steps include using color in a way that is sensitive to those with color blindness and other vision issues, avoiding flashing content that can cause seizures in some individuals, using large fonts, and avoiding justified copy.
Additional resources:
Campaign Monitor – Accessibility and email campaigns
Email on Acid – Email accessibility in 2017
Real Magnet – A quick guide to improving email accessibility
CAN-SPAM: Keeping inboxes free of unwanted messages
Consumer’s don’t like SPAM. Email marketers don’t want to be labeled as “spammers.” Viewed in the light of those statements, compliance with CAN-SPAM is a win for both parties.
“Enacted in 2003, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act codified requirements for email marketing aimed at protecting American consumers from spam,” writes Jess Nelson at Email Marketing Daily. “For example, the regulation requires email senders to include a physical address with their email, accurate header and subject line details, and a way for subscribers to opt out of future commercial email messages.”
Last year, the Federal Trade Commission, which is responsible for CAN-SPAM oversight, announced it is reviewing the legislation, and solicited feedback from interested parties. One aspect that may be revised is a provision exempting transactional messages from compliance, a change some lawmakers may deem necessary because the difference between commercial and transactional messages has blurred in recent years. In the meantime, the law stands as written.
And if you do business in Canada, be aware of that country’s strict anti-SPAM law, which you can learn more about here.
Additional resources:
The Federal Trade Commission
A compliance guide for business
Candid answers to CAN-SPAM questions
Copyblogger – CAN-SPAM 101: A crash course in bulk email regulations