Mobilize Mail Opinion

A couple of days ago I thought I would send the DIA an email asking them to provide me with any guidelines they have related to the unsubscribe facility and sender contact details within text messages.

I have to say that I am very impressed with the response rate of my emails from DIA and the helpfulness.

Below is the second email to DIA. The first was confirming with them something that I add missed in the DIA Anti-SPAM business guide.

Thank you for your speedy reply.

You are correct in that the PDf does provide an example of the Anti-SPAM requirements within a text message. This looks great as I assumed that a contact address/phone number would need to be supplied as well.

If its okay I would like to supply some additional examples for your review and comment. These examples are based around our own clients who will be sending text through our systems as well as commercial email.

As an introduction I work for a NZ based company that provides systems that enable our clients to send commercial email and text in bulk. We have always had strict polices around our clients emailing and management of subscribers. Our systems only support double confirmed opt-in subscriptions. We take the Anti-SPAM Act very seriously and are currently adding extra functionality to help our clients understand and comply with the Act. Therefore the examples below and your responses will be used to educate our clients.

Example 1:
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A nationally based business with branches all over NZ. The name of the fictitious business is “Speedy Cars”.
Now if the following branches of the company (Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch) of “Speedy Cars” were to send out a commercial text message would the following characters be sufficient for the Anti-SPAM Act?

“Speedy Cars: Wgtn. Reply OPT-OUT to unsubscribe”

“Speedy Cars: Auck. Reply OPT-OUT to unsubscribe”

“Speedy Cars: Chch. Reply OPT-OUT to unsubscribe”

The examples above also raise the topic of supported acronyms and abbreviations for common terms and locations. In my example I use “Auck” to denote “Auckland” is this a valid abbreviation? What are the governments guidelines for this?

Example 2
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A nationally based business with a very long business name of “Top Business furnishings to the World”

As you can see this business name is very long – what are the governments guidelines to somehow reducing the business name? Can a common abbreviation used by the company within marketing media be used instead? If so what are the guidelines?


Example 3
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What are the guideless around SMS systems that send text messages that cannot accept replies? For example the business requires that the recipient of the text email to unsubscribe? If this is acceptable I assume some thing like the following could be sufficient:

“Speedy Cars: Chch. Email sender@domain.com to unsubscribe”

Below is the DIA response to my email above:

Hi Marc

Thank you for your questions. I have responded to each example below, and am happy to discuss at any stage if required.

In example 1, commonly used abbreviated place names as described are suitable for identifying the specific location of the sender. The example would be compliant in that respect. Another point you may wish to consider that is not covered in the example is to ensure that the electronic message includes accurate information about how the recipient can readily contact the sender, such as a mobile phone number or business phone number. (s 10(b))

In example 2, the abbreviated use of a companies name is suitable, as long as the abbreviation would allow the recipient to clearly and accurately identify the sender. Organisations like TVNZ (media), VTNZ (warrant of fitness), Sparc (Sports) or NZCT (gaming trust) are known by their abbreviations, so they should not have a problem with abbreviations in terms of s 10, but not many recipients will know who the sender is when they receive a text message from “TBFOTW” (as per the example).

In example 3, an email address used as an unsubscribe function in a text message is not suitable. The unsubscribe facility should allow the recipient to respond to the sender using the same method of communication (s 11(c)). If you send commercial text messages, you must arrange an unsubscribe facility through text messaging and free of charge (unless s11(2) applies).

The thing to remember as well is you will need to add a contact number in as well. See below for confirmation from DIA on this requirement.

Another point you may wish to consider that is not covered in the example is to ensure that the electronic message includes accurate information about how the recipient can readily contact the sender, such as a mobile phone number or business phone number. (s 10(b))

Anti Spam Compliance Solutions For You & Your Business

To see how we can help you and your business comply with the NZ Anti-SPAM Act click here

I located the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) web site for the Anti-SPAM Act. It’s a good start on providing information to businesses on the Act and no doubt they will add more information as the questions come pouring in.

Click here to access the web site

They have also provided a business guide which in my opinion is a good introduction but currently does not provide no where near the detail required for most businesses that rely on email and text (SMS) as a marketing channel.

Click here for the business guide

For example in the guide there is only one sentence that addresses the challenge of providing not only an unsubscribe facility within a text message but the senders details – remember you have 160 characters available in a text message.

“Text messages impose limitations on the amount that can be displayed.”

No doubt they will be expanding this sentence in the near future.

Anti Spam Compliance Solutions For You & Your Business

To see how we can help you and your business comply with the NZ Anti-SPAM Act click here

Delivering regular emails to your mailing lists with relevant information provides a higher open rate. With your emails professionally presented in a branded template subtle advertising of your business is the net result each time you deliver your email campaign. However ‘subtle’ this advertising may be the Return on Investment (ROI) for creating and delivering the regular emails is positive.

Add a promotion of a product or service in your regular email campaigns (newsletters, tips etc) and the net results can be astounding – however due to the compulsion to compare the success of email marketing with your other advertising initiatives e.g. print media (magazines, newspapers etc) the evidence of success with email marketing is not easily identified . We can be forgiven for assessing the statistics produced for an email campaign without including the projected sales and cost of the campaign.

The most effective way to assess the success of your email marketing however is by looking at the whole picture by comparing the statistics per email campaign per month and the projected sales minus the cost of the marketing initiative. Here are the results from an advert ran in a email newsletter. (This is an American example – easy to note given the huge number of emails).

In this example the client ran one Advert in a business newsletter that was delivered to half a million email addresses (NZ mailing lists are typically 1 percent or less in size). Only 25 leads were generated from half a million emails and the click through rate below the industry average at 0.06 percent. On the face of it this campaign looks like it was highly unsuccessful – until the projected revenue statistic and the cost of the campaign statistic are applied. By tying the leads to projected sales the success of this campaign looks fantastic and is the wake up call required.

Here are a couple tips for gauging the success of email marketing:

1. Ensure your email campaigns are tracked and the statistics presented. Why waste time creating an email campaign if you can not measure its success!
2. Put links to relevant web pages in your email campaign and assess the success in tracking conversions from leads to sales so you can assess the real ROI for email marketing

Oh what fun!

The NZ Anti-SPAM Act covers SMS messages that are of a commercial nature. That’s fine you say… Well is it? Let us look at what needs to be in a SMS message apart from the message.

1) The name and contact details of the sender who authorised the sender of the message.
2) A functional unsubscribe

That is quite a bit of text that has to be added within the SMS message and the Act currently gives no guidance as to how much detail needs to be added to the message.

For example say my business name is “Great Carpets to You and Your Many Wifes”. Now that needs to go into the SMS which takes up 40 characters if my eyes focused correctly. Maybe we could somehow abbreviate the name to “Great Carpets” and add the main phone number. Would that be enough to comply with the Anti SPAM Act?

Who knows since we have no regulations to help define the requirements.

I can see businesses which support SMS will now be in a world of pain. I will keep you informed as I get more information on this.

Maybe the Aussie Anti-SPAM website has some information on this.

Anti Spam Compliance Solutions For You & Your Business

To see how we can help you and your business comply with the NZ Anti-SPAM Act click here

I have just uploaded an article to our articles section that provides detailed help for businesses trying to become compliant with the NZ Anti-SPAM Act.

Its funny but I have seen a couple of “workshops” in NZ charging people anywhere from $700.00 NZD to over $1000.00 NZD to learn the same stuff I have given you for free. Read the article first and all the other free resources on our site before you jump into these great money making events (thats not money making for you by the way).

Oh and for all you “professionals” who are copying my content for your over hyped expensive “workshops” I will get your workshop content in time through other people I know in the email marketing world.

Click here to read for free

Anti Spam Compliance Solutions For You & Your Business

To see how we can help you and your business comply with the NZ Anti-SPAM Act click here