Ask for sign-ups wherever customers already deal with you, promise something specific, record clear consent as CASL requires, and send often enough to be remembered. Unlike a page's followers, the list belongs to the business.

The audience you own

Last week Facebook changed the rules for business pages, and pages with thousands of followers found out they had never owned that audience. They had borrowed it.

An email list is different. The people on it asked to hear from you, and no platform decides to show your message to only a fraction of them.

Email has its own problems: spam filters, crowded inboxes, people who sign up and never open anything. But the list belongs to the business, and it does not shrink because someone else changed a setting.

Which makes this a good month to start building one properly.

Where to ask

The first is the one most shops underuse. A customer at the counter has just chosen to buy from you, which is the best moment to ask, and a sign-up card takes ten seconds to fill in.

What to promise

Nobody signs up for a newsletter. People sign up for something they want.

Say exactly what they will get and how often: the weekly specials every Thursday, first notice of holiday ordering, a monthly note on what is in season. Specific promises attract people who will actually read the emails.

Then keep the promise. A list promised a monthly email that receives one in March and the next in November learns to ignore it.

A discount for signing up can help, but it attracts some people who only want the discount. Emails worth receiving are what keep them.

Consent under CASL

Canada's anti-spam law, CASL, requires consent before you send commercial email. There are two kinds, and the difference matters.

Express consent is a clear yes. The person was told what they would get, who was asking and that they could unsubscribe, and actively agreed. A box they ticked counts; a pre-ticked box does not.

Implied consent comes from an existing relationship. Anyone who has bought from you within the past two years can be emailed on that basis, but the permission runs out two years after their most recent purchase.

Express consent does not expire. That is why it is worth asking for, even from customers you could already email.

Keeping a record

Under CASL, if consent is questioned, the sender has to prove it. A list with no record of how each address arrived is a list you cannot defend.

For each subscriber, keep the date, the place they signed up and the exact wording they accepted. Sending services record this for their own forms; paper cards should be kept, or entered with the date.

A spoken yes at the counter is hard to prove later. A card with the wording printed on it, filled in and dated, is not.

And the three-year grace period for older contacts ended last July. Addresses collected before the law took effect now need consent of their own: a recent purchase, or a clear yes.

What every email must include

CASL also sets rules for each message, whatever kind of consent you hold.

Each commercial email must name the business, give a mailing address and one other way to get in touch, and carry an unsubscribe link that works. A request to unsubscribe has to take effect within ten business days.

A proper email sending service handles most of this, including unsubscribes. A newsletter sent from an ordinary inbox, with addresses pasted into the blind copy line, handles none of it.

A worked example

A perfume shop in a downtown arcade takes several hundred holiday orders every December: gift sets, engraved bottles, miniatures. The order form asked for an email address so the shop could confirm pickup times.

By January, the shop had hundreds of customer addresses and an idea: a monthly email on new arrivals.

The orders gave implied consent, lasting two years from each purchase. But nobody had been asked about a monthly email, and some customers would have been surprised by one.

So the first email asked. It explained what the monthly email would contain, offered first notice of next year's holiday ordering, and had a clear button to confirm. Each confirmation was recorded, with its date, by the sending service.

This year's holiday order form has a separate, unticked box for the monthly email, with the wording printed beside it, and there are sign-up cards beside the till.

How often to send

Often enough to be remembered, and no more often than you have something worth saying.

For most small businesses that means somewhere between weekly and monthly: weekly for a shop with weekly specials, monthly or seasonal for a trade.

Much less than that, and people forget they signed up. An email from a name they no longer recognise looks like spam, and marking it that way hurts delivery to everyone else.

Pick a rhythm you can keep and a day to send on, and stick to both.

Making the sign-up easy

A sign-up form needs an email address and perhaps a first name. Everything else can wait.

Put it where people already look: the website footer, the end of popular pages, the confirmation page after an order. On phones, avoid pop-ups that cover the page before anyone has read anything.

Send a welcome email straight after someone signs up, saying what they will get and when. It confirms the address works, and it arrives while their interest is at its highest.

The counter-case

Not every business has something to say every week.

A trade that does one job per customer every ten years might send a seasonal reminder or two a year. That is a smaller list with a different rhythm, not a reason to skip it.

And a business with little time to write should start small. A quarterly email it actually sends beats a weekly one that stops after a month.

Smaller and slower is fine. Start the list now, record consent properly, and send what you can keep up.

Starting the list

  1. Decide what subscribers get and how often.
  2. Write the consent wording once, clearly.
  3. Put a sign-up form in the site footer.
  4. Put sign-up cards beside the till.
  5. Add a line to receipts and invoices.
  6. Choose a sending service that records consent.
  7. Send the first email on a fixed date.

Step two protects everything else. Wording that says what people will get, who is asking and how to unsubscribe, actively agreed to, makes each sign-up count under CASL.

The page that sends followers to the list is covered in business pages after the News Feed change.

Frequently asked questions

Why build an email list now?

Because it is the one audience no platform can shrink overnight. Facebook's change showed that page followers were borrowed; subscribers who asked to hear from you are not.

Where should I ask for sign-ups?

Where customers already deal with you: at the counter, on receipts and invoices, on the website, on confirmation pages, on the Facebook page and in your email signature.

What does CASL require for consent?

Either express consent, a clear yes to a request saying what and who, or implied consent from a purchase within the last two years. Pre-ticked boxes do not count.

Do I need to keep proof of consent?

Yes. Keep the date, the source and the wording each person agreed to. A filled-in sign-up card or a sending service's records will do; a spoken yes will not.

What must every email include?

The business's name, a mailing address plus a phone number, email or web address, and an unsubscribe link that works, with requests acted on within ten business days.

How often should we send?

Often enough to be remembered, usually between weekly and monthly. Much less than that and people forget they signed up, and may mark you as spam.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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