In my last post for The VAR Guy, I talked about the important differences between implied and explicit consent, and revealed why (thanks to new Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation) the latter is about to become incredibly critical to VARs with Canadian prospects or customers. 

In that post, I also proposed a simple solution for VARs who might be worrying about how this legislation will impact their email lead generation efforts: the double opt-in.

Basically, the double opt-in process delivers a series of confirmations and response emails that require customers to clearly and explicitly consent to receiving commercial email messages. Ultimately, this serves a double purpose—first, it protects you against the new Canadian anti-spam law (also referred to as CASL), and second, it ensures that your email list is populated with people who genuinely want to receive your content.

Of course, the problem for many VARs is that building an organic double opt-in list takes time. And if you haven’t already started building one, then you might find yourself in a tough position if your business badly needs fresh leads from now that CASL has gone into effect.

So, what should you do?

While it’s true that the best email contact list is one you’ve built yourself, purchasing or acquiring lead lists is an option. But before you do that, it’s important to consider where those leads will be coming from, how you’ll be acquiring them and whether they’ll actually meet the double opt-in standard.

With that in mind, here are three steps you can follow to ensure you get double opt-in from any leads you generate:

These are three simple tips you can use to quickly build out a high-quality double opt-in list, and protect your business from violating CASL—a mistake that, in the most egregious scenario, can cost you as much as $10 million per violation.

Of course, there’s obviously more to each of those tips than I have room to describe in this space. If you have any questions about how to build your double opt-in list with prospects who have given clear and explicit consent, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below. Alternatively, I welcome you to reach out to me directly by clicking here.

Kendra Lee is a top IT Seller, Prospect Attraction Expert, author of the newly released book “The Sales Magnet” and the award winning book “Selling Against the Goal” and president of KLA Group. Specializing in the IT industry, KLA Group works with companies to break in and exceed revenue objectives in the small and midmarket business (SMB) segment.