We’ve all spent time deleting them one after another – spam emails are frustrating. But did you know that they are worse than just a pain to delete? They can actually lose you money by hurting your business. Fortunately, there is a solution to spam and the potential viruses that can be embedded within them – business IT services. So how exactly can spam hurt a small business and what can you do to fix the issue?
What is Spam?
For those who aren’t already aware, spam is any unwanted message that you receive through text, email, social media messaging or other communication platforms. At a small business, spam can end up on your main business accounts or even directly to your employees. They may come from another business or could be involved in a cyber attack. Spam typically consists of invitations, reminders, sales pitches, and sometimes scams.
Why Are You a Target?
There are many reasons why a small business would receive a lot of spam emails. You or another employee may have signed up for a newsletter or made a purchase with a company email. Companies often hide small print that allows them to use your information for marketing purposes. They sometimes will share your information with third parties, creating a wave extra spam. Another possibility is that your company details are found in an illicit way, through hacked websites or illegally leaked information. However, the most common way emails are collected is through computers crawling the internet – forums, websites, linked emails, etc.
Spam Can Be Harmful
Spam is frustrating but how exactly do these emails harm a business? First, they eat up resources. Think of all the time spent between every employee looking at spam emails, organizing which ones are important and which ones are spam and deleting them. This time could be better spent improving your business. Also, spam emails create unnecessary temptation for employees to look at things that are not related to work.
Many businesses have an email server unnecessarily wasting storage and processing power on spam emails. If these servers get full and bounce the emails back to their sender, you could be missing emails from new or cherished clients. This could mean huge potential losses in revenue. Finally, spam can contain a surprise cyber attack. By not dealing with spam, you are opening up the floodgates for viruses, ransomware, phishing or other cyber crimes that will require business IT services in order to recover.
Stop the Spam
In 2003, the Can Spam Act was introduced. This law requires those in marketing to avoid adding users to mailing lists without permission and always including an ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of the screen. It can be beneficial for your business to hire business IT services for consulting in order to educate employees on how to avoid signing up for spam in the first place and where the ‘unsubscribe’ button typically is in an email. Unfortunately, some spammers use the ‘unsubscribe’ button to confirm that they guessed a valid email address. A skilled IT consultant can train your employees how to avoid these obstacles.
Finding the Right Business IT Services
As you can now tell, spam is not something for a small business owner to take lightly. You need to educate your staff and set up a system of protection against cyber attacks. This is where the professionals come in.
Bay Computing and Consulting Services was founded with the simple goal of providing the best service and support for our customers. Our vast array of services include everything from commercial computer networking down to residential computer repairs. Our highly trained and knowledgeable staff has the knowledge and expertise to help you solve any computing issues in a quick and effective manner. To secure your business’ data, contact us today.