The introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) means major changes to your current marketing strategies, with the onus clearly on brands when it comes to the matter of consent.
You now need to obtain clear permission to store and use the data of any customers in the EU, which will obviously have an effect on your marketing outreach methods if you do any international campaigns or transactions.
Marketers need to reach the highest number of people possible with their campaigns to achieve optimal relevance and sales—which is why consumers may be receiving requests to opt in to newsletters and other marketing tools. Here’s what that means for your marketing department.
The GDPR marketing checklist
GDPR is setting a high standard when it comes to gaining permissions, with regulations stating that consent must be granted to opt in to marketing information. While it used to be possible to assume consent through silence, pre-ticked boxes or even inactivity, this can no longer be taken as consent. This is why your first step needs to do a thorough check of your own forms. They need to fulfill a number of criteria, including:
- Clarity: the language that you use must be clear, with no complexity of language or use of euphemism.
- Assumed consent: Action must be taken by the customer to approve consent. Simply using ‘click here if you wish to stop receiving emails from us’ will no longer be enough.
- Pre-filled checkboxes: These used to be prolific, with consumers having to uncheck boxes in order to opt out of mailing lists. These will no longer be acceptable.
- More detail: You need to explain in clear language just what your privacy policy is and how you plan on using the information given to you by the customer. This is where you can show off your improved business practices, or highlight the fact that you have focused on improving your cybersecurity to protect your customers more effectively from the threat of cybercrimes. In terms of ensuring you have the best services, you may need to do your research online where you may find suitable services, such as IT companies in Slough.
Focusing your marketing techniques
From a marketing perspective, there are also a number of key elements that you should include when it comes to approaching this first-base confirmation of your GDPR compliance.
Obviously, you want your communications to be appealing, making sure that your customers know just what they stand to gain from opting into your communication stream, and, more importantly, just what they might be missing out on.
With that in mind, you will need to be more sales-oriented. In that regard, GDPR compliance is a good way to give your marketing strategies an overhaul at just the right time.
Introducing your content
Marketing has never before relied so much on content, so the overhaul that GDPR necessitates gives you a great opportunity to create material that can be used as a bargaining chip that encourages customers to give their consent. Whether that means white papers, webinars, events, blog posts, or video tutorials is up to you. You should actively market this to your current subscribers, showing them what they are losing out on by failing to opt in.
While many businesses are cursing the workload of GDPR, it’s actually a great opportunity for PR. It allows you to showcase your improved privacy options and make announcements that will resonate with those all-important customers.
