Yeah, you’ve read plenty of blog posts on this subject already, but that’s for good reason. The GDPR is fast looming and it will transform the way every business deals with personal data. Good news, though! As an email marketer, there really is no need to worry at all. It is a golden opportunity.
The GDPR is transformative. It presents huge potential fines for any organisation that falls foul of the rules. However, it shouldn’t intimidate you.
The new legislation enables you to continue doing what you do best. To send brilliant, engaging, targeted campaigns to your subscribers.
Here are three reasons the GDPR is a golden opportunity:
1. Explicit consent
Gaining consent to send emails under the GDPR will require an explicit nod of approval from subscribers. They can also ask exactly what data you hold about them, what you’re doing with it and who it might be shared with.
This means you can provide potential email subscribers with a list of options that relate to their desires and best interests. In turn, you’ll find out far more about each person.
Explicit opt-in consent will provide a brilliant insight into their individual interest, wants and needs, which will aid with your segmentation and targeting.
2. The ‘right to be forgotten’
Once the GDPR comes into effect, every owner of personal data will have the ‘right to be forgotten’.
This means an email subscriber could contact you and ask for any data to be completely erased.
The advantage here is that there’s absolutely no ambiguity; if a subscriber ‘wants off’ your list, they have to come off it, for good. And, if you have an email marketing platform that enables you to remove them quickly, all the better!
3. Building trust through transparency
The GDPR makes the entire process of collecting and using personal data completely transparent.
Under existing legislation, there are many black holes and ambiguities within the rules. This has led unscrupulous marketers to exploit gaps and use them to gain consent when it may not have existed.
Given the number of data security-related news stories that hit the headlines seemingly every week, it’s safe to assume that most consumers are highly concerned about their own data, therefore if you can demonstrate a respect for the GDPR rules by being completely transparent about your use of data, an invaluable layer of trust should build.
The GDPR will help marketers demonstrate that they have customers’ best interests at heart, and there really is no better way to strengthen the bond between business and customer.
Wrapping up
You’re probably fed up with being asked if you’re ready for the GDPR, but we hope this blog post has gone some way to quell any fears you may have had about adapting to the new legislation.
It’s going to be challenging, sure, but the three opportunities above should prove that it’ll be more than worth it in the long run.
This post is for information purposes and is not legal advice, we advise you speak to your own legal advisors to find out what impact the GDPR will have on your business and what action you need to take.
