by Ian Moyse | @IMoyse | LinkedIn
Marketers, you have a problem – and it’s not a small one. In addition to the much discussed changes in buyer behaviour and research showing the demise of traditional marketing approaches, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is now looming over us.
This will be enforced from May 25th 2018 and changes what you can and cannot do with data that identifies an individual.
A recent DMA Survey found that 70% of marketers were most concerned about how GDPR would affect marketing consent. More concerning is that only 54% of businesses surveyed by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) expect to be compliant by the deadline.
You must review your marketing activities quickly to ensure data and processes are compliant or close enough to avoid any risk of complaints and fines.
Here are some key areas marketing must address:
Opt in consent
Rights to use data and what for
Length data can be kept
Right to be forgotten
GDPR affects any organisation that collects and/or processes personally identifiable data of any EU citizen. The UK’s Brexit will not exempt UK businesses as GDPR is already agreed and in place, ready for enforcement in the UK.
In a recent survey 92.3% said they maintain databases to host information on customers or prospects (Source : Global Alliance of Data-Driven Marketing Associations (GDMA) and Winterberry Group). With this in mind GDPR could become a huge data nightmare and – as you will read below – may lead to drastic steps!
In or out?
Traditionally marketers presented an opt-in tick box on a web form, for example. This was a catch-all option which meant that the business and its partners could mail you about anything. Often this was pre-ticked, the default being you are opting in unless you untick.
Data collected through this method led to organisations owning and using the data as they chose.Often people were getting content years after having first ‘opted-in’, if indeed they truly did so!
And finally, we have all experienced the frustrations of trying to remove ourselves from a mailing list only to keep receiving messages again and again afterwards. This has improved with most reputable organisations providing clear opt-out/unsubscribe options in the past few years.
Under GDPR all of this will be stricter and more governed. You cannot assume opt in, cannot pre-opt people positively, and can only keep data a “fair use” amount of time before needing a re-subscribe. You must also offer citizens the right to remove all their data easily (including backups and cookie data).
Much of this led to the recently publicised and unprecedented announcement that Wetherspoons was deleting its marketing database of 700,000 customers rather than trying to clean it!
So how will you market to customers if you cannot buy lists (unless they are compliant), cannot use your own old data if you do not have a record and proof of recent consent, and can only market to customers more narrowly than the categories they originally signed up for? Firstly, to comply with the legislation you need to understand it. Marketers need be set up to react quickly and appropriately to requests to view, amend or destroy data. You will almost certainly need to change the approach to data collection, database building and data management. Marketers need to start their GDPR journey now, ensuring legal and valid consent is stored and documented, and that data and processes are reviewed and polished just to ensure compliance.
The bigger question
Faced with all these challenges, how does marketing remain relevant and effective. You will require new approaches, tools and engagement methods. Many who are progressing along their GDPR journey are already heightening their social media focus having understood the implications of GDPR. Social could safely circumvent some of these options, especially where users self-subscribe to the likes of a Facebook Fan page, for example, and are more open to engagement with brand.
With this in mind, it’s no exaggeration to say that social media is the new marketing for B2B – much as B2C has already discovered. In fact, when Wetherspoons sent the final email to its database, it invited customers to connect with the brand on its social media channels instead.
So, whether or not you delete your database, or streamline and simplify your approach to customer data, you will also need to review your social strategy. To what extent can you expand existing operations? Have you taken full advantage of your employees’ presence on LinkedIn and Twitter? Do you need an employee and influencer advocacy programme to drive sales leads? At Digital Leadership Associates, we can answer all these questions and more, turning the GDPR challenge into a real opportunity for your business and its employees.
We are a Social Media Agency. We do three things: Social Media Strategy,Social Selling and Social Media Management. Drop us an email and let’s talk about how we can make an impact on your organisation.
