Marketers GDPR
GDPR could be the best thing to happen to marketers in 2018
Now that the deadline for the new GDPR has come and gone, what we witnessed was a barrage of inbox messages to our email accounts, as well as text messages to our ever-present smartphones. The messages ranged from last minute emails to the straight up, all-out legal breakdown on the change to their privacy policy. This has left us, as marketers, feeling a little bit exposed, hoping all of our customers would click agree so we could breathe a sigh of relief.
We all made decisions on which brands and companies we wanted to opt-in with and some just didn’t make the final cut. We also had some brands appear where we couldn’t even remember why we signed up with them in the first place?!
We decided to ask Ground Labs’ own Marketing Manager, Matt Jennings-Temple, to give us his expert opinion on why he thinks this privacy policy reset is so good for marketers.
Below he has given his top four points:
“Don’t forget how important your customers are!”
GDPR has brought companies focus back to the customer, as they are now the ones in the driving seat. How you market your brand, what it stands for and what value you bring to them will shape your organisation’s future. This positive change in the law will force alignment across multiple departments such as IT, Finance, Marketing and Sales in how they collect and store customer information.
“Always look to add value”
We as marketers understand that, in order to get our message across to potential and existing customers, we have to use multiple channels and touchpoints. At each of these points you will be collecting data, but under the new GDPR rules, you can no longer collect it without a specific use or purpose to store it. What GDPR does is force marketers to derive value from the data that is collected and pass that through to the business – the risk of not doing this is too great.
“It’s not like you’re starting from scratch”
Do you remember when you last looked in your CRM and saw thousands and in some cases millions of customers’ details? Unfortunately, you are going to have to let them disappear.
Matt says, “Marketers need to see the positive side to this. Now your customer data has been laid bare, you know exactly what data you have and you can focus your attention on quality customer interaction for maximum benefit to the business.”
“It’s GDPR day every day from here on in”
It may seem like you’re scrambling around trying to market your business post-GDPR deadline, but the truth is, some companies will relish the challenge and succeed in this new era of data privacy. You have to ask yourself, do you want to be one of them that fails. or one that has a forward-focused customer plan that rivals your competition?
Look out for future blogs on Ground Labs very own GDPR journey.
