GDPR is requiring companies to modify their email marketing strategies.
GDPR is a new law that is going into effect in the U.K. soon. The General Data Protection Regulation will change the rules for email marketing and the way companies gain consent from their customers.
With the new GDPR law in place, marketing managers are having to change their email marketing strategies. It is important to understand the new law and know what is allowed and not allowed this new regulation in place. Any company that violates this new law will be punished and called to pay significant fines so, it is important that as a marketing manager you don’t break this new law.
Email Marketing Strategies that Won’t Work Post GDPR
Putting all Subscribers On Every Email List
Before GDPR, companies could put everyone that signed up for their email list under every email campaign they sent out. With the new regulation, though, this will be illegal. Once GDPR officially goes into effect, customers must give companies explicit consent to use their information. This is important to understand because companies can no longer send customers emails they have not opted in for, nor can they trick customers into signing up for email campaigns. With this new law, customers must agree to be on every email list they receive emails from.
Pre-Checked Consent Boxes
With the new regulation, companies will no longer be allowed to implement pre-checked consent boxes when asking customers to sign up for email campaigns. With this new law, customers must explicitly give their consent to companies and these companies can not assume any of their customers are giving their consent. Customers must read and decide for themselves what information they want to receive from the company. Also, with this new regulation, it is important to only ask for the information that is necessary. If asking for the size of the customer’s company, their age or their gender isn’t 100% necessary, don’t add that field to the opt-in form.
Being Vague About What Users Are Opting For
Many companies like to be vague about what customers are opting in to with it comes to providing them with email campaigns. This will no longer be allowed under the new GDPR law. This regulation requires companies to be clear about what the customer’s information will be used for. Offering customers, the ability to subscribe to new product updates is too vague and violates this new law. Customers must know what those updates entail and companies need to ensure that their new email marketing strategy plan is within GDPR compliance for marketing actions.
Effective Email Marketing Strategies For GDPR
To guarantee that your company is GDPR compliant, it is necessary to go through your existing email list and ensure that all your customers have given the consent necessary for you to be GDPR compliant.
The next step after customers have given explicit consent for your company to use their information, is to keep a clear record of that given consent. This is mandatory for companies to do to stay in compliance with the new law. The information should include the following:
- Personal data held by the company
- The specified purpose of the data
- The education that is given to subscribers on the opt-in form about consent and privacy policy
- The double verification offered when asking for subscriber approval
- When and where the subscriber information is coming from
- Whether the data is being used for the purpose specified
- If data is asked to be erased, how quickly that was done
Once the company has implemented the changes necessary to be GDPR compliant with its existing customers, it is important to implement these changes to their new customers as well.
Under this new law, it is also important for companies to offer their customers painless, easy to understand ways to unsubscribe if they wish to. Customers must have the option to unsubscribe to that marketing communication and to unsubscribe to all the communications of the company.
Under this new law, the way companies conduct their email campaigns will change. It could be very beneficial for companies to invest in marketing automation that is GDPR compliant to fast-track their new email marketing efforts. This new regulation will not make email marketing obsolete but marketers must change their email marketing strategy plan to ensure that they are not breaking any new laws.
