Contrary to the negative hype, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a force for good for both individuals and marketers. The new Regulation empowers consumers by refocusing the attention on them owning their data.
With new guidelines around explicit permission to use an individual’s data, brands will need to create more relevant and compelling brand communications to customers who are actually interested. Looking at the key requirements for compliance in more detail, GDPR can in fact help marketers to enhance their activities, improve customer engagement and boost ROI.
Here’s 5 ways you can benefit from GDPR:
1. Personalised and more efficient marketing
Under the new laws, marketers need to ensure that their data is current, accurate and structured. By going through a data audit, brands are in a better position to understand customers and build compelling, personalised offers for them.
Likewise, customers who give permission for businesses to use their data in line with GDPR are much more likely to engage, giving brands a base of ready-qualified, open targets for relevant communications.
In addition to delivering more appropriate messages to customers who have opted-in to receive them, GDPR-readiness can also help to reduce time and resources spent on hit-and-miss, blanket-marketing approaches, meaning more resources can be allocated to engaging with those customers who are likely to respond and less on inactive customers who would rather not hear from you.
2. The fast-track to effective data-driven marketing
Preparedness for GDPR can help to take the guess work out of marketing. Moving away from marketing based on gut feel and historical data, the new Regulation enables marketers to adopt a more data-driven approach that can help deliver more appropriate, personalised, timely communications to customers and prospects.
Jaywing research shows that most marketing teams have still been unable to implement data-driven marketing in their organisations, even though most want to. Despite the fact that 92% of marketers see better management of their data as a priority, only 8% are currently personalising customer communications across all channels.
What’s more, just 57% of teams said they had the right data skills and resources to support data-driven marketing and only 50% think they are using the right data management approach. GDPR is an opportunity for these marketers to get back on track with data-driven marketing.
3. Permission is everything
A key element of GDPR compliance is gaining customer permission to use data for specific use cases. But relationships aren’t built on compliance alone.
Adopting best practice data, channel and brand management strategies to drive positive engagement is one of the biggest opportunities right now for brands. Permission becomes the single most important piece of data for brands in aspiring to build meaningful, long-term and rewarding relationships.
Brands can extract insight from data to develop channel and brand management strategies that focus on opportunities to build meaningful relationships. More specifically, relationships that work on terms appropriate to the customer and brand.
4. Better data equals better relationships
Not only that, compliance with GDPR will also ensure a better start to the customer journey as individuals will be parting with their data with more awareness of exactly how it will be used. Those who don’t want to engage won’t provide their data. So, no time wasted chasing, and no resentment before you even begin communicating.
5. GDPR as a catalyst for change
It’s a necessity that brands carry out a review of their entire data environment to assess whether customer and prospect databases are compliant. Moving to a permission based marketing approach requires significant changes within the business and the technology linked to it.
Brands must also review their multi-channel communications strategy and define compliant ways to contact customers. To retain existing customers and inspire new opt-ins, building trust and loyalty is key.
With this in mind, it is understandable to be taken back by the requirements of GDPR. Its complexity can be daunting and unclear at stages, yet underneath the prescriptive text, there is vast opportunity to make business and marketing activity compatible with our digital future. Responsible brands should not fear GDPR, but learn to work with it to unlock and future-proof data-driven marketing practices. Once you become at peace with this, your marketing activity will have higher first-time success rates and impact on the right type of audience.
For more information on the benefits of GDPR, you can download our guide on “7 golden GDPR opportunities for cross-channel marketers”. Or to start preparing for GDPR now, visit gdpr.jaywing.com.
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