Are Marketers Ready for GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is coming into effect in a matter of weeks, and many marketing and communications professionals are still getting to grips with what it means for their brand and content distribution strategy.

GDPR will give individuals ultimate control of their personal data. This means that from May 25, every business will need to:

• Receive ‘explicit consent’ from the target recipient of a marketing message
• Show ‘verifiable’ evidence of where they sourced the personal data
• Be prepared for crisis communications should the business breach GDPR rules

For communications professionals, it’s essential that we understand the implications of GDPR as we’re in easy reach of data which we could be penalised for using. With that in mind, here are my top two recommendations to help communicators and marketers become GDPR compliant.

Be respectful of data privacy and use it as an opportunity to understand your audience and target them with relevant content

It’s even more pertinent to avoid abusing personal data by sending irrelevant content to large databases of people who haven’t ‘opted in’. Instead, refresh your database by asking those contacts whether they want to receive content from you and document this consent for your records. Be sure to apply a very personal approach and you’ll likely garner better results this way. Ultimately, GDPR is a great opportunity to reduce your non-open rate and connect you to the right audience. 

Appoint a data champion to ensure you are compliant and respectful of your audiences’ personal information

No matter the size of your organisation, make sure you appoint a data champion to keep close to the data and content you are distributing. Have this person be the custodian of personal information to ensure you are not only compliant, but also to train and educate employees across the board from front-of-office to sales teams.

To hear more about how marketers and communicators can ensure they are GDPR compliant, join me and a stellar panel of GDPR experts at the WE UK offices, Covent Garden on May 15 at 8:30am. You can register your interest here.

I will be moderating along with other panelists, including:

- Andrew Gould, National Cybercrime Programme Lead at National Police Chiefs' Council

- Ashley Hurst, Partner and Data Breach Specialist at law firm, Osborne Clarke

- Bryan Glick, Editor in Chief at Computer Weekly

- Gillian Edwards, Associate Partner at Sermelo

The session will offer a practical discussion and a tangible action plan, including:

• Introduction to the implications of GDPR on a practical and legal level
• Crisis communications planning to cover all eventualities
• Key steps to GDPR communications preparation

Register here to add your name to the guest list.