Marketing in a Post-GDPR World!
The purpose of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is to compel marketers to be more thoughtful, transparent, and respectful of the data they collect and use. Realistically, that means marketers need to take a step back - to stop personalizing every piece of information without regard for what is appropriate for the consumer.
GDPR gives the power to consumers to control the use of their data. Any European consumer can call out any company and ask the company to account for the data they've collected and how it's being used.
To master marketing in post-GDPR world, Gartner analyst Bryan Yeager has said that marketers should elevate the importance of privacy as part of their data-driven initiatives. "Audit your current marketing activities, including what data has been collected and how it's processed. Co-ordinate closely with your legal and privacy teams about your approach. And think about how you can use a pivotal moment like GDPR as a way to engender value and trust in your future engagements with customers", he suggested.
It's very concerning to know that a very whopping 41% of marketers admit to not fully understanding both the GDPR law and the best practices around the use of consumers' personal data.
To quickly check if you're complying with GDPR today, see if you can answer 'Yes' to the following:
- You've built privacy settings into the digital products and websites - and have them switched on by default.
- You regularly conduct privacy impact assessments, strengthen the way you seek permission to use personal data, document how you use personal data, and improve the way you communicate data breaches.
To put it simply, if you have a list of leads, you can't send them a promotional email UNLESS they have given you consent for it. You can't even send them an email asking if they want to hear more from you, and as such, is a violation of GDPR.
In August 2016, Flybe sent an email to 3.3 million people in their database with the subject line "Are your details correct?". In theory, this sounds like a smart strategy, but unfortunately, these 3.3 million people had previously opted out (unsubscribed) to marketing emails and thereby gave no consent to be contacted. Result? A fine of 70,000 pounds.Key takeaway: If your customers have opted-out of marketing emails, don't email them - it's as simple as that. You're breaking the law if you do.
Best practices to keep yourself GDPR compliant
1. Signup Forms:
Don't assume a person wants to receive your future offers just because she made a purchase. Don't assume a person who opts-in for a newsletter subscription also wants all your marketing materials. And please - remove all pre-ticked boxes that seek permission for future contact from your emails.
Consent must be very clear, and the retailer must keep records of consent under the GDPR's accountability principle.
2. Consent Settings
The right to be forgotten has become one of the most talked-about rulings in EU Justice Court history. It gives people the right to have old or false personal data removed, and it has already been implemented with companies like Google, which was forced to remove pages from its search engine results in order to comply.
As a marketer, it will be your responsibility to make sure that your users can easily access their data, and remove consent for its use, in line with the right to be forgotten.
This can be as simple as including an unsubscribe link within your email marketing template and linking to a user profile that allows users to manage their email preferences (as shown in the example below).
3. Take What You Need
Marketers get greedy when it comes to getting formed filled out by customers. We tend to ask for information that we might not even require. Ask yourself, do I really need to know someone's favorite holiday destination before they subscribe to our newsletter? Probably not.
To stop the collection of unnecessary data, GDPR requires you to legally justify the processing of personal data you collect. Don't worry - this is not very complicated.
What this means is that you need to focus on the data that's really useful to you, and stop asking for the "good to haves". If you really need to know a piece of customer information, and can prove why you need it, then you can continue asking for it. But try to avoid collecting any unnecessary data, and stick with the basics.
Actionable tip for GDPR-compliant marketing
Data collection: If you still buy mailing lists, it's probably a bad idea to continue. In fact, you should dump the data you bought right away, because a single complaint from a customer about a breach of consent can subject you to a penalty of up to 4% of your gross revenue. Instead, start fresh. Find new ways of collecting opt-in data by introducing clear, brief web-forms.
Scan your list: Go through your data list periodically and remove the data without an record of opting in. For new subscribers. make sure that they want to receive emails from you by sending them a re-confirmation email after they opt-in for a mailing list.
Content marketing: Content is more important than ever in a post-GDPR world. Since you can only send your communications to interested people, you need a lot of content to generate that interest. Also, you can ask customers to subscribe in order to access content like e-books, infographics, webinars and whitepapers.
Pop-ups: Invite website visitors to add themselves to a mailing list by launching a pop-up on your website. The conversion rate of pop-ups is only around 3%, but like other marketing communications such as emails and Facebook ads, if the pop-ups are launched at the right time with the right message, they can give you a higher conversion rate of up to 40%.
Data storage: In a data-conscious world, you cannot afford to keep records in a spreadsheet and manage the data manually. You need a CRM application where you, and your sales team, can keep updating the data and centralizing your data collection. Of course, CRM applications come with a lot of other benefits as well.
Social selling: Since reaching customers over email is subject to some legal restrictions, find new ways of reaching out to them outside the scope of the GDPR law. Educate your sales team on social selling and connecting with customers on social media sites. Social media will also give your salespeople some perspective on your customers and help them approach with the right message.
Push notifications: You may also take a shot at push notifications. These are pop-ups that seek permission from website visitors to send them promotional notifications. One advantage of this is that once the customer allows you to send them push notifications, they will receive notifications from you even after they have closed your website. One disadvantage of push notifications is that they cannot be personalized, since IP addresses are anonymous.
Privacy policy: Update your privacy statement to let people know that you are GDPR compliant. Mention what you do with customer data you collect and that you don't engage in any practices in violation of customer privacy.
Conclusion
Remember, GDPR hasn't been enacted to stop marketers from communicating with customers. Quite the opposite, actually. It's designed to increase the quality of customer data. The best and most resourceful marketers are seeing the bigger picture and recognizing that it's an opportunity to personalize messages for their prospects and customers, rather than using the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to marketing.
The rules of GDPR compliance are quite simple: don't contact someone unless they specifically ask you to. Don't assume they want to hear from you. Don't cold contact them, and don't send them irrelevant information that they didn't request. If you can do all that, then you've done your job in complying with GDPR.
Is your marketing GDPR compliant?
Access your files securely from anywhere
Zoho Developer Community
New to Zoho LandingPage?
Zoho LandingPage Resources
New to Zoho Survey?
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Bigin?
Topic Participants
Vinit Tibrewal
directmailmart28
janaki shantharam
Kevin Deeb
Vinit Tibrewal
Sticky Posts
10 simple e-commerce marketing tips to boost sales
Congratulations! You've finally set up that e-commerce store you've been thinking about for a long time. Hopefully it wasn't too difficult. Even if it was, the effort will be totally worth it when you start seeing some orders come through. Now that the store is live, let's take a look at some marketing tips you can apply for sales growth. 1. Avoid cart abandonment If you've ever shopped online, you might have added a product to the cart but then decided not to purchase it. This is known as cart abandonment.Marketing in a post COVID-19 world!
Consumers across countries are increasingly spending more time on a wide variety of digital activities, right from online grocery shopping, to video conferencing, to tele-medicine. There is a good chance that you performed one or more of the following activities during this lockdown, thanks to COVID 19: Cooked a meal Made a TikTok Video Signed up for a remote learning session Consulted a doctor online (or ordered medicines online) Shopped for groceries online A study by Hunter, a food and beverageInbound Marketing 101: The Foundational Blocks of Inbound Marketing Strategy
According to a behaviour survey, 68% of the buyers use sources such as blogs to evaluate the product even before considering it. Before buying a product, we do a lot of research to learn more about the product through communities, blogs, social media,How Zylker doubled their webinar registrations!
Webinars are good educational resources to gather qualified leads for your product. But what if your visitors are dropping off from your webinar landing page without signing up? What more could you do to convert visitors into registrants? This is theThe ideology behind why features tell, but benefits sell
Do you think there's any truth to this? Do features only tell, and benefits sell? Well, let's see why we should focus on benefits rather than features as the great marketing wizards, David Ogilvy and Steve Jobs proved to be the best examples leveraging
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
Zoho TeamInbox Resources
Zoho DataPrep Resources
Zoho CRM Plus Resources
Zoho Books Resources
Zoho Subscriptions Resources
Zoho Projects Resources
Zoho Sprints Resources
Qntrl Resources
Zoho Creator Resources
Zoho Campaigns Resources
Zoho CRM Resources
Design. Discuss. Deliver.
Zoho Show Resources
Get Started. Write Away!
Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.
Zoho CRM コンテンツ
-
オンラインヘルプ
-
Webセミナー
-
機能活用動画
-
よくある質問
-
Ebook
-
-
Zoho Campaigns
- Zoho サービスのWebセミナー
その他のサービス コンテンツ
Nederlandse Hulpbronnen
ご検討中の方
Recent Topics
Expanded data-capturing capabilities with enhanced tabular sections
We are thrilled to announce an update to Zoho Recruit that brings even more flexibility and customization to your recruiting process. With the addition of 10 new field types to the tabular sections, you now have the power to enhance your tabular sectionsIntegration of Business Hours in Email Templates
Dear Zoho Desk Team, We would like to propose a feature enhancement to Zoho Desk that would greatly improve the utility of the Business Hours settings and streamline communication with our clients. Feature Request: Integration of Business Hours in EmailAdd Owner to deluge-created module record note
Is it possible to include the "owner" aka "creator", of a Note when creating it via delulge? This sets "superadmin" as the Note creator. I need to override it. notemap = Map(); notemap.put("Parent_Id",program_contact_id); notemap.put("Note_Content",program_contact_data.get('Note'));Blueprint - Field Validation Criteria (During)
When setting validation criteria elsewhere in Zoho, or even workflow criteria etc., there are Is Empty and Isn't Empty options. Within the Field Validation Criteria within Blueprint, those options aren't available. Is there a particular reason for this?Delete Field that is used in a Zoho Flow connection
I'm trying to delete a Field used in a Webhook created by Zoho Flow with CRM Connection and i get the following alert: When going to the alert i get to the following issue, can't edit it since its been deployed by a pluggin But yes i have here the promptedUse image on img HTML tag
Hi how could I do to use my image saved in Workdrive to use it in an HTML img tag ? I need to display it on my website without having to use iframes. Regards,ZOHO Compain emails going to spam after authentication is successful
Hello, I am frustrated right now. I have recently setup the zoho email compaign, The auto responder email went to receipient spam folder. then, I researched a lot and completed authentication (SPF, DKIM) in email deliverability, email relay in zoho crm.Security Policies
To protect against cyber threats and attacks, organizations need to set up security policies for their employees' accounts. Security policies are rules and regulations for every individual or group using the organization's assets and resources. EnablingZoho CRM functions editor is not in the programming language deluge
I am trying to write a function for a button. I helped someone before in deluge and I'm using this new editor I'm not familiar with - I guess it is new. Why is the default code statically typed? The editor will not let me create a variable without a type."Age in Days" calculation in Advanced Analytics
Hi Can someone advise how this is calculated? I am getting values on this report which I cannot understand. Thank youAutomatically set quotes to "lost" if deal is set to lost
Hi, Is there a way to automate that if a deal (opportunity) is lost the related quotes are also set to lost? Thanks!Subdomain
How can i make subdomain in my zoho websiteA/R Aging Details shows wrong aging days
In the A/R Summary Report all of the invoices are in the right aging buckets. When I run the A/R Aging Details report I get aged dates of +300 days when they should be in the 0-90 day range.Global Choice List share ownership
I have created several forms that use one or more Global Choice Lists. These lists have been published to Org. I would like to allow one or more admins to edit the choices in these lists. Any help appreciated. GeoffDomain Transfer
I have a Godaddy domain, how i can transfer it to Zoha? and how i can move my website to Zoho server? With my best wishes.Project Templates & Reminders
I am getting projects all set up to work for our company and am running into a problem that I'm hoping is easily fixable. I have created a project template and within that project, there are reminders set on certain tasks. When I create a project fromKaizen #126 - Circuits in Zoho CRM - Part 1
Hello everyone! Welcome back to another week of Kaizen! Today, we will discuss an exciting topic—Circuits in Zoho CRM. For starters, we will discuss what Circuits are, how beneficial they are for businesses, different views of a Circuit, and the differentCreate customized SLAs for your customer base with support plans
Managing customer expectations, prioritizing critical issues, and resolving customer inquiries on time is quite a juggle. Without a clear timelines or defined priorities, a support team may struggle with delays in response, SLA violations, and pendingZoho Flow or Schedules
I have a process where we text our leads 7 times over a 14 day with different content for each text. I created one flow in Zoho Flow to do this, but wondering if there is a more efficient way to accomplish this via Schedules. It goes on for 6 more timesFree webinar: Zoho Sign 2024 wrap-up - Everything that is new and has changed
Hello, Are you looking up to catch up on all the updates made to Zoho Sign in 2024? Or are you still figuring out how you can use Zoho Sign better to get business paperwork done more efficiently? If so, we invite you to join us this Thursday, DecemberHow to Customize Task Creation to Send a Custom Alert Using JavaScript in Zoho CRM?
Hello Zoho CRM Community, I’m looking to customize Zoho CRM to send a custom alert whenever a task is created. I understand that Zoho CRM supports client scripts using JavaScript, and I would like to leverage this feature to implement the alert functionality.Workflow - Execute Based on Date
Hello, I have trouble understanding the documentation for Execute Based on Date or Date Time Field's Value. I want to send an email every time I have a Case opened for more than three days with its status unchanged. I set : This rule will be executed 3 days after [date]. Condition : Status is [New]. Instant Action : Send an email notification. However, I'm not sure I follow this part of the documentation: "For all the records matching the rule criteria, rule will be triggered either monthly or yearlyCan we set a BCC address as default to show while sending emails?
Two things inside ZohoCRM are annoying me because it's a repeated work. First one is that I always need to click manually to add the BCC field while sending an email to a lead. Can we set a default address so when I click to send a new email the BCC addressMake collecting payments from your customers in Bigin easier with payment links
Greetings, Efficient payment collection is crucial for business success. Bigin already helps your businesses manage and sell products effectively, but we can further enhance this by making payment collection easier. This integrated payment feature letsSend email is not authenticated
Hi, I’m getting an error in Gmail, when receiving an email from my account in zoho, my email is already authenticated in my domain, and I don't know why I keep receiving this message... also testing in outlook, the message goes directly to "junk".Inbox Preference - Saved replies based on message repsonse with specific word
Hi There, Can one create a workflow where the Save Reply will be generic for all messages that contains a specific word, various channels,. The saved reply should contain a link for download etc. that is a response to the word entered in the message containedBasic Price List Functionality Still Missing
I am having a problem with the most simple imaginable pricing scenario - you buy cheap, add profit, then sell high. Or in less simplistic terms: business buys a product at a given cost, then adds predetermined percentage markup, and finally sells thatHow do I hire employees????
Hi! I own a bookkeeping company, where a few of my clients use Zoho Books as their accounting platform . I started utilizing Zoho Practice to work on the books of my Zoho clients, some have Zoho One and some have Zoho Books plans. I just hired an employee,Automate data upload process like reports
I'll start with the end in mind. I want to basically keep certain creator tables updated with data that are in a sql database/tables in our office (employees, active jobs, employee positions) so I can reference that data and not have to duplicate it by hand every time someone adds a new job or employee in the office desktop software. Here are some thoughts I had about how to do this, but am unsure as to whether any of them are actually possible and how to go about it from there: Is there any wayGreylisted, try again after some time
Can you check my ip, i send to duyna@vietlinkjsc.vn but have an error; my ip is 112.213.94.12 Here is log: 2018-01-09 09:40:29 H=mx.zoho.com [204.141.32.121] SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<duyna@vietlinkjsc.vn>: 451 4.7.1 Greylisted, try again after some time 2018-01-09 09:40:32 H=mx2.zoho.com [204.141.33.55] SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<duyna@vietlinkjsc.vn>: 451 4.7.1 Greylisted, try again after some time 2018-01-09 09:40:32 duyna@vietlinkjsc.vn R=lookuphostEmails linked to Deal
Hello everyone, I’d like to ask a question to see if someone can help me out. We are requesting availability from suppliers by sending emails directly from the Opportunity. These emails we send are logged within the Opportunity; however, when we receiveHow to transfer all my mails from Zoho to Gmail or Office 365
is there any option to move my emails from zoho to gmail or office 365. i would like to export more than 25k emails from zoho to office 365 or gmail. can anyone help me to guide properly. this will help me to access my emails easily i have both account and can easily do it with office 365 or gmail. i want two options. direct from zoho to office 365 or exported eml files from zoho to gmail. please suggest me both if possibleInquiry Regarding Image Display Issue in Campaign Duplication
We are currently using Zoho Campaigns for email distribution to our clients. I would like to inquire about an issue we encountered. When duplicating a previously created and sent campaign from the "All Campaigns" section, the images used in the headerNew integrations for Bigin: Zoho Sign, SalesIQ, and Marketing Automation
Greetings, We're excited to share new integrations that make Bigin more powerful and useful for your business! Zoho Sign for Bigin Zoho Sign now integrates seamlessly with Bigin, enabling you to sign, send, and manage contracts or agreements without leavingAdd multiple users to a task
When I´m assigning a task it is almost always related to more than one person. Practical situation: When a client request some improvement the related department opens the task with the situation and people related to it as the client itself, the salesmanWhat is Attendee Status 0 and 1?
Hi there, I recently stumbled upon the API to get the attendee list and in the return value, there is a parameter called "status", and 0 supposed to mean not_attending, and 1 means attending. I cannot find this representation anywhere in the attendeeZOHO BackStage
How to get list of events, using ZOHO BackStage APIs. Is it possible OR not?How to Customize Task Creation to Send a Custom Alert Using JavaScript in Zoho CRM?
Hello Zoho CRM Community, I’m looking to customize Zoho CRM to send a custom alert whenever a task is created. I understand that Zoho CRM supports client scripts using JavaScript, and I would like to leverage this feature to implement the alert functionality.Zoho Meeting iOS app update - Join breakout rooms, access polls, paste links and join sessions, in session host controls
Hello, everyone! In the latest iOS version(v1.7) of the Zoho Meeting app, we have brought in support for the following features: Polls in meeting session Join Breakout rooms Paste link in join meeting screen Foreign time zone in the meeting details screen.Calculate hours between 2 date/time fields
Hi, Does anyone know if it is possible to get the number of hours between 2 date/time fields in a zoho crm custom function? Thanks, MichaelNext Page