The gradual demise of Email Marketing has been regularly proclaimed over recent years. With the volume of cluttered inboxes, blanket non-targeted messages, shouting and informing anyone and everyone to everything and the consistent notifications of nothing - Email Marketing had become an irritation to most and maybe its expiration is inevitable. Yet, a study by Return Path states that 269 billion emails are sent every day and of them, 53% are promotional emails and of them 19% are within EU jurisdiction - WOW, that’s approx. 28 billion GDPR compliant emails sent daily.
25th May 2018 - power to the people. On 25th of May 2018, EU legislation the General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP) came into force. This legislation aiming to improve data privacy and protection for EU citizens has introduced a number of measures that change and challenge the procedure to future Email Marketing. The main change is that under GDPR ruling - the individual must provide consent and voluntary opt-in to receiving chosen emails. Companies cannot ignore the new law as the consequences of not complying with GDPR could be pretty scary with fines of up to €20 million or 4% of your global turnover – whichever is higher! Some companies - JD Whetherspoon for example, made the decision to simply delete their entire email database (estimated at 650,000 subscribers). JD Whetherspoon’s brash decision could seem questionable considering the more positive action taken by many: sending out a re-permission campaign which would also updates existing records to only include subscribers who want to receive emails from you. Within a Statista.com 2017 survey - & quote 49% of customers said they would like to receive promotional emails from their favourite brands on a weekly basis & quote. In a recent article for Data IQ David Reed correctly asserted “GDPR is the perfect opportunity for businesses to rethink their approach to data and the enhanced customer relationships and experiences it allows.” You In or Out? A few of positive examples of this would be the re-permission campaigns that ran for RNLI, Lloyds Bank and Manchester United FC. The RNLI case study posted by Steven MacDonald Super Office tells us The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) sent out two re-permission campaigns in 2017 asking their 900,000 subscribers if they would like to continue to receive marketing communication. Like every business, they expected low response rates and anticipated to lose up to 75% of their mailing list. Defying expectations, these re-permission email campaigns drove more than 450,000 subscribers to (re)opt-in to their mailing list (as well as tripling the average donation amount)! The Lloyds Bank case study posted by Guy Hanson highlights how Lloyds Bank had taken the opportunity to educate customers about GDPR and presents the new laws as something positive that they will benefit from. There was also a plain-English FAQ their customers could reference to learn more about GDPR: Lloyds Bank customers have clearly been appreciative—since this education program began, read rates of their notification emails (“New statement available” etc.) have increased by 1/5 while deleted before reading rates have halved! Manchester United FC know and understand the devotion of their fan base. The Clubs website clearly explains how necessary it is for Manchester United to become GDPR compliant and have used star players in videos and voice-overs as well as Old Trafford stadium adverts to push the importance of GDPR. This “Stay United” campaign was integrating into their marketing strategy, they anticipated that fans would “Select Yes - stay updated to be kept informed of new player signings, competitions, club news and ticket availability”. They were right, fans grasped the benefit of this online engagement. Reach for that lifeline! Without doubt, GDPR is a phrase that could overwhelm a lot of marketers and in some cases, depending on their approach......it should. Keep in mind, this is good for your subscribers. If there is something in it for them and if you send crafted messages fitting your audience, it is likely they will opt-in and stay with you. Come have a chat with us at ALT Digital, we will review and advise on your overall strategy and guide you to your GDPR compliant haven.
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On May 25th, 2018, I opened Facebook on my phone and was bombarded with GDPR terminology and regulations that appeared to be written by a Harvard Law graduate (which most likely it was) after reading a paragraph or two of what appeared to be the never ending stream of information, I gave up and clicked “I accept”, not once, but many times, my thought process went from, “did I just sign my life away to the devil and will now spend eternity in some type of hell scenario?” Or perhaps “did I just allow Facebook to continue as normal and give advertisers access to my personal data which will result in further if not more targeted advertisements”? The latter most likely although it is almost impossible to know.
This year, Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) was brought before the United States congress and was asked the following question by Senator Hatch from Utah: “So, how do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?” “Senator, we run ads,” replied Zuckerberg. A simple question the world laughed at as Zuckerberg brushed it off as if it was a joke, however Mr Zuckerberg failed to mention that Facebook actually run targeted advertisements. Targeted being defined by Merriam Webster as “a mark to shoot at, a target marked by shots fired at it, something or someone fired at or marked for attack” (Merriam Webster). Facebook state that they “take data protection and people's privacy very seriously and are committed to continuing to comply with data protection laws” (Facebook, n.d.). Although this statement sounds reassuring I cannot help but feel slightly uneasy that the longer I spend on Facebook I risk the chance of an opinion being changed not by a shared post from a friend but from an advertisement which was targeted. My most recent experience of such targeted advertisements is one of a personal matter. I present myself to the world as a very happy open homosexual male, my Facebook profile presents itself to the world as a socially active twenty something year old. Imagine my surprise to find a reoccurring advertisement for a sexual health clinic for gay men appear numerous times on my feed. In an open discussion with heterosexual friends I find out that they do not receive such advertisements. This article is not intended as a conspiracy theory piece that hopes to eventually take down Facebook, its intention is to establish and explain with examples that Facebook has access to information that people knowingly give away. Does it make me feel comfortable that an algorithm picked up my sexuality from my profile, no. Is this a feeling that many people share, most likely. It is of no shock to scroll through the many pages of Google and find that GDPR is literally a minefield of information with massive amounts of websites devoted to the topic, however from studying and researching a lot of these websites one reoccurring theme seems to keep shining through, a theme that appears to offer some trust and reassurance to social media users and social media marketing managers. The message is clear, have no fear, the social media platforms have done some additional work to ensure they are compliant so leave everything up to them. For example, Facebook recently announced that they now have global privacy settings that are GDPR compliant. This means that transparency is built-in with the social platform, offering consumers more confidence about the way they’re sharing data on the platform. LinkedIn, WhatsApp and other platforms will similarly have more detailed privacy notices automatically built in, which means that social managers don’t have to worry about any data that they collect via the sites constituting a breach of contract (Digital Marketing Institute). Are the global privacy settings Facebook mention the large amounts of “opt-in” clicks I needed to do to access my page on May 25th 2018, I am afraid to say that I think so, because evidently nothing has changed? Digital marketers will need to work smarter, harder and faster in order to beat and overcome these extremely large players in the social media platforms and their wicked ways. ALT Digital works for you and your users. We will establish actual trust and ethical ways of building relationships with your clients. GDPR was established to protect people and their private information, ALT Digital was established to enhance businesses use of GDPR and their relationships with their clients. |
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