What does GDPR mean for your marketing ventures?

Does your organisation handle personal data? If so, then your company needs to get to grips with the new European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). And while there maybe some reservations about the impact the regulations will have on B2B organisations, it’s important to recognise the many benefits too!

The Data Protection Act 2018 protects and governs your information through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). By providing a legal framework to keep your data safe, companies are required to employ robust procedures to handle and store personal information. It also protects individuals from being contacted without their permission.

GDPR REGULATIONS AIM TO STRENGTHEN INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND INSTILL GREATER OBLIGATIONS ON THOSE PROCESSING DATA – BUT HOW CAN BUSINESSES USE THIS TO THEIR ADVANTAGE?

Despite any scaremongering stories you may have heard, GDPR is designed to encourage good marketing practices. Ensuring your company is GDPR compliant can come with its benefits. From a marketer’s perspective, it presents the perfect opportunity to produce a more focused, cleansed, and targeted marketing database.

The regulations advocates a shift from a ‘tick box’ mentality and encourages businesses to think about whether the people they’re contacting genuinely want to hear from them. Blueberry can help you understand how the legislation will affect your B2B marketing database, working with you to organise and manage your data.

Our fully bespoke GDPR data cleansing service is based around your business needs and current contact database. We will help you become GDPR compliant by executing the following steps:

1. A Full Data Quality Audit – This may include some or all of the following:

• Postcode Address File (PAF) Matching
• Telephone Verification
• Telephone Preference Service (TPS) Checking
• Email Verification
• Data Append Checks

2. Data De-Duplication & Consolidation – We can condense your contact set and align data across departments in your organisation.

3. Data Profiling – We research your chosen industry sector, main business activities, employee sizes, regions, and postcode locations to fill any gaps in your current marketing database.

4. Customer &/or Stakeholder Engagement – We carry out focused calling to update your database, remove gone-aways and obtain opt-ins.

5. Email Marketing – We can design a targeted lead nurture programme to help drive relevant content, maximise on-going engagement and further opt-ins.

6. Data Classification – We organise and classify your data into a usable format, ready for you to use in your marketing endeavours. We can also advise you on how to further and retain your GDPR compliance going forward.

If approached correctly, GDPR can present the perfect opportunity to re-engage with your contacts. By taking steps to keep your data clean and up-to-date, you can also engage individuals with direct marketing that interests and engages them.

For more information on GDPR in the marketing sector, check out our Five Common GDPR Myths Rebuffed where we distinguish between fact and fiction.

Discover how our tailored lead nurture services could help your business fully engage with your target audience. Contact the Blueberry team on (0113) 4877013 for more details on our bespoke lead nurture programmes and GDPR data cleansing services.

[This article was originally published by Kate Heron in November 2017. It was subsequently updated by Angela Kunawicz in December 2022.]