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3 easy steps to get your marketing GDPR compliant

The GDPR event that took place this past Thursday outlined some of the legal hurdles and IT challenges marketers face to become GDPR compliant. Although the challenges are complex, according to Emil Jimenez of Passion Communications, the solutions can be simplified if markets keep one word in mind, "transparency". 

Step #1: What, Where, and Why

Business need to be transparent with customers as to what data they are using, where they are storing it, and why. As markets, we must make it clear for customers that the data is being stored in order to offer a better experience and better products. 

Step#2: Control and Consent

The essence of data protection is that the customer has control of what data you can collect and they must give clear consent that you can use this data. Therefore, business must separate each reason for the data collection and allow customers to pick and choose what types of communication or services they are open to receive based on their personal data. We saw a good example of this from Twitter on the slide presentation by Hana Gawlasová from Squire Patton Boggs on the AmCham's GDPR event. You could clearly see that Twitter divided all of their services and gave the user control and the ability to consent what portions of data services they are open to receive.

Step#3 Have the technology in place

If you are an enterprise business such as Česká Spořitelna, the implementation of GDPR can be managed with in-house resources. However, SMBs must rely on third party CRM solutions to become GDPR compliant. Tools like Mailchimp, HubSpot, or Salesforce have existing features which help your business make this digital transition to GDPR compliance. Another tool which was pointed out in the UNYP example was the possibility of bringing your past and present customers over to a mobile application like PASSION1 and creating a mini LinkedIn community for your customers. By using an application for marketing and communication purposes you give control and consent to your customer every time they open the application and can offer more value through personalization.

In conclusion, there are many ways to solve this problem and business must understand what data you currently have on file and what resources you have available to make your digital transition to GDPR compliance. 

If you would like to seek more professional help on this matter we recommend to reach out to our workshop leader: Squire Patton Boggs and Passion Communications for more help.