GDPR, or, General Data Protection Regulation, is a complex body of regulations governing the use of customer data in the European Union.
The rules outlined by GDPR have some profound effects on the way that marketing campaigns and email marketing, in particular, are conducted.
Is GDPR bad for email marketing?
In the months leading up to its inception, marketing teams typically either feared or despised the impending regulations. Some dreamed in vain of getting around the rules. The savviest, most forward-thinking professionals aimed at working with GDPR and using the rules in their favor, and there’s no reason you can’t do the same.
One of the essential advantages of GDPR for email marketing is that, by emphasizing transparency and consent to receive newsletters, emailing lists will be more effective. By ruling out the number of people who would choose not to receive your newsletter, the remaining percentage is guaranteed to be interested in your brand.
Overall, GDPR is not bad for email marketing. If anything, it’s a wakeup call urging marketers to conform to a public that’s requiring more transparency from the business world.
Turning the limitations of GDPR into advantages
As a marketer, you shouldn’t look at the limitations of GDPR as restrictions, but rather as guidelines that can be used to shape more profitable uses of email marketing in the EU.
One of the critical components of GDPR is that it outlines clear and distinct rules for the use of personal data and how it may be collected. As long as your forms are equipped with clearly defined requests for consent on the use of customer data, you can remain GDPR compliant. More importantly, you can continue to profit from the EU market and even improve revenues by building stronger customer relationships built off of better email lists.
GDPR hasn’t impeded activity, as overall investment in email marketing stands to increase by 48%
How to measure email marketing success in relation to GDPR
You can measure the success of email marketing through familiar methods, like tracking how many emails are deleted or opened. The most significant way to measure email marketing success is in the increases in customers and overall revenue.
Does it really matter?
GDPR has a direct relationship with email marketing. Remember, while GDPR covers regions in the EU, you’re under no obligation to follow these regulations outside of its reach. You don’t have to follow these regulations outside of the EU. However, it’s still good practice—even as a small business—to have a complete data policy in place, and your data policy should encompass every country your firm does business in.
What now?
Now you know that GDPR can actually make email marketing more efficient and should be looked at as a tool, rather than a set of restrictions to be skirted. The benefits of building stronger emailing lists using GDPR compliance as a natural filter are substantial. Your promotional emails will resonate more and be received by people who want to read them. Not only does this save tremendous amounts of money, but it also makes your email marketing campaigns substantially more efficient overall.
Navigate GDPR with an expert at your side. Chat with Campaign Monitor today.