The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will give us much more control over our data. Despite what you might have heard, GDPR is more of a gift for digital marketeers and businesses than a headache. The new privacy regulations make dodgy marketing tactics obsolete and place building trust right at the forefront of customer relations. More transparency really can translate to more customers.

More engaged database

The past few weeks have likely involved sending out a lot of emails to your various databases, asking if they still want to receive emails from you. Don’t panic if you haven’t received an overwhelmingly positive response; instead of worrying about the number of contacts you’re losing, think of it as a necessary cleanse.

Marketing to disengaged prospects doesn’t produce great results. Whoever has chosen to opt-in clearly wants to hear from you, and 10 interested people are far more likely to convert than 1000 disinterested people.

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Build new audience

Post-GDPR, people will need to actively provide their email address and show a desire to be contacted. The best way to reach people who are more likely to say ‘yes’ is targeted inbound marketing.

The first step is to identify your different groups of customers and their priorities – whether it’s price, quality, or finding something custom-made and unique. If you build content around their questions and concerns, you can attract an audience of people who are already interested, through search engines and paid digital advertising.

Clever calls to action will encourage site visitors to sign up to email updates, and your shiny, new opt-ins mean it’s all 100% compliant. (As long as people can remove their data just as easily, that’s important too.)

Organise your data

If GDPR has forced you to search through your database of contacts and take stock of everything, don’t feel like your time has been wasted. Organising your data, making it accessible from one place, and being able to add to your current information with compliant data is valuable from both a marketing, and a security, point of view.

A list of email addresses, and no further information, is only so helpful. But a list of qualified information which your prospects are happy to provide is ready to be segmented and marketed to in new, exciting, and productive ways.

Pictured – Matt Tomkin

Matt Tomkin is the founder and SEO consultant at digital marketing agency Tao Digital, which specialises in SEO, PPC and marketing automation.

Having started, grown and sold a number of businesses in various industries over the past 11 years, it gives Tomkin an insight into what is required from a business point of view.

Still struggling to find out what GDPR what means for you? Let Suzanne Dibble explain the legislation change.