Don't let becoming GDPR compliant stifle your growth

In the run up to GDPR, many businesses, like yours, are becoming more reliant on IT departments and advisors than ever. This reliance sometimes has the result that your sales and marketing people are afraid to make a move, without the OK from the IT People.

Why not check in with your IT, Sales, and Marketing departments to make sure that becoming GDPR compliant isn't having a negative impact on your business growth; particularly when it comes to business to business email.

These are the guidelines set out by the Information Commissioners Office:

“These rules on consent, the soft opt-in and the right to opt out do not apply to electronic marketing messages sent to ‘corporate subscribers’ which means companies and other corporate bodies eg limited liability partnerships, Scottish partnerships, and government bodies.

The only requirement is that the sender must identify itself and provide contact details.

Corporate subscribers do not include sole traders and some partnerships who instead have the same protection as individual customers. If an organisation does not know whether a business customer is a corporate body or not, it cannot be sure which rules apply.

In addition, many employees have personal corporate email addresses (eg [email protected]), and individual employees will have a right under section 11 of the DPA to stop any marketing being sent to that type of email address.”

These are the actions that I have taken:

1) Before sending an email I check that there is a registered business or charity number on the business website. This is to confirm that they are not a sole trader.

2) Every email that I send out, is clearly labelled with my name and company name.

3) Every email has an unsubscribe option link included that when clicked will remove that email address and contact details from my list.

I use the services of a 3rd party email delivery service platform which keeps a dated record of any un-subscribed members of my list.

The most important audit of all might be to assess and identify ways of helping your IT, Sales, and Marketing departments to communicate more effectively with a view to each of them contributing to the effective growth of your business.