GDPR will affect businesses in a range of different ways, from internal processes to marketing strategies. So when you’re planning your next marketing campaign, remember one big thing: no longer can you rely on a hidden pre-ticked box in your Ts & Cs to gain consent.

With the new GDPR laws, transparency is key. And a well-rounded, tried and tested permission statement could mean the difference between your marketing campaign succeeding or failing.

As discussed by David Cole in a recent blog, “a universally appropriate and optimised permission statement that works for all brands or customers simply does not exist.” A major recommendation to take from this is that, in order to gain the consent, you need to roll out your marketing campaigns to the greatest effect, it must start with a strategic, tailored consent statement. This means testing and reviewing your statements regularly.

What’s more, in order to achieve consent from the customers you want to market to, you’ll now have to give them more of a reason to trust your brand enough to share their information with you. That means transparency and honesty are of utmost importance and should be demonstrated and promoted throughout the business, far beyond just consent.

For more information about how you can ensure GDPR compliancy throughout your business, and for a no obligation chat, get in touch.

Even under the current (and notoriously out of date) Data Protection Act, many companies still do not wholly comply with the laws. For example, the ICO recently announced that a recruitment manager was fined just under £1000 for illegally sharing CVs containing personal data with another recruitment company. And while this is quite a blatant breach, with the new GDPR laws coming into effect, an accidental breach can be just as likely if you’re not stringent.

In terms of personal data, it will no longer be enough to just not pass on information to third parties or password protect your computer, you will be responsible for ensuring data is completely secure too. And something which you may not realise is a criminal offence could end up costing you a lot more than just your job.

The new level of required protection could mean something seemingly trivial, such as printing documents with personal information, requires more strict processes.

Picture the scene: You print off a couple of confidential documents for your next meeting from the office computer, but before you get a chance to go and pick them up the phone rings and next thing you know, you’re side-tracked for 15 minutes. During that time, a colleague from another area of the business has picked up your documents from the printer with theirs and are happily on their way to their next meeting too, taking the personal information along with them.

Feels like a bit of a nuisance, doesn’t it? However, as of May 2017 it’s more than just a nuisance. The situation described above is a breach of GDPR regulations and could lead to excessive fines.

We know it all sounds a little dramatic. But with potential fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of global turnover (whichever is highest!) on the horizon, that £1,000 fine starts to feel a bit like pocket change, doesn’t it?

So if you want to know if your systems comply, we can help. Give us a call for a no obligation chat.