GDPR as Opportunity: How to Build Tighter Customer Relationships
The
EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is going to make marketers earn
their customer's attention in a way they've rarely had to before.
Companies will have to collect
EU residents' consent to use personally identifiable information (PII)—such as
email addresses, birth dates, government-issued identity numbers, credit card
and bank account information, IP addresses, mobile device numbers, and
biometrics—for explicit purposes.
No more mass emailing customers
and prospects and leaving it up to them to opt out. You will need their express
consent to email them discount offers, use their social media data, or deliver
newsletters, among many other interactions.
Moreover, you will have to work
just as hard to maintain the right to communicate in this fashion: GDPR
mandates that customers be able to access and change their preferences at any
time.
If you listen closely, you
might hear the collective groan from marketers all over the world who do
business in the EU. Mass email blasts and ubiquitous ads are easy tools to use;
however, it's worthwhile to question their effectiveness. A major motivation
behind the EU's and other nations' decisions to consider or adopt such
legislation is consumers' growing desire for greater control over how brands
connect with them digitally. This trend is evidenced by the rise of ad blocking and the increasing creepiness
that results from careless data handling, particularly in an age of emerging IoT devices and services.
In the end, though, these new consent standards just force marketers to do what they need to be doing anyway: get to know their customers better, figure out what they want, and harness those desires for mutually beneficial outcomes.
Here are some ways to transform
restrictive tools and processes, such as consent, paywalls, and gated content,
into strategic customer-relationship opportunities.
1.
Use a known need to ask for and deliver more
When you know a customer wants something in particular, that
could be a great opportunity to exceed their expectations. The key is to
determine which extra benefits to give the customer in exchange for broader
consents that go beyond his or her immediate needs.
For example, pizza-delivery customers want to avoid the phone and
simply push an Internet button to place their orders. Although these folks are
downloading Domino's, Papa John's, and Pizza Hut delivery apps, perhaps they
can be convinced to permit these chains to use their order history and
customer-profile data to present discounts for special deals.
If customers know they will see special deals on their
most-ordered specialty pies or on the day of the week they most often hold
"pizza night," they might be more amenable to letting brands send
them more information.
2.
Stoke FOMO
Companies can do a lot when they know customers' general
interests and the specific products or services those customers are looking at.
Thus, it's imperative to illustrate the potential value you can deliver if
shoppers were to grant consent to use PII. Did that customer know that blender
was 60% off last week? Wouldn't it have been nice if the brand were permitted
to alert the customer about flash sales for appliances?
This approach could be very useful in getting customers
acquainted with the new consent and preference settings that GDPR requires.
Brands could preview a dialogue box that illustrates what a customer's
experience could look like if the brand were allowed to use certain data and
settings. The bigger objective: show people what they're missing out on.
3.
Leverage the porous paywall
Companies, particularly in the media industry, have struggled to
compete with free-content models on the Web since long before GDPR, but the new
consent standards might create an avenue to "componentize"
subscriptions to very fine-grain consumer interests.
Instead of austere messages demanding payment for a full or
partial subscription upon readers' reaching a free-article limit, perhaps
brands could entice readers to browse creative offerings that package articles
by topics (e.g., North Korea, cyberhacks), author, or region. The high-quality
niche approach has traditionally worked for blogs, but it could be an effective
way to incrementalize value exchange under GDPR.
4.
Target narrowly, but think broad, with your communication
Your finely targeted communication can reflect broader customer
research. For example, a pharmaceutical company can help doctors understand
patients before they're even patients. If it sees a consumer researching one of
its drugs, it can offer to package research, the patient's symptoms, and a fact
sheet in an effort to earn the customer's consent to bring the primary care
physician into the discussion.
Whether B2B or B2C, companies can still use retargeting to get a
larger perspective on customer segments. Although they can no longer, without
permission, shove ads in front of a consumer who left their site long ago, they
can still purchase data on larger demographic segments, such as millennials or
35-45-year-old female professionals, from an ad exchange for more clues.
These are not the only methods for turning GDPR's privacy
standards into creative marketing initiatives, but there is a commonality
between them that can instruct marketers on how to communicate to EU consumers:
Use what you know about the customer to deliver additional value. Doing so may
require more steps than marketers are used to: Brands will likely have to rely
on "progressive consents" to get customers to expand their
permissions in increments.
Ultimately, customers and brands will be sure that the latter is
delivering what the former want, and everybody will be a winner.
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If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or email me at john@x2media.us.
X2Media can help you target your content and get your message to the audience in a way that it not only seen and heard, but remembered.
Until next month. . . .remember. "you don't get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression."
Always make it a good one!!
From X2Media I would like to thank you for your time.
John E. Hornyak
X2Media, LLC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or email me at john@x2media.us.
X2Media can help you target your content and get your message to the audience in a way that it not only seen and heard, but remembered.
Until next month. . . .remember. "you don't get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression."
Always make it a good one!!
From X2Media I would like to thank you for your time.
John E. Hornyak
X2Media, LLC
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