Yesterday we hosted a Breakfast Session on GDPR and the opportunities it presents for savvy, forward-thinking, digital businesses to advise clients, address their needs and expand upon existing business.
Below are the key takeaways from our three wonderful speakers: Scott Appleton (Commercial and IP Lawyer at Moore Law), Simon Cooke (Marketing Director at Pragmatic) and Morgan McCarthy (Founder at CDO Partners).
Scott Appleton (Moore Law) kicked off the session with background on GDPR and some of the fundamental issues and legal considerations that they see when advising clients.
What is GDPR?
It’s only a few months until the implementation of GDPR, which will massively overhaul the way businesses collect, use and store personal data. From May 2018, all companies need to adhere to a strict set of data protection laws or face fines upwards of €20M or 4% of turnover.
How it will apply
Ultimately, you will need to show your policies, processes, safeguarding and justification for managing and collecting data. GDPR will introduce much stronger protection for sensitive personal data, such as medical records, and data which targets children.
What’s unacceptable?
Implied consent, like pre-checked boxes or ‘to continue to use our site, accept our Ts&Cs’, is no longer valid. You must be able to prove actual consent: freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous.
See Scott's slideshow here.
Next up, we had Simon Cooke (Pragmatic) discussing business development and marketing opportunities.
Better data = better customer engagement
Consent is one of the central aspects of GDPR. What consent, or lack of it, means is that your marketing database is likely to become a lot leaner. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as you’ll have better quality data, with customers remaining on the database being far more likely to engage with your business and your brand.
Re-engagement
GDPR is the perfect opportunity to re-engage your customers. Expect to see a lot of re-engagement campaigns in coming weeks, which you are legally allowed to do until the deadline of 25th May.
Revamp your business processes
This is your chance to find any insufficiencies in your business’ data collecting processes, which will help you streamline what you do and possibly save considerable staff-hours in the future.
Attract more clients
If you can demonstrate forethought, understanding and compliance to potential clients, it gives you a competitive advantage.
Transparency
Outwardly communicate your compliance efforts to your customers. Companies who publicly express their data ethics stand a better chance of winning business.
Finally, Morgan McCarthy (CDO Partners) wrapped up the presentations, sharing his thoughts and tips from an analytics and data insights perspective.
Data generates more data
When your click-through rate increases and your bounce rate drops, you can start to measure and learn from it - what is it that’s driving those rates? That derives more data which you can then consolidate, manage and better understand.
More targeted, more efficient, more effective
What are your business’s goals? Whether it’s to increase sales, brand awareness or event registrations, map out your processes to achieve them and look at your data touchpoints. Where are you generating and capturing data? Where could you be capturing and generating data? You can then use this information to build out your capabilities and be more targeted, efficient and effective.
See Morgan's slideshow here.
Although GDPR may seem daunting, the evolution of data protection will have a positive impact on not only businesses but us as individuals. If you would like to explore the subject further, there’s a wealth of insightful blog posts on Pragmatic's website, so be sure to check them out.
Next Breakfast Session:
Championing Diversity in the Workplace
Thursday 22nd February, 9-11am at the FuseBox
Studies have shown the most successful companies progress by having access to the widest pool of talent. Diversity breeds innovation and, by fostering an inclusive workplace, your company will prove more adaptable to an ever-changing business environment.
Join us for a special roundtable discussion where together we’ll explore strategies for building a diverse team, fight unconscious bias and create an inclusive work environment. Come along and join the discussion!