As a marketing professional, this week has been quite unlike any other. The implementation date for GDPR has really focussed minds and although some say, “it’s not a deadline”, the reality is that it has been treated that way by many. As has been the case for many of you, here at LANSA, there’s been a lot of work done to ensure we don’t just comply with the letter, but also the spirit of the regulations.
There’s been a lot of media coverage about GDPR over the past few weeks. Whilst I understand the need to help consumers realise what’s happening with the avalanche of emails in their inbox, business people too have been listening and the advice that’s been offered, has at times been less than helpful. The regulations don’t distinguish much between business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) and that’s going to cause real issues.
It’ll be really interesting to see the impact of all of this over the coming weeks. Will the amount of email we receive overall decline? Will some organisations carry on regardless citing ‘legitimate interest’ when there is none? Will the number of complaints to the regulator rise sharply? How are we as business people going to adapt, now that much of our audience is out of reach by means we’ve relied on for so long? And most of all, when will the first test cases hit the courts and what will we learn from them?
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the amount of engagement GDPR has generated, especially given the amount of noise coming from every company asking for much the same thing. It’s ironic that a regulation designed in part to reduce the amount of spam we receive has generated so much of its own. Hopefully we will see this lead to personal data being given the care it deserves and being used the right way.
If you’ve been one of the people who has received communications from us on the matter, thank you for taking the trouble to respond. We’ll do our best to make it worth your while to continue to opt-in. It’s important to us to maintain and grow the relationships we have, and we’ll endeavour to provide content and materials that we hope you’ll benefit from and want to receive in future.
If you’ve been working on little else over the past few weeks, I hope you enjoy the breather this long weekend provides. The journey has only just begun.
