How can you connect with your customer post GDPR

Following GDPR many businesses are reviewing their marketing strategies and plans. We’ve all been bombarded with pre and post-GDPR compliance messaging, and information about the new marketing trend we should focus on to grow our businesses. Is it direct mail, PPC, creating a virtual reality experience or incorporate artificial intelligence into an app.

The real question is “what should you focus on to connect your brand with your customers?”
The answer is, of course, “your customer”.

Keep it personal

Data is still the Achilles heel for so many businesses, both large and small. Some of the global businesses we work with may have the most sophisticated CRM systems in place but these rely on people, and time, to input, update and cleanse – and that’s where it all falls down. If you have one marketing resolution post GDPR, get your data up to scratch and add more intelligence to the entries. If you are a small business you now have the opportunity to buy into single user cloud systems, such as SalesForce or Zoho. It will take time, it will be boring but it will also begin to make your marketing effective and allow you to properly concentrate on designing creative, compelling communications which will give you measurable returns.

Clean up your act

If you hadn’t already, post GDPR you will have a centralised and secure place to keep all of the information on your customers. Businesses great and small have had customer info all over the place; on their finance and invoicing software, sales people’s email accounts, spreadsheets and unfortunately, in people’s heads. The positive aspect of GDPR should mean that it is all pulled together now and the focus can now be on making regularly data updating cultural.

Centralising everything gives your business the opportunity to check all of the details you have and work out the ones you need. Once the basic contact information is intact you can start to build a much better picture of your customer.

What have they purchased from you? When? How often?

What type of business are they or what type of consumer?

What contact have you had with them? What was successful?

What are they interested in?

Always making sure you’ve checked they have they agreed to receive information from you?

This will help you build a hugely insightful bank of information which will allow you to send each individual a relevant, and therefore more compelling communication. Of course a pertinent email or direct mail is far more likely to engage and even convert directly to an additional sale or referral.

Dig deep for data

Collating all of this data isn’t quite as daunting as it seems (depending on the size of your customer base). Focus on the key information you would like to have, to enable you to send the best communications to each person. For most B2B organisations you could look at the four fields which will ensure your customer only ever receives relevant information.

  1. What sector is their business?
  2. What products/services are relevant?
  3. What products / services have they purchased?
  4. What products or services are they interested in?

These four simple fields could completely change the face of your marketing. You can probably answer the first three questions, or someone in your business can. How do you find out what services or products they may be interested in? Ask them. But don’t ask them in a generic, one size fits all email – remember you are trying to build a conversation with a real person. Ask them in an email or letter which acknowledges that you appreciate the specific sector they are in, the services or products that are relevant and that they have previously purchased, and only then ask them what else they may be interested in.

The detail shows you care.

That will help you connect with your customer.

Reference:
If you need the very latest regulations on The Data Protection Act and GDPR to ensure you comply, refer to the ICO.