The Impact of GDPR and Other Privacy Regulations on B2B Marketing Practices

Author: Bryan Scott(Amarjit)

What is GDPR? 

GDPR which stands for General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation that came into effect on May 25, 2018.

The GDPR states that businesses that collect and use public data for various business reasons should adhere to the laws of GDPR. The law was designed to protect the public data of European Union (EU) member states.

What is GDPR in B2B Marketing Space?

As the GDPR law talks about protecting the personal data of customers used by businesses, GDPR will have a major impact on B2B sales activities in terms of how businesses will handle and process the customer data they collected for sales and outreach activities.

To be GDPR compliant, companies must keep their audience informed about collecting the data and a valid reason for why they are collecting any kind of data.

B2B Marketing and sales processes predominantly rely on consumer data. Email marketing campaigns, sending cold emails, or any sales strategy that collects phone numbers, B2B email databases, names, and job titles qualify as personal data.

As per the GDPR, the above personal data should be used with the consent of the respective person from whom the data is collected, also the customer should be informed about how, and why the data is collected and how it will be used throughout the sales process.

Additional Read: Tick off these 6 Points before 25th May for Complete GDPR Compliance

How does GDPR impact B2B marketing practices? 

1. Seeking Data Permission from Customers

B2B businesses should seek permission from customers (data subjects) before using data in any format. Data Permission is one of the key factors of GDPR Compliance for B2B sales.

B2B sales process should use the data that have explicit consent from the data subject or adhere to the lawful basis of the GDPR. The process of “data permission” is usually fulfilled by providing “tick boxes” or “I agree” check boxes that clearly take permission from the data subject before processing the data.

2. Individuals’ Right to Access their Data 

B2B organizations should provide the individual right to access their data to remain GDPR compliant in their sales and marketing process.

This means, when an organization collects data from the data subject or through vendors or any other data resources, the data subject (customer) must be able to access the data anytime to withdraw or continue their interest.

The customer should be given the complete flexibility to withdraw their consent. This can be done in the form of “Unsubscribe” buttons, “Untick option from the checklist”, no-reply emails with information containing withdrawal options, etc.

Organizations should provide easy opt-in and opt-out flexibility to the subject. It means a subject can withdraw their consent to the processing of data anytime (Opt-out) or one can accept to process the data (Opt-in).

3. Collecting unnecessary data is non-compliant with GDPR  

Data focus is another primary aspect of the GDPR. B2B sales and marketing teams cannot collect unnecessary data and cannot be used for different purposes if the customer is not informed about it.

Data focus refers to using and processing the data for a specific purpose which was mentioned during data collection initially. GDPR obliges organizations to have a lawful basis before processing personal data, and the process should be clearly defined and communicated to the data subjects (customers).

Using or processing personal data out of focus-purpose leads to penalties from GDPR.

Some of the key principles of GDPR that provide privacy rights to the data subjects are:

• The right to be informed
• The right to access
• The right to erasure
• The right to restrict processing
• The right to data portability
• The right to object
• The right to know about automated decision-making and profiling

Additional Read: Personalization and Data Privacy: Finding the Balance

Some of the important tips to remain GDPR compliant in various B2B sales and marketing processes

1. Email marketers will have to use the email database carefully. Earlier the marketers used to buy or scrape the data of the subjects, emails were sent without consent and later the customers were provided with the option to opt-out. Now, under the GDPR, organizations must initially communicate that the data collected will be used for further processing and campaigns and provide them the choice to opt in voluntarily.

2. Clean your email list frequently and remove the opt-out data. If the messages, notifications, and emails are been sent to the customers who had already chosen to remain opt-out, it results in huge penalties s from GDPR.
3. Use automated emails to confirm the opt-in of subscribers and have a legitimate record of it. Also, timely review the email databases before launching any new campaign.
4. Push notifications are the safest way to send messages to your customers as they do not use personal data (IP addresses)
5. Let your privacy policies be clear and transparent. Do not hide or overlap the information that creates confusion among customers.
6. If you are buying B2B email databases from vendors, have a record that vendors are selling GDPR-compliant databases and are following all the rules before collecting the data.
7. Organizations must adhere to Legitimate Business Interest (Providing a clear reason to the data subjects about how, when and why their data will be processed in the future, this has to be done before collecting the data)
8. Stick to the purpose provided to data subjects while collecting the data from the. For instance, if you as an organization have collected data to send sales emails about new offers, adhere to sending the same intent emails.
9. Make users share their details voluntarily through the website forms, newsletter subscriptions, etc.
10. Take advice from GDPR compliance partners or purchase B2B email databases from vendors with clear GDPR-compliant approaches.

Conclusion

GDPR has many rules and regulations that B2B sales and marketing professionals should be updated about to avoid penalties. Sometimes, keeping your data, campaigns, and marketing approaches GDPR Compliant can get overwhelming. One of the effective ways is to rely on B2B Email List Vendors or GDPR experts to seamlessly carry out the marketing and sales outreach programs.