The Benefits of GDPR for Your Event Marketing

Trust me, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) isn’t just important for your business. It’s also going to be great for your marketing and events.

While many marketers are gnashing their teeth at the added and more stringent guidelines (and there are a lot of them), I’ll proffer that: not only should we all have been doing much of this all along, but our marketing will be more impactful and more successful as a result.

The GDPR rules that went into effect May 25 2018 (which, in summary, add significant rules for how you communicate with members of the European Union) tighten consent and control of communication between your company and your prospects and customers. 

But that also means you will increase trust, transparency, and access to customers and prospects who reciprocate.

Yes, this means a bit more work for you in the coming weeks and probably months.

Yes, this means some of your prospects may opt out.

But frankly, only marketers with questionable business practices should be upset about this. Marketers with integrity should rejoice.

If you look at GDPR from a prospect’s perspective, this means:

• Having access and control of their personal information

• Choosing proactively which companies they want to communicate with

As a consumer, doesn’t that sound great?  In an age of Cambridge Analytica and other nefarious abusers of access and trust amongst us, doesn’t GDPR help separate, highlight, and help those of us whose intentions are honest and true?

From that perspective, GDPR isn’t an obligation.  It’s a push in the right direction, a nudge towards something inconvenient that we otherwise might have put off a little longer.

There will be companies that ignore or delay their GDPR implementations.  Some will intentionally eschew them.  But that just makes your company look all the better.  It makes your reputation stronger. 

And it makes your relationship with customers and prospects tighter and more mutually beneficial.

Customers and prospects who want to receive your marketing will respond faster, and engage more often.  What you lose in quantity you will gain (and then some) in quality and conversion.

And as event marketing professionals, you have an opportunity to spearhead and lead this effort through your activity and actions moving forward.

There are numerous GDPR guides out there, but this one (in our expert and unscientific opinion) is the least complicated and easiest to understand.  It includes the basics you need to know about GDPR, links to more resources, as well as a checklist for how to get the compliance ball rolling.