This legislation has been underway in Europe for the past few years and was approved this year to come into force globally from April 2017 – with just a few short months away, it’s time you get your house in order, or risk being fined substantial fees!

In essence, what the changes mean is that ALL DATA you own, as an organisation will be affected.

• All use of EU customer data must be unambiguously and freely opted-in for.
• The existing data you hold must be ‘repermissioned’ and specifically requested again
• Brands have two years to become GDPR compliant – that gives brands until May 2018 to clean up their data sets and make sure that contacts, email ones in particular, have given their free, unambiguous, and informed consent to be contacted.
• Organisations not complying with the new legislation will risk fines of up to 4% of global annual turnover.

In June, we were asked by leading Marketing publication CMO to explain the new legislation, as an expert marketing agency and provide plain English on what this would mean for marketeers activities over the coming months and years, you can read the article in full here.

We made a very clear statement in this article that the friction between sales and marketing is going to get worse in the short term, but will likely mean improved performance for things such as email marketing campaigns over the long term period.

In the coming months, Brighter Directions will be creating a number of opinion and action pieces of information, as a result of this legislation. If you would like to learn more about how to protect your business, and the actions you must take, please contact our team on info@brighterdirections.co.uk and we will add you to our list to receive copies of all associated content on this topic.

To learn more about our expert marketing services, visit our new website at www.brighterdirections.co.uk 

The post New Repermissioning Law Comes Into Force April 2017 – Email Marketing & Data appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Email Marketing campaigns at Christmas

It might feel waaaay too early to be talking about the ‘C’ word, but as marketers, we should already be on our game for Christmas 2015. Statistics show that around 25% of consumers will have already done the bulk of their shopping by November, so if you want to jump on that festive gravy train with both feet, you need to start right now.

Email marketing is still the most effective method of reaching consumers with product offers and sales content. With more opportunities than ever before for segmenting and personalising the content, Christmas 2015 is going to see email marketing at its best. Here are some hot tips from the world of email marketing to help you get your seasonal messaging just right.

1. Throw out the cliché’s

Prancing reindeer, snowy scenes and smiling snowmen – they certainly have their place. But is that place really in your email marketing content, or would they be more at home on a greetings card? It’s fun to get festive at Christmas, but chances are these decades old messages are getting so tired, not to mention similar to what your competitors are doing, that they reality won’t have much impact at all.

2. What works the rest of the time STILL works at Christmas

It’s true! What you’ve been doing all year round shouldn’t be thrown out of the window just because it’s Christmas. All the things you’ve been learning about your customers and your emails throughout the rest of the year will serve to better inform your Christmas marketing, so don’t be tempted to ditch them in favour of a cheesy picture of Santa and a bad Christmas joke.

3. Subject lines > graphics

Your subject lines are the biggest opportunity you have to boost your email open rates, but then you probably knew that already (if you’ve been listening!). Christmas is no different, so rather than spending hours photo shopping a snowman into your product images, spend more time crafting compelling subject lines.

4. Dare to be different

The old red white and gold, the presents under the tree, snow-capped lettering… all very familiar images that spring to mind when thinking about Christmas marketing. But surely, if they are so very samey, your email is going to look just the same as everyone else’s, including your competitors? Dare to differentiate yourself, just a little, and make something that really sticks in people’s minds. Think about what Christmas really means to your subscribers, and create your own unique take on the festive familiarities.

5. Up the tempo

Subscribers want and expect to hear from you a bit more in the run up to Christmas. Don’t be afraid to send out a few more emails than you usually do, after all, your customers are looking for new and unusual buying ideas at this time of year. Don’t ramp up frequency too much or too suddenly, but do give your customers a bit more of what they love.

It may well be a merry Christmas, but this time of year is no holiday for marketers. Get your plan in place now and enjoy all the successes a well-crafted Christmas email campaign can bring!

The post Hot tips for Email Marketing in the run up to Christmas 2015 appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Email Marketing tactics by Brighter Directions

We all know – a subject line can make or break an email campaign.

Nothing is worse than spending hours poring over the perfect copy, only to get little to no response from your prospects. Here are five things you can do today to ensure your email has the best chance of being open and read.

1. Be direct: Whether you’re sending a transactional notification or an update such as a newsletter, getting to the point is key. Email subject lines over 40 characters, or more than five to eight words, will get cut short, which doesn’t look good.
2. Take out the spam words: Avoid things like ‘free’, ‘buy now’ and putting parts of the subject line in SHOUTY CAPITALS. These are a red flag to spam filters, and look really unprofessional too.
3. Be unique: If you’re looking for click worthy subject lines, check out the tactics used by companies like BuzzFeed and Upworthy. While you might not want to resort to shamelessly clickbaiting your emails, there are definitely lessons to be learned from these masters of compelling titles.
4. Get personal: Personalising emails is nothing new, but getting super personal is something we can really get excited about. Powerful software can tailor titles and emails to suit individual customer preferences, so make the most of technology to reach out to your clients.
5. Make it urgent: A good marketing strategy will have time limited offers that you follow up with reminders. Don’t be afraid to set a daringly short deadline; now or never actually works really well on emails.

There’s nothing more powerful than the perfect subject line when it comes to email marketing. Unfortunately we see all too many email marketers leaving this to last when they’re crafting their campaigns. Put as much time and energy into your subject line copy as you do into every other piece of copywriting you do, and you’ll be rewarded with more opens, more click throughs and ultimately a more engaged, ready to buy audience.

The post Get more email opens with these five tips for killer subject lines appeared first on Brighter Directions.