Using mail to reach new customers under GDPR

Marketing mail, like direct mail and door drops, drives engagement. It’s particularly good for reaching new customers under GDPR as door drops and unaddressed direct mail target postcodes rather than individuals.
 

GDPR brings changes to rules around consent

With the proper practices in place your marketing shouldn’t be too badly affected by the new rules around data usage. Firstly, it’s important to make the distinction between first-party marketing (to your existing customers) and third-party marketing (to new prospects).
 

Marketing to your existing customers under GDPR

Marketing to your existing customers under GDPR is defined as being in the ‘legitimate interest’ of your company and its customers. This means that in most cases and for most channels, you’ll just need to provide your customers with a clear opportunity to object when their data is used or collected. A simple and well-worded ‘opt-out’ across all your communications should suffice.
 

Marketing to prospects using bought in data'

When it comes to third party marketing, you must have clear, affirmative consent in place before you communicate with prospects. This can be difficult and ambiguous when dealing with bought-in name and address data, so you’ll have to choose a third party data provider you can trust to be GDPR compliant.
 

Mail may be the saviour around the GDPR headache for targeting new customers

Marketing mail, like direct mail and door drops, is a great way to cut straight through to prospective customers – because unaddressed direct mail target postcodes rather than individuals. What’s more, it is proven to drive online interaction, where sign-ups can be managed within a GDPR compliant format. In fact, as a result of receiving direct mail, 92% of people were driven to online activity, 87% were influenced to make online purchases and 54% engaged on social media*.

*Royal Mail MarketReach, Mail and Email Research Report, May 2014 pg.29