We are now in the post GDPR world.

The General Data Protection Regulations have been in effect little over a month and it has already had a huge positive impact. The clutter in my inbox is at an all-time low, no more emails from the gym that Alexa heard me talking about with my co-workers whilst I tucked into a steak, chips and gravy from the local sandwich shop and no more PPI calls!

So has the GDPR been the horror show people were expecting?

For us, the answer is no. We at Voodoo SMS made sure we were GDPR compliant as early as possible and have made sure our customers are fully aware of their role and responsibilities as data controllers.  If you did go down the repermission route, those customers who have stayed opted-in made a conscious choice receive info on the product or service you provide. This means that your consumer base is now much more engaged and you can be more vigorous with your traffic. Remember your customers have opted in so they want to hear about your offers and deals.

It also means that your data should now be much more organised and controllable. In short, the data you have should simply be…better and we all know that better data means a better return on investment.

This is the perfect time to send out new information to your customers, their inboxes will not be filled with the old clutter from unsolicited contacts sending you discount codes on a takeaway 500 miles from where you live or the dreaded PPI spam.

People WILL see your messages, 97% of people open a text within 4 minutes of receiving it, so it is absolutely still worth sending messages to your customers who have opted in.

Many people are under the illusion the GPPR means you can’t send ANY traffic to your customers, this isn’t true, you cannot send promotional traffic to people who are not expressly opted-in to receive promotional content however you can still send transactional information which many people still rely on and have now been left without, due to data controllers being ever so slightly overly cautious with the traffic they send.

So don’t worry, you can still send messages to your customers as long as you have their consent for marketing messages. If you are sending transactional messages or service based messages then you are able to send regardless of opt-in status (unless they have expressly requested NOT to receive these messages via text).