In the past month, you may have received many Emails from tech companies about new permissions and privacy policies that companies are going to follow required by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A report from CNBC claims that many Americans are not opening emails regarding GDPR. A digital marketing firm said that nearly two in five Americans have ignored the emails. While MailChimp is estimating that more than 20% of the marketing emails are opened by the customers.
Companies are still able to send marketing emails to customers who have purchased their product in the past but can’t email non-customers without their explicit permission. That brings up the issue of customers ignoring emails from companies who are currently asking for permission to contact them. If customers don’t accept the GDPR they won’t receive any further emails and the company will not contact them again unless of course the company wants to risk the 4% of their Annual Revenue.
“People are not opting back in,” says Michael Horn, the director of data science for digital marketing agency Huge. “It’s one thing for your customers who don’t have a relationship with the brand to decline and not respond, but you’re also losing a sales channel.”
“An email that says ‘privacy policy updates’ is never going to get opened,” says PostUp vice president of marketing and product Keith Sibson. “You never read the terms and conditions when you sign up for some website. It depends a lot on how it’s being presented to users and how important the sender is making it sound.”CNBC also mentioned that an email marketing firm said that they have lost more than 80% of their customer base because of users not opening their emails and opting in for marketing emails. GDPR only affects customers in the EU and it is not yet implemented in other countries which is making it difficult for companies to maintain two sets of customers.
Should GDPR be easier to implement?, let us know your thoughts