First and Foremost, What is GDPR?

The GDPR protects most European citizens from unwanted electronic solicitation. The law attempts to put the onus on the advertiser or company to gather the express consent of the consumer to receive their solicitation.  A couple of highlights of the law taking effect May 25. 2018.

• Penalties Under GDPR organizations in breach of the regulation can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover or €20 Million (whichever is greater).
• Consent Consent must be clear and distinguishable from other matters and provided in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language. It must be as easy to withdraw consent as it is to give it.​
• Right to be Forgotten Also known as Data Erasure, the right to be forgotten entitles the data subject to have the data controller erase his/her personal data, cease further dissemination of the data, and potentially have third parties halt processing of the data.
• Data Portability GDPR introduces data portability – the right for a data subject to receive the personal data concerning them, which they have previously provided in a ‘commonly use and machine readable format‘ and have the right to transmit that data to another controller.

Sales people will need to follow the letter of the law when soliciting European citizens but there are some nuances that make selling and marketing different pursuits.

• Picking up the phone and calling a business doesn’t fall under GDPR – so it is back to smiling and dialing in EMEA. Many customers are taking different measures like calling or event based approaches.
• The law protects consumers, not employees per-se.  This means a consumer’s opted-in consent follows them to their next employer so staying in touch with your old customers is a must.
• The law also doesn’t protect non European citizens employed by European companies.  As an example, if you are an American citizen of Volkswagen living in Tennessee then you are not subject to the law.

If you are unsure who inside of your database are subject to this new law, RampedUp offers an  Account-Based Readiness Report revealing the contacts that need opted in consent.  Please be mindful that consent cannot be sold from a data vendor to customer – so the responsibility of gaining consent is on you.

Sales Tech – The advent of tools like Outreach.io have automated demand generation to the point of absurdity and our buyers are the ones pushing back. Robo Dialers and Automated Emails have put up a wall of resistance that is hard to overcome with traditional techniques.  The result, silence.

GDPR – As of May 25, 2018 – the game is changed.  Companies must obtain the opted-in consent to email buyers in most European countries.  Canada has CASL with many of the same concepts of limiting solicitations.  This is certainly a blow back to the above statement that it is just too easy to blast a batch of emails.

LinkedIn – It was bound to happen, Microsoft has its fingerprints all over LinkedIn.  I receive just as many unsolicited InMails as I do Emails that are trying to be authentic, but I have a trick.  I put my first initial in my name (M.) that is captured in a bulk send as M. Scott for my first name.

Artificial Intelligence – AI presents itself in sales in the form of automated web chat, emails, or voice mails.  One of our clients has created an AI for sales management – so it isn’t just the front lines.  If your job can be done by a robot – then you need to focus on the piece that cannot as this functionality grows.

Outsourcing – When I receive calls from what I think is San Francisco, Boston, or New York I get a excited (415 / 617 / 212 area codes) However, when I hear a delay and someone from a what sounds like an obvious call center asks if M. Scott is available I realize I have been duped. My guard is obviously up for the next call.

Too Much Information – Sales people provide demonstration, pricing, use cases, and competitive differentiation as a value-add in the sales process. Today – almost all of this can be found online.  Just search YouTube for a product demo, the website for customer and pricing data, and G2 Crowd for competitive details.

1. Have you checked your sender score?  Lower scores can lead to higher bounce rates.  https://www.senderscore.org/  
2. Are you using your regular email server through Google or Microsoft for bulk solicitation? Those companies will put your email sends in BULK sender IP’s and many email servers recognize and bounce those records.
3. Are you using a BULK IP or Share an IP with other companies? You are only as strong as your weakest neighbor if that’s the case here is a way to check https://sendgrid.com/blog/5-ways-check-sending-reputation/ 
4. Are you sending multiple unsolicited emails to the same company? This practice can bounce email addresses with higher email security. Some email servers will reject overt solicitations and bounce the records as well.
5. Do you have honeypots or SPAM traps in your service? That will black list you and bounce your email sends. We can run a check for you – let us know.
6. Does your Email Service Provider allow for unsolicited emails? Companies such as MailChimp, Hubspot, and Constant Contact will not even allow for this type of activity. These guys built a business around it however https://www.clickback.com/  
7. Does your content vary or is too SPAMMY? Email servers are looking for commonality in bulk sends. They are also looking for SPAMMY language – check the list here: https://prospect.io/blog/455-email-spam-trigger-words-avoid-2018/
8. Are you sending to new recipients every time or blending the send with opted-in recipients? If the entire send is to new recipients then the overall bounce / opt out rate may be too high for your email service provider. That could put you in a pool of bulk emailers that are flagged as SPAM and bounced by the recipients’ email servers.
9. Are you sending to too many High Risk email servers?: Not all email servers are created equally – some are accepts all and some are binary.  The accepts all are higher risk for the sender and cannot be validated in the same way.  Too many unsolicited hits to these types of servers will lower your sender score.
10. Are you sending to too many High Risk recipients?  Unsolicited emails sent to individuals in protected countries or government entities can results in a higher risk of being reported as SPAM and having your sender score lowered.

RAMPEDUP WILL HONOR ALL DATA.COM CREDITS 

Salesforce.com’s Data.com is going away and RampedUp.io is here to help.  May 3rd, 2018 is the last day to purchase contact data from  data.com.  Companies looking to purchase, clean, or append their Salesforce.com instance can use RampedUp’s Salesforce.com plug in.  Below is the full release from Salesforce.com.

To take advantage of RampedUp’s offer to honor all Data.com credits – please email contact@rampedup.io for more details.