Everything has changed... nothing has changed...

When you were first schooled in digital marketing, GDPR was not even a twinkle in the eye of the ICO regulator. Therefore much of your mindset is possibly entrenched in an outdated mode of marketing thinking. Which is why, to some extent, we've seen a proliferation of GDPR 'Guru's' come to save us from the big bad ICO.

But in a way, the fundamentals of marketing consent and consumer privacy have not shifted that much at all, especially for those ethical marketers. It's just that now we have strict rules which means marketers that sail too close to the wind in terms of what they think they can get away now risk their company being liquidated under the weight of a 4% turnover fine by the ICO. If you were ever in doubt about how to market to consumers fairly, you can't go too far wrong by applying the 'Granny Test'.

Over the past few months, we've experienced a seismic shift of 'Trumpian' proportions in the marketing space with one-off events such as:

• Repermission emails landing in inboxes of bewildered consumers everywhere

• Massive consumer database deletions

• 3rd party marketing databases all but shrivelled up

However, now the digital dust has settled on a cleaner marketing landscape, it's time to look long-term on how to integrate, or even better embrace the underlying principles of GDPR.

Here is a handy checklist to structure your new GDPR friendly marketing thinking - it's out with the old and in with the new:


Maybe you can come up with some more changes to add to the list. Or perhaps you disagree?

Let me know in the comments below...