Welcome to our five-part series focusing on how to improve your channel marketing efforts. This series offers practical tips that you can implement right now, courtesy of our vendors and partners. This is part one: GDPR: are you sure you’re doing it right?
41% of marketers admit they don’t fully understand the regulations and best practices surrounding the use of personal data. Do you? This article should help you understand GDPR, how it works, and how to use it to your advantage.
Since its introduction in 2018, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) has changed the way channel marketers should manage and process the data of their partners, leads, and (potential) end-users.
The consequence for channel marketers is that you can only gather data that are required for an intended business purpose. Within the channel, we have the added complexity of wanting to exchange data with our partners.
How to share end-user data responsibly
Who is responsible for data in these situations, and how do you share these details securely? Typically, vendors generate leads through their own website, they then nurture those leads and eventually hand them over to the resellers. But if you do this without getting prior consent from the end-users, you are not GDPR-compliant.
As a company that helps vendors generate leads for their partners through our platform on a daily basis, we understand that it is essential to have a proper GDPR process. If you want joint access (both vendor and partner) to your end-users’ personal data, it’s better to convert leads at a partner level.
Informing your end-users about their data
It’s important to inform end-users explicitly that they’re agreeing to their data being processed by both the vendor and the partner at the same time. You can tackle this by automatically generating a combined GDPR statement for both you and your partners. In it, you explicitly state that the end-user is interacting with you and the partner at the same time.
Showing the logos of both parties is also a great idea. This way end-users know they are interacting with two companies at the same time. The privacy policy should explain exactly how you and the reseller will handle their data, and how it covers all necessary requirements.
To recap, if you are planning to collect personal data of your end-users, keep in mind that you need to:
• Disclose the purpose for collecting and processing personal data
• Describe how the personal data is being collected
• Make the description available in your privacy policy
• Make end-users aware they are dealing with two different companies
Part 2: 3 reasons your partner portal is being neglected
Part 3: 3 takeaways to create content your partners will love
Part 4: 3 reasons alliance campaigns deserve your attention
Part 5: 3 ways to mobilize partners for your channel marketing campaign
