As a business, you need to make sure everything you do is legal, and you’re following all the official rules that relate to you. For those businesses who are operating in the EU or are simply targeting people in the EU, The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance is important to understand and respect. It’s a regulation imposed by the EU with the goal to protect the rights, data, and privacy of the people living on the EU territory who have any interaction with businesses, organizations, and enterprises anywhere in the world.
And, if you’re doing email marketing of any kind, there are GDPR consent emails you should send to people on your subscribers’ lists to ask them for their approval. These GDPR consent emails need to be written carefully and professionally. You want them to explain what GDPR principles you’re following, but also get as many people as possible to sign the consent. Why? Because you won’t be able to deliver successful email marketing campaigns without it.
Luckily, we’ve got your back. Here’s everything you need to know about GDPR and our 7-steps guide on how to write a GDPR consent email.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Explained
Let’s take a quick moment to summarize the main points of the GDPR and understand what it’s really about.
Here’s what you need to know:
- it’s an EU privacy law regulation
- it imposes obligations onto organizations anywhere, if they target or collect data related to people in the EU
- it focuses on data privacy and security
As the regulation defines, “if you process the personal data of EU citizens or residents, or you offer goods or services to such people, then the GDPR applies to you even if you’re not in the EU.”
The regulation is based on the following 7 principles:
- Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency
- Purpose limitation
- Data minimization
- Accuracy
- Storage limitation
- Integrity and confidentiality
- Accountability
Simply put, they want to limit you as much as possible when it comes to using your customers’ data, and hold you responsible for your actions.
How to Write a GDPR Consent Email: 7 Steps
Email marketing can be such a powerful tool for organizations and companies to send their messages, reach out to people, and increase their base of customers and supporters. But, emails sent to people in the EU need to comply with the GDPR rules, otherwise, you could get fined and be in trouble.
These emails need to do two things:
- cover the official, technical aspect of GDPR
- encourage people to sign the consent and allow you to keep sending them emails
This is why writing an effective GDPR consent email is a tricky task that you have to take seriously. Below, you’ll find an 7-step guide on how to do it like a professional, and secure you get the consent you need.
Here’s how to write a GDPR consent email in 7 simple steps.
1. Provide a Quick Introduction
Simply sending a lengthy consent form filled with words such as “compliance”, “obligatory”, or “request”, chances are they won’t even read it and will simply move your email to the trash. You can’t allow this to happen, since you need them to read it and sign the consent.
So, open our email with a quick introduction that everyone can understand:
- great them by their name, use personalization tools for this
- remind them who you are
- briefly explain the purpose of the email you’re sending
Here’s an example:
Hi, Gregory
Your privacy matters the most to us, and we want to discuss it with you. GDPR helps you protect your data, and we’re all-in on respecting what it imposes. That’s why we’re presenting our Privacy Policy to you and kindly ask you to read how it affects you.
This will create a base for you to introduce the GDPR consent in detail and ensure you’ve got their full attention. It also puts an emphasis on them and their rights, which is always a great way to get people to read what you have to say.
2. Explain Your Data Policy
GDPR wants you to notify people on how you use their data. It’s that simple.
That’s why your GDPR consent email needs to focus on giving people the right information and specifying exactly how you handle their data. This section should be written clearly, concisely, and without any hesitation. Just go straight to the point and break down the following:
- how you collect their data
- what personal data do you collect
- how you process it
- where you store it
- how you store it
- how can they customize their data availability
- why do you need this data
- how long will you keep the data
- is there a third party involved
In other words, you need to cover all the aspects of collecting, processing, storing, and using customer data. They have the right to know what happens to their personal information once you collect it and what can you do with it later on.
In addition, you have to inform them about the ways their data helps you:
- boost your marketing efforts
- improve your products offer
- measure their engagement
- analyze their behavior and interaction with your brand
So, don’t skip the part where you explain how this data helps you grow as a business.
3. Emphasize Security
You can never say enough about data security in your GDPR consent email. Writing a separate section of the email that will only cover this aspect of the entire conversation might be a great idea.
So, give a more detailed explanation about:
- how you keep the data safe
- how you guarantee data protection
- why your subscribers can rest assured nothing’s going to happen to their data
Explain your tools, protection systems, and the processes your data goes through to stay maximally protected.
4. Provide a link to GDPR
After you explain how things work, you should always allow your subscribers to find more information, if they’re interested. Share a link to the fully explained GDPR to allow them to do further research and reading.
This will add transparency to your emails and show your subscribers you’ve got nothing to hide.
In addition, it’ll help you keep your emails short and clear, instead of copying the entire content of the GDPR into the email body.
5. Respect the Consent Principles
Once you finish explaining your Privacy Policy, and before you ask for your subscribers’ consent, you should take a moment to check whether you’re truly respecting GDPR principles. They ask you to respect the following:
- Consent must be “freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous.”
- Requests for consent must be “clearly distinguishable from the other matters” and presented in “clear and plain language.”
- Data subjects can withdraw previously given consent whenever they want, and you have to honor their decision. You can’t simply change the legal basis of the processing to one of the other justifications.
Create a checklist to see if you’ve truly respected all aspects of the above-defined GDPR policies and don’t send your email consent until you are sure you have.
6. Include a CTA
Once you’re absolutely sure that your subscribers understand what you’re saying and there’s nothing ambiguous or unclear in your emails, you can finally ask them for their consent.
It would be best for you to create a CTA button that helps them do it in just one click. The CTA needs to be encouraging and provide final reassurance to your subscribers that:
- they’re in control
- they choose whether to agree
- there’s no reason for them to worry since you won’t abuse their consent
Here are some CTA examples that you might find fit for this purpose:
- Yes, I understand and give you my consent.
- Opt me in.
- Count me in.
- Let’s do this.
Depending on your branding and the type of relationship you’re building with your customers, you will choose an appropriate CTA. Place it at the end of your email to make sure your subscribers are making an informed, responsible decision that they won’t regret or question later on.
7. Choose Your Words
Writing a GDPR content email sounds like a formal and technical thing to do, which may come across as a challenge for most organizations and businesses. But you need to choose your words if you want your subscribers to really trust you.
In other words, you should try and speak their language.
Here’s what we suggest:
- simplify your writing
- replace technical vocabulary with an everyday word
- only include the information that carries value and meaning
How you write your emails will affect how your subscribers’ feel about signing the consent. In case you need help writing your GDPR the right way, Gonerdify.com has professional writers who can assist you tone it down. Just make sure you’re writing clearly, and your subscribers feel like they’re talking to a friend and not a lawyer. Moreover there are many ways to remove your personal number from internet.
Final Thoughts
Writing your GDPR consent email is a task that you need to handle professionally. It requires you to abide by the law but still manage to present your Privacy Policy in a simple yet informative way.
While it sounds difficult at first, you’ll soon realize that our 7-steps guide will help you do it easily. Just follow our lead, and you’ll finish writing your GDPR consent email successfully before you know it.
Author’s bio. Jessica Fender is a copywriter and blogger with a background in marketing and sales. She enjoys sharing her experience with like-minded professionals who aim to provide customers with high-quality services.