We’ve all been hearing a lot about GDPR, so we thought we’d share the answers to the 3 most common questions that we get asked, post GDPR:

1 – Can I still send marketing letters by post to consumers and businesses?

2 – Can I still make telemarketing calls to consumers and businesses?

3 – Can I still send marketing emails to companies?

So that’s a resounding YES to all 3 questions! Marketing is a significant and important economic activity. Organisations are entitled to market their goods and services, and they have a legitimate interest in seeking to address marketing to the most relevant audiences.

I’ve also heard about PECR, what is this?

Please visit our dedicated GDPR & Marketing Data section for further information or speak to a member of the team on 01304 383838.

Find out how inviting potential customers to a seminar on a specific aspect of financial planning can help Independent Financial Advisers reach and convert new clients.

Seminars, conferences and information events are proving to be a highly effective way of generating new business for Independent Financial Advisers (IFA’s) in the UK.

Financial advice and planning seminars usually focus on one key issue, or a group of issues relevant to specific demographic such as those approaching retirement, wealthy investors, small business owners etc.

Often held at an easily accessible hotel, the events may comprise just one keynote speaker or a series of sessions from different advisers from the same partnership or IFA’s who have come together to help build new business. Attendance is usually free, although in some cases a modest attendance fee can help attract more serious and focused attendees. The most common form of promotion is through direct marketing to quality mailing lists.

If you are an IFA, there are many benefits to be derived from speaking at a seminar. You can meet potential clients face to face and allow them to see you in action, which immediately builds confidence and trust that would be hard to gain through any other method. If you are willing to stand in front of an audience and talk with authority on a subject your audience will automatically grant you the kudos of being an expert.

Many attendees, especially older people, may be reluctant to have an IFA visit them in their own home, but are much more comfortable about visiting an event or seminar.

Plus, the fact that the attendee is willing to give up their time to come and listen means they are far more likely to convert into a lead or client.

What topics can be covered in a financial seminar?

The themes of seminars broadly fall into two main areas; events aimed at affluent and often older consumers, and those aimed at small business owners.

Seminars aimed at consumers and wealthy individuals can be used successfully to promote a range of financial products including:

• Retirement planning, especially for those approaching retirement age and looking to maximise on the opportunities available.
• Investments including identifying and assessing new opportunities, learning the secrets of successful investors, and also finding out which investments to avoid.
• Tax reduction and discovering the latest ideas for legitimately reducing you potential tax liability.
• Inheritance Tax (IHT) information, including how to limit tax liabilities, plan for the future and protect estates for family members.

Seminars aimed at small business owners can be used to address other important financial planning issues:

• Business Protection including partnership insurance, keyman insurance and shareholder protection.
• Employee pension plans for companies with five or more employees.
• Tax Advice to help stay on top of ever changing legislation and obligations.
• Incentive Schemes to help retain and motivate staff in a tax efficient way.

How to attract delegates to financial seminars

There are numerous way to promote your financial seminar. However care needs to be taken over the targeting of potential attendees, especially if the event is free.

For example you will want to make sure the people invited are the right target market for the topic you are planning to discuss, so that the event is more relevant for them, and also more successful for you in generating enquires. You also need to target potential attendees geographically.

Because of the need for targeting, direct marketing is a particularly powerful companion to seminars. Direct marketing techniques such as direct mail or telemarketing are all highly targeted to specific individuals, about whom much information can be gathered in advance.

Prospective delegates can then be mailed with an introductory letter and invitation to your seminar, and can also be followed up by telephone if appropriate. Provide a response mechanism on your mailer so that it is easy for people to sign up.

Selectabase provide high quality GDPR compliant direct marketing lists of potential attendees, together with a print and post service. As a reliable and reputable supplier we can ensure the list is appropriately targeted.

The Prospect Download Consumer database from Selectabase can be used to identify a target list of mature and affluent UK consumers, and further selected based on many different criteria such as their life stage and financial situation. Prospect Download Consumer is used frequently by IFA’s to identify potential clients in their geographic area.

IFA’s have also used another Selectabase list very successfully to target small business owners who may be interested in attending business financial planning events. Prospect Download Business database can be used to identify businesses by size, geography, industry tye and many more, The New B2B list from Selectabase provides details of new business start ups and also businesses which have relocated or are under new management, all in a strictly defined geographic area.

In addition to selecting and providing the addresses of your target audience, Selectabase using Create & Post will print and fulfil your physical mailing for you. There is no minimum order quantity with Create & Post and for standard mailings the complete inclusive cost for delivering each letter is less than the price of a stamp!

Using this combination of direct marketing with financial seminars can prove very successful, even with the cost of hiring a venue and other marketing costs.

For example, a Financial Services adviser in Devon used Prospect Download data to invite consumers to an Inheritance Tax seminar. They reported that “from a list of approximately 2,700 names we had 120 high net worth attendees – this represented a response rate of more than 4.4%, at least double what we had hoped to get”.

An adviser based in London representing a nationally known financial services provider had a good response to a seminar, and an even better follow up , reporting that “there were 85 attendees, and in the first week I have had 5 meetings – I am confident that over time I will gain some excellent clients from this list.”

Other IFA’s have confirmed the positive return on investment which can be achieved from seminars promoted by direct marketing, with one Selectabase client claiming their mailings and events have “provided a return of 20 times capital expenditure!”.

For further information call us on 01304 383838 or visit www.selectabase.co.uk

Before you launch any kind of telemarketing work, you need to be sure that the numbers you are calling are safe to contact.

Call a telephone number registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) for consumers, or Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) for companies, and you could be facing legal action and even a fine.

See this BBC article published today – Nuisance call bosses could be fined up to £500,000 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44294566

It’s easy to see that this is something that you really want to avoid doing – so we offer a service that ensures this won’t happen to you.

Selectabase are an official licensee of the TPS and CTPS and hold a full copy of both registers. These are downloaded and updated every day from the TPS Online website, therefore we can help you stay compliant with simple to use and instant TPS checking services. If your database of contact details features any numbers that you are not legally permitted to call, our checking service will flag them up.

Try the service for free. Call 01304 383838 or visit https://www.selectabase.co.uk/services/tps-check/

With GDPR just around the corner we thought it would be useful to answer the questions the ICO suggest you should be asking your marketing data list supplier.

These can be found via the ICO’s direct marketing guidance – viewed 10th May 2018 – skip to page 51 ‘Buying a marketing list’.

The ICO advises “Organisations buying or renting a marketing list from a list broker or other third party must make rigorous checks to satisfy themselves that the third party obtained the personal data fairly and lawfully, that the individuals understood their details would be passed on for marketing purposes, and that they have the necessary consent.”

Reasonable due diligence might include checking the following:

Questions in bold, Selectabase answers underneath

1. Who compiled the list?
   Our data portal Prospect Download hosts both Experian’s marketable B2C ConsumerView Database, and B2B National Business Database. Experian’s data partners obtain personal and commercial data compliantly and where appropriate notice has been given for them to pass the information to Experian for use in their products and services.
   To learn more about Experian consumer data, click here.
   To learn more about Experian business data, click here.

   When?
   All lists are completely refreshed and rebuilt every month.

   Has it been amended or updated since then?
   Invalid data is removed and new data added every month.

2. When was consent obtained?
   We do not use consent as the legal basis for processing. Our data lists are sold for direct marketing purposes using legitimate interests as the legal basis for processing.
   Please visit our GDPR & Marketing Data page  for more information.
3. Who obtained it and in what context?
   Experian’s data partners obtain personal and commercial data compliantly and where appropriate notice has been given for them to pass the information to Experian for use in their products and services.
   Please visit our GDPR & Marketing Data page  for more information.
4. What method was used – eg was it opt-in or opt-out?
   Data subjects will have been provided with the opportunity to opt-out from third parties processing the data for use in connection with their direct marketing services at the point when the data was collected.
5. Was the information provided clear and intelligible?
   Yes, data subjects will have been informed about the purposes for which their data would be used, by whom (by category of business or by name) and given the chance to opt-out at the time.
6. Did it specifically mention texts, emails or automated calls?
   No, as the legal basis for processing is legitimate interests, not consent, so there is no requirement to provide granularity of choice. Business to consumer data (i.e. to individuals) is limited to postal data only and screened against the Mailing Preference Service (MPS). Business to business data for sole traders and true partnerships includes postal and telephone data, and B2B data for corporate entities includes email postal, and telephone data, screened against the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS). Email marketing to corporate entities does not require consent.
   Please visit our GDPR & Marketing Data page  for more information.
7. Did it list organisations by name, by description, or was the consent for disclosure to any third party?
   Selectabase only provides data that can be processed for direct marketing purposes using legitimate interests as the legal basis. It also means that there is no legal requirement for Selectabase to be specifically named, although Selectabase will have been identified by category of business.
   Please visit our GDPR & Marketing Data page  for more information.
8. Has the list been screened against the TPS or other relevant preference services?
   Yes, against the individual and corporate Telephone Preference Service (TPS and CTPS). Postal consumer data is screened against MPS.
   If so, when?
   Every day all lists with telephone numbers are screened.
9. Has the individual expressed any other preferences – eg regarding marketing calls or mail?
   No, as we do not use consent as the legal basis for processing. Our data lists are sold for direct marketing purposes using legitimate interests as the legal basis for processing.
   Please visit our GDPR & Marketing Data page  for more information.
10. Has the seller received any complaints?
    Quite the opposite, and to demonstrate this you can see our Why Choose Us page www.selectabase.co.uk/why-choose-us/ to view a sample of testimonials from thousands of clients that have used our direct marketing data lists and services over the years. Naturally like all direct marketing lists we do from time to time receive a very low number of unsubscribe requests from the data lists we provide. These are actioned promptly and efficiently and where individuals have requested the source of their details this is always communicated transparently. We can assure you that Selectabase will only supply marketing data lists that are compliant under the EU’s GDPR processing rules.
11. Is the seller a member of a professional body or accredited in some way?
    Yes, Selectabase is a member of The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and were one of the first organisations to be recognised as being fully compliant with The DMA’s Data Compliance Audit process. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office ((ICO) as a data controller, and all our data is sourced and processed appropriately within ICO guidelines.

Even if an organisation does not need specific consent for its marketing (eg for calls screened against the TPS list, or for mail marketing), it should still not go beyond what the individuals would reasonably expect. It should only market products or services which are reasonably similar to those which have been promoted to those customers in the past, or which they have a clear reason to expect. Bought-in call lists must always be screened against the TPS. And they should also be screened against the organisation’s own in-house suppression (do not call) list, to ensure it doesn’t contact anyone who has already said they want to opt out of its marketing.

Selectabase support this by carrying out due diligence on every data list order before release. Plus all of our direct marketing lists are screened against the appropriate preference services. In addition, on 29th January 2018 Selectabase released our new, free Windows PC App EasyCheck, which enables users to screen consumer and business, telephone number and postal data against the individual and corporate Telephone Preference Service (TPS and CTPS), and the Mailing Preference Service (MPS) – and all from the desktop!

Please note that these answers provide a general overview response. Answers may vary on a case by case basis depending on your campaign, marketing channel (postal, telephone, or email), B2B or B2C audience, and the product or service being promoted.

If you have any questions regarding this blog or would like to find out more about the services we offer, to help you with compliant direct marketing, call our friendly team on 01304 383838.

Credit to Legal Futures https://bit.ly/2HbysTD

With less than 50 working days until GDPR takes effect on 25 May 2018, many businesses are starting to consider the hot topic of whether their marketing lists will still be valid.

As we all know, under GDPR, organisations can only process personal data if they have a lawful basis for doing so (article 5, clause 1). The test for ‘lawfulness of processing’ includes that the data subject has given consent for the processing, but this does not automatically mean that you need consent to carry out direct marketing (or any other type of processing).

Even the ICO acknowledges that obtaining valid consent under GDPR (article 7) will be challenging and they urge businesses to consider whether consent is the correct lawful basis for the processing of any data.

Legitimate interests

Recital 47 of the GDPR states: “The processing of personal data for direct marketing purposes may be regarded as carried out for a legitimate interest.”

Postal marketing: As long as the organisation identifies itself, offers an opt-out and screens addresses against the Mail Preference Service, then it’s OK to send first-party marketing (about your own products and services) as long as the individual has not previously opted out.

Email/SMS marketing: You must follow the rules in PECR, which require an opt-in unless you have obtained the contact details of the individual during the course of a sale (or negotiations of the sale) of a product or service.

The marketing must be of a similar product or service and the individual must have been given the opportunity to opt-out.

When can we email or text companies?

You can email or text any corporate body (a company, Scottish partnership, limited liability partnership or government body). However, it is good practice – and good business sense – to keep a ‘do not email or text’ list of any businesses that object or opt out, and screen any new marketing lists against that.

Telephone marketing: For live marketing calls, the rules say you can contact anyone as long as they have not previously opted out and are not registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS for individuials) and the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS for companies). You must not make automated calls to anyone unless they have specifically opted in to receive this type of call from you.

Selectabase and GDPR

We can assure you that Selectabase will only sell data that is compliant under the EU’s GDPR processing rules. You can trust us to only provide you with the highest quality marketing data, in accordance with the latest GDPR guidance.

Marketing is a significant and important economic activity. Organisations are entitled to market their goods and services, and they have a legitimate interest in seeking to address marketing to the most relevant audiences.

Speak to one of our data experts today on 01304 383838 and see how you can benefit from using Selectabase’s GDPR ready data.