The General Data Protection Regulation has been in place for just over six months. Most businesses have had time to come to terms with the new legislation and make all of the changes required for GDPR compliance. Even though these businesses have had the time to learn about and implement the necessary changes, there are still many misconceptions out there that are causing businesses to overwork or even underwork themselves in terms of GDPR.

In this short article, we have investigated 6 GDPR myths and taken a look to see if they really are just myths or important aspects of data legislation that you need to be aware of.
 
Myth #1 - GDPR Doesn't Apply to Businesses Outside of the EU – FALSE

This is something that quite a lot of business outside of the EU are still oblivious to. Many people see GDPR as a way to restrict a business’ use of customer data, which of course is true, but what many businesses are forgetting is that the main purpose of the GDPR is to protect personal data belonging to EU citizens. This means if you operate outside of the EU, but you still have both current and prospective clients that live in the EU, you must comply with the GDPR when contacting these clients. Just because you aren't in the EU, does not mean you are safe from fines under GDPR.
 
Myth #2 - Having a Data Protection Officer is Mandatory - FALSE

With GDPR, comes the misconception that every business must appoint a Data Protection Officer. This is not true. Appointing a Data Protection Officer (DPO) is only mandatory under the following grounds:
 
- You are a public authority.
- Your activities consist of large-scale, methodical observation and online behavioural tracking etc.
- Your activities involve large-scale processing of special data categories e.g. criminal conviction data.
 
Myth #3 - Consent Given For The Processing of Personal Data Must be Clear-Cut - TRUE

This is absolutely true. When depending on consent to collect, store and process personal or sensitive information, the consent given must be explicit. There are many ways to obtain this consent, such as email confirmations, written consent or even simple 'I agree' or 'I do not agree' options. However, always ensure that any consent and the format in which it is given is suitable for any and all requirements.
 
Myth #4 - Fines Can Reach €20,000,000 - TRUE

Despite the fact that no one has been given the maximum penalty at the time of writing, the Information Commissioner's Office has the power to impose fines of up to €20,000,000 or 4% of the company's annual turnover, whichever is more. To date, the largest fine given by the ICO. was £500,000 to Facebook for 'serious breaches of data protection law'. The full details are here: https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/facebook-ireland-ltd/
 
Myth #5 - Biometric Data Comes Under 'Sensitive Data' - TRUE

Biometric data such as fingerprints, retinal scans even ID images are all classed as 'sensitive data' under GDPR. However, not all biometric data falls under this category. Biometric data that cannot be used for identification purposes, is not classed as 'sensitive data'.
 
Biometric data that is considered as 'Sensitive Information' include:

- Fingerprints
- Retinal Scans
- Images Used For Identification
- Facial Recognition Data
- Written Signatures
- Voice Recognition Data

and more...
 
Myth #6 - You Can Only Collect Data If Consent is Given - FALSE

Even though GDPR has brought stricter rules regarding data collection and consent, in some cases, you will not need consent to collect or process personal data.
There are six grounds on which you can collect personal data, some require consent, some do not. The six grounds for data collection are:
 
1. To protect the vital interest of the individual - (In order to protect someone's life)
2. Public Interest - (Necessary for the running of a public task e.g. teaching)
3. Contractual Necessity - (Required for contractual agreements)
4. Compliance with legal obligations - (Collecting or processing is required for the compliance of UK or EU legislation)
5. Unambiguous consent (Clear, easy to interpret consent from the individual)
6. Legitimate interest of the data controller - (Your own interest whether commercial or individual, must be balanced with the data subject's interests)
 
Please Note: Despite having a lot of experience with GDPR and being a GDPR compliant company, the information contained within this article should not be taken as legal advice. We have made every effort to ensure that the information in the article is accurate, however, always do your own research and verification before making any changes concerning GDPR compliance. 

With engineering companies making up over a quarter of the UK's enterprises, new entrants to the industry have a lot of competition. It can be hard for these new businesses to stand out amongst the crowd and increase their awareness with so many others trying to do the same. This short article explains how three different marketing methods can be used to effectively increase your company's awareness, boost your sales and grow your business as a whole. 

Increasing Awareness

The first important step in growing your company is increasing brand awareness. When it comes to increasing awareness of your products, services or your business in general there are many different ways of going about it. As mentioned in the title, I am going to focus on three different marketing methods that can be used to achieve this.

The first method is social media marketing. Say for example your company specialises in vehicle engineering, not everything you do will warrant a post to social media, however, unveiling the designs for a new range of 4x4s will be something you will want to share with your target market.

Using a social media platform such as Twitter, you could create a post with images of the designs, a few short sentences and tags that will allow you to reach your target audience. For example, the tags you could use in this instance could be '#4x4, #OffRoader, #NewCars, #CarDesign', obviously these are just basic example tags, however, car enthusiasts that are looking for the latest designs might use these tags and could find your post about your amazing new vehicle.

Another method that you could use to increase your awareness is email marketing. Email marketing is a great way to increase awareness through well-designed, personalised email campaigns that tell your prospects exactly who you are, what you do and why they should buy from you. Email is a bit more of a professional approach to marketing as it's not as informal as some social media networks. If your target market is mainly businesses, this is when email marketing might be better than social media.

Using this approach you may be contacting your prospects and letting them know about your new range of 4x4s that have brilliant features for the travelling salesman. For example, you could highlight it's great fuel efficiency or comfort for longer journeys. When using email marketing, you want to make sure you understand your prospect's needs, and explain how you can fulfil these needs. If you are using email marketing, you will need a good understanding of different email techniques and which methods will work best for your offering. You also need to bear GDPR in mind as you will be contacting your prospects directly. 

Telemarketing is a great method for increasing your company's exposure, not to mention an excellent sales tool. The reason that telemarketing is a great tool to use is that you are in direct contact with your prospective clients, meaning you have the opportunity to tell the client about your new products and how it could benefit them, in a more in-depth, personalised way. Even if the prospect isn't interested at the time, your brand will stick with them so that next time they are looking to buy a new car, for example, they will think back to the time you explained all of its brilliant features and took the time to hear what they had to say. 

Increasing Sales

When attempting to increase your sales, there are many ways to go about it. As previously mentioned, increasing your brand awareness is something that will definitely boost your sales. The more people that recognise your brand as a trustworthy and reliable figure in the engineering industry, the more likely they are to buy from you. Increasing your sales can be done by using the same methods above, and typically increasing brand awareness and sales happens simultaneously.

Social media marketing can be used to promote new deals and offers that you are currently offering. Provide in-depth demonstrations of your products via video platforms such as YouTube and develop more of a personal business relationship with your clients. When attempting to increase sales via social media, you shouldn't just go for the hard sell, you need to provide interesting, useful content about your offerings that your prospects will enjoy watching. If they are interested in the videos, images or other posts, they are more likely to follow the links to your products page or enquiry page. You can use different tools that measure the conversion rates of different types of posts on different platforms, and then adjust your marketing activities to maximise your sales. 

For business-to-business sales, email marketing is one of the primary tools that a company can use. 76% of businesses in the UK have reported that they see email marketing as 'very important' to their businesses, with 8% of all UK businesses acquiring over half of their sales via email marketing. With email marketing, all you really need to invest in is a good quality software package such as Campaign Monitor or MailChimp, and a set of GDPR compliant data. You then have everything you need to create an email marketing campaign of your own. Making email marketing one of the most cost-effective marketing methods. 
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Telemarketing is the most effective sales method out of the three when it comes to B2B sales. The reason that telemarketing has the edge over the other two methods is that it allows you to have a much more in-depth and personalised interaction with your prospects. This is something that not only benefits you, but it benefits the prospect too. You will have the chance to get your point across clearly whilst also hearing what the customer has to say. Telemarketing also offers you the chance to get to know your prospects, on a more personal level, allowing you to build a trustworthy relationship with your clients. Sending emails is a great method for generating sales leads, however, it can sometimes take weeks of sending emails backwards and forwards to get the prospect to agree to a call or a face-to-face appointment. This is where telemarketing speeds up the process. Instead of weeks of emails, you are instantly at the point where you are in contact with the prospect directly. Provided you can get past the gatekeeper first!

How Can You Manage This?

When it comes to the planning, you may be wondering if you will have the time to run these campaigns. After all, running a business especially in the engineering sector is very time-consuming. You may not have the time to organise, set-up and run the campaigns yourself, or you may not have someone who is dedicated particularly to marketing. This is where outsourcing is your best option. By outsourcing your marketing activities, you are able to carry on with your usual business responsibilities whilst still receiving all of the benefits of the campaigns. In short, another company does all the work, whilst you reap the rewards.

At Inspired, we offer services such as lead generation, appointment setting, email marketing, GDPR compliance and verification, data cleansing and more. We handle the full campaign process leaving you and your teams to do what you do best, close business. Our cost-effective services allow you to make the most of your time as the leads and appointments we provide are qualified to ensure their quality. 

If you still haven't sorted your marketing strategy for the New Year, don't panic! We offer full end-to-end campaign management that can double or even triple your conversion.

Contact us today to find out more about how our services can help increase your sales and grow your business.

​As the most hectic time of year approaches, one thing all businesses are going to be looking at is marketing. Whether it's looking at marketing strategies before or after the New Year, there will be a lot of preparation to do and very little time. Every year, some businesses find themselves short on time when it comes to marketing, and as a result, end up missing out on the many opportunities that come around at Christmas and in the New Year.

Why Is Planning So Crucial?

There are so many aspects to consider when it comes to marketing, it can take months to plan for a single campaign. When planning a campaign, it's not just about getting organised. You have to think about what approach suits different situations. Whether it's planning the best strategy to use on different platforms, what tone you are going to use when writing the content or what your prospects might be expecting to see, you are unlikely to have much success without the time to fully consider all of your options.   
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So, in short, without good planning, campaigns are unlikely to gain much traction and could end up wasting time and money.

With the New Year approaching rapidly, businesses need to begin their planning their marketing strategies for 2019. Most businesses will have already begun their planning, but there will be some who are leaving their planning to the last minute. This of course is a risky way of running marketing ventures for the business, as there will not be enough time for analysis, comparison and evaluation of different strategies and how they will fit in with the business' plans for the New Year. Not to mention, all of the work that must go into these strategies to make them effective.

How Far In Advance Should I Plan?

The answer to this question relies on a multitude of factors such as, what type of campaign you are running, how much work there is to be done, how long the campaign will run for, how much needs to be organised and more. Smaller campaigns could take a month in the planning, but for larger ones, you could be looking at needing 2-3 months to ensure you have considered all the options to increase the success.   

To put this into context, you might already have a preferred strategy and all you need to do is create content or a script and source good quality data. If you're a veteran marketer, you may have done this hundreds of times and might not need months to plan. However, if you're relatively new to the world of marketing and haven't had much experience creating campaigns, you will need to give yourself more time. You might need to take on more staff to manage the campaign, and recruitment can take months. You might need to conduct research on which marketing strategies will best suit your business, products or services and goals. You may need to find a supplier of regulation compliant data, or even find an appropriate alternative such as outsourcing.

So, to answer the question "How far in advance should I plan?", you need to consider experience, workload and resources.

What Should I Do If I'm Short On Time?

If you find that there is far too much work and planning to do in a short amount of time, don't panic, there are ways to sort it. Instead of running yourself into the ground trying to put something in place in terms of marketing, look for an alternative marketing method that isn't just a fall back.

If you know you won’t have the time to put a good marketing strategy in place, outsourcing becomes your best option, this is especially true for newer businesses that may not have an abundance of marketing experience.

By outsourcing your marketing strategies to a more experienced company, your campaigns are more likely to be successful as they will have been planned and executed by marketing experts that can tailor campaigns to fit your requirements. You will also have more time to focus on and perfect other marketing ventures, improving your overall marketing efficiency. Not to mention making the busiest and most stressful time of the year, a little less busy and stressful.

With all the uncertainty and negativity surrounding Brexit at the moment, many people are forgetting that there will be many benefits for SMEs and large businesses inside and outside of the UK. Without getting too political, this article will be highlighting some of the key benefits and new opportunities that Brexit will bring to businesses, and ways to capitalise on some of the changes to come.

How Will Brexit Impact Businesses?

So far there has been a lot of uncertainty whether the pros of Brexit will outweigh the cons for businesses. At the moment a lot of businesses are wondering what the future will bring and whether their business is likely to take a hit or flourish in Post-Brexit Britain. All we can do for the time being is take a look at the possible impacts and how it affects businesses in both positive and negative ways.

One impact many business owners know about is a possible skills gap. It is believed that employment is going to take a hit due to Brexit's impact on immigration. However, many employers will be using this as an opportunity to up-skill existing employees which can only have a positive impact on a business whose employees are diverse and committed to the company.

A positive impact that Brexit could bring an increase in jobs. Despite there being a lot of businesses reporting staffing cuts and store closures recently, there could actually be an increase in jobs created by companies outside of Europe expanding into the UK. For example with Amazon's new investment into the UK markets, they will be creating around one thousand two-hundred permanent jobs in a warehouse equipped with advanced robotics. With many more businesses expanding into the UK, there will be a lot more opportunities in the future.

What Opportunities Will Come From Brexit?

Despite some of the negative impacts that Brexit will bring, there will also be a lot of opportunities for businesses to grow.

One opportunity that will arise from Brexit is the chance to widen your target market. With Brexit comes the creation of the UK's own independent trade deals and legislation. Currently, it is unclear what these deals and laws will look like, however, it is likely to give businesses more freedom when it comes to international trade which will give SMEs the chance to grow their presence in international markets.

There have been some unconfirmed reports that exporting could become cheaper post-Brexit. If this is the case, it would be the perfect time to expand your presence in international markets. With less red tape and lower export fees, you could grow your business presence internationally in no time.

The benefits are not only pertaining to British companies either. In fact, a lot of international companies have been pouring investments into the UK since the result of the referendum. According to an article from 'The New York Times', large motor companies such as Nissan and Toyota have said that they will be making large investments in their UK presence, with Nissan building new vehicles at their plant in Northern England and Toyota also upgrading their plant in the UK. Other businesses making sizeable investments include Amazon, Google, Apple, Wells Fargo and more. Qatar has also stated that they will be making investments of over $6,000,000,000 ($6 Billion) into multiple British sectors.

How Can Businesses Engage With International Prospects?

Expanding into new markets is easier said than done, especially when you're expanding into international markets that you're not familiar with. There are many ways of reaching your target audience in different markets, including various forms of marketing, advertising and more.

One method of reaching your target audiences in international markets can be email marketing campaigns. Email campaigns are a really good starting point when it comes to the first engagement with a new audience. If you know what type of audience you want to reach and how to create engaging content for that particular audience, you can create a solid foundation on which you can build a relationship with your international audiences. Not to mention the low-cost options that email marketing offers. 

Another simple way of marketing your business in other countries is social media marketing. Social media marketing is one of the most used forms of marketing in today's digital world. With billions of users worldwide, it's a good place to start your engagement with clients. 

One of the most successful methods is telemarketing. Despite the stigma surrounding telemarketing, it has been proved to be an effective method of contacting your prospective clients across the globe. The reason that telemarketing works a lot better than other methods for increasing your presence in international markets, is because you are able to directly speak to your target market. With email marketing, you can be sending emails to your prospects for weeks, even months before they make an enquiry. But with telemarketing, you are actively seeking out new opportunities rather than waiting for them to come to you. 

At Inspired, we have a lot of experience when it comes to helping businesses expand into new markets. Having worked with businesses from all of the UK and the world, from a wide variety of sectors, we have extensive knowledge of a range of industries. Our specialised, high-yield B2B lead and appointment generation services help businesses to engage with their prospects and increase their productivity and sales in various markets.

Events are a very important part of the business world whether they are for charity, to give demonstrations of your products or services or just to get to know your target market on a more personal level. Whatever the goal, they are a great way to gain exposure for your business. It takes a lot of time and effort to organise an event and it is really disheartening when you do not get the turnout you were hoping for.

When advertising these events people often use platforms such as social media, email and blogs to publicise the event, but telemarketing is often overlooked. Despite the stigma surrounding telemarketing, it's proven to be an effective method when it comes to increasing event attendance, also the stigma is typically surrounding business-to-consumer contact rather than business-to-business. 

How Does Telemarketing Work with Event Organisation?

Telemarketing will work slightly differently than other methods of advertising your events, as it gives more opportunity to get your point across in a more personal and connected way. Sending out emails regarding your events is fine, however, these emails are often impersonal and designed with a mass audience in mind rather than the individual person. With telemarketing you are able to speak straight to your target audience, so you are communicating directly with them. 

Quality data is the key to any telemarketing venture. With the right information, you can make every phone call different from the last, building trust and a relationship with your target audience. This is an effective way to increase your event attendance for current events and events in the future. Quality data means that you are communicating with businesses who have an interest in the nature of your upcoming event and will enjoy speaking with you. Of course, just as with many forms of advertising such as email marketing you will need to source accurate, regulation compliant data in order to make the campaigns effective and maintain a trustworthy connection with your target audience.

Telemarketing campaigns, however effective, can be an extremely exhausting method on both time and workforce. You may not have the time to source reliable data, and then organise and execute the campaigns yourself or you may not have the expertise needed to create effective campaigns. Potentially everyone is so busy organising the event that you do not have enough staff on hand to man the phones. This is where outsourcing comes into play.

What are the Benefits of Using an Outsourced Telemarketing Business For Events?

If you outsource to a telemarketing company, you will have a lot more time to put into organising your event as you will no longer have the labour burden of promotion. With more time to organise you can make the event as good as it can be pulling out all the stops. On the day of the event, you and your team will have created an occasion that will demonstrate your products and services in high detail or will promote donation to charities. interest. Whilst you have been planning the event, the outsourced company will have been working tirelessly to increase your audience. With more attendees and a more interesting and engaging event, you are more than likely to increase your sales on the day as well as gain more exposure that could positively impacting future sales. If you are working with the right company, you will be getting cost-effective services that will lead to more sales and an increase in your ROI. 

In short, someone else will do the hard work for you, and as a result, your sales and ROI will be boosted.