Why should you be considering inbound marketing now?

If you haven't heard about the proposed changes to the EU then you soon will. For marketing managers, directors and teams operating in the UK, there are some fundamental changes charging over the hill that are likely to railroad your marketing strategy for the future. 

Sounds dramatic? Well it is! The UK has weaker Data Protection practices than other parts of Europe and that is set to change with sweeping Europe-wide changes that are set to limit your ability to reach your target audience. 

The changes which are being proposed will effectively stifle any outbound efforts unless you have permission to contact your prospects. 

Double opt-in has been enshrined in Business to Consumer (B2C) marketing for years. In many parts of Europe double opt-in for Business to Business (B2B) e.g. Germany has been the norm. The proposed changes will bring the UK in line with the rest of Europe. In fact, the data you hold on individuals will be limited to company name, telephone numbers, address and website URL. 

The changes, as you can imagine, are much broader than outlined here, so please ensure you follow up on this topic.

In summary if you can't carry out an outbound campaign without permission, and in fact shouldn't even hold personal details such as email addresses, then what are the options? 

Best practice for inbound marketing has been to develop valuable content for your buying personas, publish that content to attract visitors to your site, and convert them into leads by encouraging them to provide their details (and permission) in exchange for the valued content.

Using inbound marketing tools will allow you to tick the boxes in terms of proposed Data Protection changes then analytics will give you an audit trail on how you obtained contacts’ details (important for another key part of the proposed law) and you will have better quality leads!

Learn how to generate these better quality leads by downloading our eBook 'The Ultimate guide to Lead Generation.'