Direct marketing: help is at hand!

Direct marketing in the UK is regulated by the UK GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations (PECR). The consequences of getting on the wrong side of these regulations can be serious, including fines (for UK GDPR breaches) of up to £17,500,000 or 4% of total worldwide annual turnover, and up to £500,000 (for PECR breaches). Financial penalties aside, dealing with a complaint or investigation can take up valuable management time and expose an organisation to reputational risk.

Last month the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) launched a free online direct marketing advice generator tool to help organisations conduct marketing in compliance with the law. Users of the tool are required to answer a series of questions and the tool then generates advice tailored to the particular marketing activities carried out by an individual user.

Personal data obtained in the course of selling goods or services can be a very useful resource for future promotional campaigns but it must be collected and processed responsibly. In addition to the advice generator tool, the ICO also has a privacy notice generator (launched last year) on its website. A privacy notice explains why an organisation needs people’s personal data, what it plans to do with it, how long it intends to keep it and whether it will be shared with anyone else. The advice generator tool and privacy notice generator should be particularly useful for smaller organisations without a dedicated compliance function.

You can check out the tool and the privacy notice generator at the links below.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/advice-for-small-organisations/checklists/direct-marketing-advice-generator/

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2024/08/new-tool-helps-small-businesses-create-privacy-notices/

This allows organisations to reach out and promote their products and services to both new and existing customers, as well as share their aims and ideals – and can assist in making sure they’re contacting people who are happy to hear from them. Ultimately, saving them time and money and protecting their reputation.

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2025/02/direct-marketing-advice-generator-makes-it-easy-for-organisations-to-comply-with-the-law/