NI Marketers GDPR Readiness Poll

As Secretary of the Market Research Society NI, I’ve been submersed in GDPR for some time now. I’ve been busy organising our most recent Market Research Society NI session; a GDPR information session with Compliance Barrister Orlagh Kelly of www.Briefed.pro.

We thought it would be interesting, as marketers are one of the main user groups of market research, to find out how prepared marketers in Northern Ireland are for the forthcoming GDPR deadline.

We ran a quick poll via Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook over one week.  Our poll accumulated 31 valid responses.

Almost half of the marketers who responded to the poll have not yet started to prepare for the GDPR.  Just under one third of respondents are somewhat prepared.  Just under one third of respondents are fairly well prepared or almost prepared whilst none of the respondents are fully prepared.

The main concern amongst the marketers who responded to our survey is email marketing, in particular the implications of B2B email marketing, Mailchimp databases and consent.

This readiness response falls fairly well into line with the general feeling of readiness across Northern Ireland.  From speaking to other businesses, we’ve found that it’s only once a business starts to prepare for GDPR, do they realise the enormity of the task.  It’s not just about asking the IT or HR department to tighten up processes – in essence, GDPR will permeate the culture of an organisation and change how personal data is perceived and managed throughout.

The Market Research Society provides GDPR guidance and has developed a quality process standard called Fair Data.  The Fair Data mark is awarded to companies that meet the Fair Data principles.  Visit the Fair Data website for further information: http://www.fairdata.org.uk/GDPR_questions/

Thanks to everyone who took part in our survey.