Onerous POPI requirements could affect direct marketers

According to POPI, even once the consumer has 'opted-in', he/she must still be given the option to opt out at the time of each marketing communication. Further to this, organisations need to realise that data may in future only be collected from public domain or permission based sources; gone will the days be of unverified 'inside-info' lists.

Distinction in marketing

These strict requirements may seem like a call to lay down arms in respect to direct marketing but its potential impact on real-time customer engagement demands the same attention and diligence as with other marketing communication channels.

POPI does make a distinction between electronic versus non-electronic marketing, but it does not prohibit the use of direct marketing. Personal data is a valuable commodity in the era of digital disruption; however this means that the protection of that data has become equally paramount.

CEO of Effective Intelligence, Julian Ardagh, says, "In any battle, planning is key and appropriate planning can provide your business with a significant edge. We are seeing substantial investment and drive from organisations to engage consumers in an omni-channel environment - especially in social media marketing, as one of the means to overcome some the constraints that POPI will impose on other channels of direct marketing such as e-mails and SMS.

There are three main customer profiles that span digital and traditional marketing channels: those consumers that you have permission from to communicate with; consumers you can gain permission from and those that you don't have or can't get permission from to engage with.

Build a relationship

Ardagh further advises that a portion of the marketing budget should be used in an intelligent manner in order to identify linking individual persons to permission, especially in the early stages of the symbiotic relationship between brand (organisation) and individual customer. He also advises that it's important to build a relationship and define needs rather than asking for a purchase in the first SMS.

"The company's real-time marketing engagement technology does not store the data released in a real-time environment. This is pertinent, as POPI aims at regulating the processing of personal information only. 'Data' is a broader concept and, while the definition of 'personal information' under POPI is undoubtedly broad, it must be understood that it does not seek to regulate data that is not by definition 'personal information'. Under POPI guidelines, CEOs are information officers and should take the necessary steps needed to keep themselves informed of what the company is doing with data, especially so if they do delegate this service to an outsourced provider. The greatest potential risk to an organisation is reputational," concludes Ardagh.

Businesses will be forced to think out of the box and find new compliant ways of vying for consumer attention, with the most innovative marketers winning the war.