Consent-based marketing is the practice of contacting consumers that have given their prior written consent to be contacted. The objective is to ensure that only ‘active’ or ‘interested’ prospects who have a genuine interest in hearing from you make it into your funnel. 

This type of marketing brings in the added benefit of verifying that the prospect meets your criteria before contacting him. With marketing partners, you only pay for the prospects that meet your criteria and this proves to have a huge advantage over other marketing channels. Consent must be clear and conspicuous to the consumer. Brands value the respect they have for consumers and show that respect by reaching out for consent. 

The GDPR has created protocols for organizations handling personal information and established new definitions for personal data, consent, accountability, and all parts of processing data. Internet users around the world have been exposed to these changes because, since 2018, any website that gets EU visitors and processes personal data (or works with a third-party service that does) must comply with the GDPR. 

Part of complying means asking each user for permission to access and use their data, hence the rise of cookie banners all around the internet. From a user’s perspective, the GDPR helps internet users to understand exactly how organizations use their data, make informed decisions about whether to share their data or not, and learn how to raise a data privacy complaint.   

This type of marketing enables brands to connect with consumers based on three themes: 

Relevance: Marketing messages focus on something consumers have expressed interest in 

Personalization: Messages relate to individual consumers or actions they took 

Anticipation: Consumers look forward to hearing from the brand 

And how does this work?  Below are the benefits of consent-based marketing 

Capture consent of interested consumers 

This process begins with a consumer who is interested. When a user provides their information as a response to some sort of offer from the marketer, they are initiating the conversation. This is the first touch-point of the larger conversation. 

Document consent for legal compliance 

While there are a variety of regulations that govern contacting consumers with marketing messages, if you have documented prior express written consent, you can contact consumers via online and offline channels. 

Qualify & enhance lead data 

Once you have the opt-in lead information with documented consent, you can then use the information submitted by the consumer to help you identify prospects. This also involves checking if you have an existing relationship or communication with the customer.   

Filter & reject lead data

Few of the leads that you receive may be fraudulent, uncontactable, duplicates, or simply not qualified. It’s important to have a system in place that will filter out, in real-time, any leads that don’t meet any of your qualifying criteria. Many cost-per-lead marketing partners won’t charge marketers for leads that are rejected in real-time. 

With the right processes and technologies in place, consent-based marketing can be the best channel to efficiently and safely acquire customers who truly want to be contacted by your brand.