Keywords:  GDPR, CASL, Consent

Consent – Some ideas and suggestions on how to record on InterAction who has consented to receive emails, and when they consented.

If your firm has decided to ask your contacts for their consent to be emailed by you, then their responses should be retained and stored in your database, with a note of the date when consent was given.

Subsequent mailings should honour that consent, and give contacts the opportunity to opt out of future mailings.

There are several different options available to you for managing the recording, storage and checking of Consent to E-Mail, depending on the CRM database you are using.  This note addresses just InterAction users.

Suppression Folders

For InterAction clients of Vuture, you will currently already have some suppression folders such as Send No Mailings.  This suggestion uses folders in the opposite way – the contact must be in the new folder in order to receive any mailings:

• Create a new folder called “Consent Received”. 
• In that folder create an Additional Field to record Date Consent Received.  Put contacts into that folder when you get consent from them, and check that folder before sending out any mailing.  In other words, when searching for clients to mail, you could add another criterion which would be “And Contact is Linked into in Folder Consent Received”.

Global Additional Field

You could create a global additional field to record the consent received, with the date.  However, Vuture does not check additional fields as part of its pre-mailing checks.  You would therefore need to also create an FDA to check the additional field regularly and move contacts into the Consent Received folder.  You would then need to check the Consent Received folder before mailing.

One Click Snippet

For those of you who have purchased the One Click Registration snippet, you could use this option to record Consent on a contact in a list.

• Create a new folder or list called Consent Received
• In that folder create an Additional Field to record Consent Received – Yes/No.
• Link a set of One Click buttons to the Consent Received list.  A single button could be used, if you have one on its own.  If you only have a pair you could use them as “I Consent” and “I Do Not Consent”.

Preference Manager

Preference Manager is a bespoke web application which has the same look and feel as your web site.  It allows your clients and contacts to log in securely at any time and update their personal details and preferences.  Fully integrated with Vuture it then manages all suppressions for you.

Ask your Account Manager for further details on the Preference Manager.

New Contacts on your InterAction – managing the future

The suggestions above have dealt with existing contacts on your database.  However, new people will be added all the time and you will need a process in place to manage them.

As new contacts come onto the database they could be added immediately to a new folder (called something like “Newly Added Contacts”).  A recurring trigger can be set up to examine this folder daily and send an email saying something like:

 “Welcome to our database.  We would like to send you information about our firm, thought leadership pieces and updates on our industry.  However, we only want to send you what you want to hear so please click here to update your preferences.”

The email could link to your Preferences Form, or it could contain One Click buttons.

Contact Support at LexisNexis if you have questions on setting up folders, additional fields or FDAs.