Despite the added complexity GDPR may add to your email communications, it is a huge opportunity to improve your deliverability and relationships.
Communicating with your supporters at their preferred frequency level and about subjects they care about makes it less likely that people will ignore your emails, unsubscribe, or mark you as spam. Actively removing the un-engaged people on your list will improve your reputation with email providers and assure that your emails are reaching the people who want to hear from you.
Step 1: Set up saved filters with the consent you need
Managing consent for your different communication categories can be done using NationBuilder filters. By setting up a saved filter for each category, a control user can communicate with the right universe (as defined by the organisation) without having to create new filters or lists each time.
For example, if you email out a monthly newsletter on a regular basis, then you can create a saved filter that includes those who have opted in to getting weekly or monthly updates.
 |
Step 2: Segment your audience for your regular email communications
If your audience is always the same for one or more of your email communications, then I would strongly recommend that you also include that in a saved filter. This means if you are sending a monthly newsletter to people by region, then setting up the following saved filter for each region will be a good way forward:
 |
This way you don’t have to re-create a new filter each time you send out an email to a specific universe, making it less time-consuming for you and other control panel users.
Step 3: Auto-tag so you can easily build filters and lists going forward
Once you have created a saved filter, add an auto-tag to the filter so it is easy to create new filters that are even more segmented and to see what communication someone receives:
 |
Step 4: Selecting your email audience
Each time someone meets the filter criteria they will then get the tag automatically applied to their profile. This also means visually, you can always see what someone has consented to receiving by looking at their profile.
If you have created saved filters for your most common forms of communication, then it is easy to send your email blast out to anyone who qualifies based on the segmentation in your filter. As filters are dynamic, you can always be certain that anyone who has recently joined receives the latest email without you having to update anything manually.
 |
It is worth remembering that under GDPR, you can only communicate with people who you have explicit consent from.
Step 5: Grow your list
As you develop your relationship with your supporters, you may want to offer them the opportunity to manage their consent actively (creating a more engaged audience) and signing up to new opportunities. This can be done by adding a liquid variable to your emails:
 |
Important: Do not stylise your liquid variable (e.g. use bold, italics, etc.), as this will make the link unusable.
Your liquid variable link will depend on how you have set up your consent form. Once you have found your variable, I’d suggest changing ‘replace with link text’ to something along the lines of wanting to offer your supporters the chance to update their consent to receive the content most relevant to them. Once someone receives your email and clicks on the link, they will be directed to your consent page.
Disclaimer
The information offered here and other NationBuilder GDPR and data privacy-related pages is not legal advice for you or your company to use to comply with the GDPR or other (European) data privacy laws. NationBuilder cannot offer legal counsel. Instead, we are providing information about the steps we have taken to become GDPR compliant ourselves and the product features and services we offer (and will offer in the future) to help our customers use our products in a GDPR compliant manner.
