A Cautionary Tale of a Campaign Gone Wrong and non-compliant GDPR Compliant contact lists
Here’s a tale about a marketing campaign that had all the right intentions, but with all the wrong execution.
- It started with excitement. A corporate training company had just landed a shiny new contact list that they just scraped off the internet.
- 10,000 contacts. All ready to hear about their offer… or so they thought.
- There was no targeting. No filters. No idea if the data was up-to-date—or even GDPR-compliant.
- But they went ahead with it anyway….
Mistake 1: Scraped A Data List Blind
- They assumed that quantity = quality.
- No checks. No validation. No idea whether these people were even at the company or interested in their offer.
- So they blasted out a generic email to thousands of contacts with the subject line:
- “Are you ready to transform your business training?”
- Most recipients weren’t in training, HR or even responsible for training within the company.
- Infact, some contacts weren’t even working at the business anymore. And some? Well, they were definitely not happy to be contacted.
Mistake 2: Sending From Outlook (Yes, Really)
- They sent an email to the entire campaign using Outlook.
- No personalisation. No scheduling. No open-rate tracking. Just long BCC chains and crossed fingers.
- Within minutes, their domain was flagged for spam.
- They didn’t just get ignored—they got blacklisted... In fact they couldn’t work out why none of their emails were reaching their current clients
Mistake 3: One Email. No Follow-Up. No Strategy.
When the first email flopped, they shrugged and said, “I guess email marketing doesn’t work.”
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