Hey everyone! Rochelle here. You've probably been hearing all about this “GDPR” thing that's making every online business owner go crazy trying to comply and not end up in jail just for making a freebie and collecting email addresses.
I'll be honest with you — this is new to me too, and I'm working behind the scenes to make sure my business is in good standing.
Here's Hubspot's write-up on GDPR
And here's another article about it.Â
Depending on your level of experience in online marketing, the following may either seem no-brainer, like “Oh ya, everyone does that, that's cool” or “Oh my GOD all my privacy and rights are being abused! Throw the computer in the dumpster!”
I can assure you that I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary with your personal information, except that I'm being blatantly honest with how I'm describing it to you here. My hope is that you understand in layman's terms what's going on behind the scenes of basically any exchange of personal information (typically your name and email address, when requesting freebies or access to webinars) if you're learning from influencers who teach something similar to what I teach.
How your personal information is used:
Your personal information will always be kept confidential, whether you participate in a collaboration with me, sign up for one of my freebies, or become a student of mine.
When you enter payment information, it is NOT stored on my website or in my files. Your credit card, Paypal, banking (or any other method you use) information is processed and stored by a secure payment processor, such as Stripe or Paypal. This is one of the many reasons why I don't use built-in eCommerce shopping carts on my website. I trust the security stuff to the security professionals, ya know?
How I use your Information When You Download Freebies or Attend Free Webinars and Masterclasses
When you sign up for a freebie from me (“freebie” meaning anything that you request on my website or social media channels by inputting your name and email address), your name and email address will be added to my email list (again, stored with reputable and secure companies, Convertkit and Kajabi, who know their stuff). You will receive additional emails from me after signing up for your freebie. You can always opt out from receiving emails by clicking on the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any email you receive from me. You can also reply to any email you receive from me and ask to removed that way, as well.
Your Email Address May be Uploaded to My Facebook Ads Account
Your email address may be shared securely with advertising platforms, such as Facebook Ads. This is common practice in online business, and something I actually recommend you do for your own business as well.
If you're not familiar with Facebook Ads, you have the ability to upload your email list to Facebook so that they can send your ads directly to the people who are on your list (assuming they signed up for your list using the same email address they used to sign up for Facebook). That's how you end up seeing ads that are super relevant to the freebies you had requested. There are other ways, too, of course (like re-targeting people who have watched at least 3 seconds of that Facebook Live video you posted), but this is most relevant to what's done with your personal information, collected on my website or via my social media channels.
When You Request a Freebie That's Part of a Bundle or Collaboration Project that I Lead
If you request a freebie that is part of a collaboration project, your name and email address may or may not be distributed and shared with the other contributors to the collaboration project, depending on our mutual agreement going into the collab. Again, this is normal practice and most business owners who do collaborations end up sharing the subscriber list with each other (that's kind of the idea behind them — to build your lists, mutually). I'm thankful that GDPR will be in place and will force business owners to be more transparent about this fact, though, because not everyone knows what goes on behind the scenes of these big collaboration projects, and not everyone knows how the heck they ended up on 10 people's email lists.
To be honest, I'm leaning away from the whole “bundle” thing where subscriber names and email addresses get shared, so you will see less and less of this, from me (at least in the projects that I'm the lead on.)
You'll know I'm the lead on the project, because, well — it'll be on my website and probably in my brand colors, fonts, etc.
Your privacy will be respected and your name and email address will only be used as described in the above paragraphs, but once your name and email address are distributed to other contributors, I can't legally speak for what they will do with that information.
(They're good people, and I doubt they'll do anything sheisty, but again I can't guarantee that, ya know?)
If for any reason you'd rather sign up for a freebie and only want to be on my list but not get subscribed to other people's list, just send me a PM on social media or email me at rochelle@nowsyourchance.org.
When You Request a Freebie That's a Project I'm Involved In (but I'm not the project coordinator, meaning I only participated but someone else is in charge)
I only collaborate with other coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs that I find trustworthy and not spammy. So while you know that I respect your privacy and never share your information outside of what's listed above, I can't legally speak for other people and how they use your email address.
That's all!
I hope this makes sense to you and doesn't freak you out. I honestly think the regulations being set with GDPR are a good thing, and will make online marketing a little more transparent and straight forward. But the transition will be a little bit messy, so expect announcements and changes like this from all of the influencers and experts you follow.
If you have any specific questions, please ask in the comments!