There was a time when marketing was all about gut instinct and risk-taking. These days, however, big data empowers informed decision-making that can take your marketing from a shot in the dark to a carefully optimized sales engine. But getting there takes preparation and protection. Data security is essential when it comes to building effective marketing strategies. Once you understand why, you can cultivate safe and engaging campaigns that build customer trust.
Why Data Security is Important
In the modern world, data plays a significant role in commerce. But misusing data can lead to severe consequences for your customers. Here’s just a hint of the scope of the threat:
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Mobile malware is on the rise.
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Approximately 95% of data breaches happen in retail, government, and technology.
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3 in every 5 Americans have reported identity theft.
With these risks, you owe it to your prospective audience to build data protections into your marketing strategies. The right approach gives you impactful personalization potential, but too much data use or lack of transparency could damage your ability to garner sales in the future.
For instance, modern consumers don’t like receiving unwarranted ads. 70% of millennials are annoyed by email marketing ”unless, of course, that marketing is personalized enough to be relevant to them. In that case, 91% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase. That said, you need to strike a careful balance between personalization and privacy.
Data security is the way you achieve that balance. Depending on the markets you operate in, certain data protections will be legally required, while in others, they’ll only be a standard that consumers expect. Regardless, you need to give your customers personalized marketing content without putting them at greater risk.
This means creating an environment of transparency, empathy, and options for your audience.
How to Secure Your Marketing Data
Securing your marketing data can be a daunting prospect. After all, there is no way to guarantee against a data breach. No matter how careful you are in using firewalls, VPNs, or strong passwords, there is always a risk of a dedicated hacker finding an entryway into your customer information. However, with the right strategies, you can better protect your customers.
Here are five methods for integrating data security measures in your perfect marketing plan:
1. Use a secure data service.
One of the best and easiest methods of securing your customer data is to outsource the hosting and protection of that data. This is done through third-party cloud services that typically operate on a subscription basis.
Using such a service can be effective for marketers because it hands off data protection to more experienced professionals who will be able to back up and secure information without you having to worry about it. But if you need to keep your data in-house, there are still ways you can ensure data security.
2. Encrypt and de-identify the data you store.
Encryption and de-identification techniques are vital for modern security. Financial data like card information, for example, should not be kept in a data pool without being first stripped of values that could be traced back to customers and used to steal their identity.
The right software for data communication and marketing automation can help you with encryption practices. Alternatively, you can hire a security architect. This profession is set to grow 28% by 2026 as businesses increasingly recognize the need for someone who can build and monitor data networks that block cyber attacks.
Regardless of where or how you store your data, however, you need to remain alert and up-to-date on cyber threats and ways to prevent them.
3. Follow GDPR guidance.
A good place to start when acquiring data security know-how is to consult the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) made into law across the European Union. This law mandates the protection of data in countries where it applies by requiring companies that collect data to follow a set of principles.
These principles include:
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Users must consent to data use practices.
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Users must be able to access the data collected about them.
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Users must be able to request the erasure of their data.
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Users must be able to object to the processing of personal information.
Accommodating these principles can be a great way to ensure better data protections whether the GDPR applies to you or not.
4. Allow customers to opt out of data collection.
While surveys show us that the majority of consumers like the level of personalization that data collection offers, shoppers don’t want to feel spied on or used. To make customers feel safer about their purchases, you should allow them to opt out of the data collection process.
A simple notification as they enter your website can empower a customer in managing their own data security. Be transparent about why you might need to collect their information and let the customer decide for themselves if that’s an experience they want.
5. Provide customers with ways to see the data you’re collecting.
Finally, give your customers tools for reading through or downloading the data you’ve collected on them and their shopping behaviors. By creating transparency in this fashion, you show your customers that you have nothing to hide. This helps shoppers to trust you and your brand while holding you accountable to a specific data collection process.
Following these data security tips is a great way to build a better reputation as a safe digital platform for marketing and sales. While no strategy is completely bulletproof, you’ll be surprised how much the right tools, team, and policies can help you prevent the threats that abound on the web.
Don’t forget the importance of data security as you build your marketing strategies. Data can be every marketer’s best friend, but it takes preparation and care. Integrate security measures now to protect your customers and business from a devastating and costly breach.
