Data protection and marketing in times of increasing regulatory requirements

However, an obstacle to it is increasingly stringent data protection regulations. Many countries introduce regulations concerning data protection, such as GDPR in Europe, California Customer Privacy Act (CCPA), PIPEDA in Canada, and some other.

In this situation, companies need to look for new ways to perform data-driven marketing. Yet, it is also essential for businesses to understand that the idea behind all these regulations is to make customers’ online experience safe and comfortable.

One of the possible approaches to address this challenge is a DRM (Data Relationship Management) approach offered by McKinsey. DRM consist of 4 elements: data invitation, data security center, data dialogue, and a data value proposition.

Usually, the interaction with users comes down to making them click “Accept”; the explanation of how the data is going to be used is written in a very formal style with lots of specific terms. This doesn’t help to build trust between an organization and users; therefore, new best practices suggest making the invitation to sharing data more personalized, written in simple language, and explicitly explaining benefits of sharing data.

Again, it is important to give customers a clear understanding of data protection measures taken in the organization. Customers should be able to see which data is being collected (including data that was not explicitly shared, such as location) and how it is used. Customers should have an opportunity to easily opt out of any data collection in the future. Moreover, McKinsey suggests that it might be beneficial for companies to create appealing content, for instance, storytelling about personal data security to make the interaction more engaging.

It is about an ongoing communication regarding the brand’s commitment to data security in order to reassure and comfort users about the safety of their data in ever-changing circumstances.

Research shows that most customers would be willing to share their data if they were offered some value in return. However, demonstrating the value is not always easy. For many companies, it would mean coming up with new ideas, such as offers, discounts, specialist consultations, etc., or really well-prepared recommendations of new products and services that meet customer interests and are not irrelevant to them.

To sum up this short introduction into new data protection strategies, we want to emphasize that as much as right technical measures to comply with the regulations are important, even more important now is the focus on human interaction and building of digital trust, based on transparency, credibility, integrity, and security.

Companies that would invest their resources in DRM, would have more chances to lead the competition and will be paid back in the future.