Do you know How much we are connected to the Internet nowadays, We cannot expect a life without the Internet, starting you wake up from bed till the time you go to sleep 24 by 7 we are surrounded by an unconditional web of the Internet. In this unconditional world of the web, what is the most precious asset nowadays? Is it money, No it’s not, the most precious asset is DATA, even Clive Humby said once “Data is the new oil.” what does this mean Like Oil is important to make your economy keeps running likewise data also plays a vital role to keep your business running its work like a fuel to your business? If you don’t have correct data you cannot reach to the exact customer to provide them with what they want.
What if the customer refused to share data with you? How do you gain the confidence of the customer that you will not take undue advantage of the customer data? How to use customer data to promote your business? And most importantly How to protect customer data privacy in Digital Marketing Era? We have simplified and explained answers to all such complicated questions doubt come to your mind so read below carefully to explore your knowledge about Customer data privacy
What is Digital Marketing?
The simple answer is Online marketing of any product is called Digital marketing. let me explain further in the old days business used to promote their product is advertising their product in newspapers, Television, in form of pamphlets, and Roadside Holdings in short where people like to see the most marketer used to place their products to seek people’s attention. Now people’s interests have shifted to Mobiles, Tablets, laptops, and Desktops as per the Digital age marketers also shifted from billboards to Mobiles, Now a day’s Marketers use social media like Face book, and YouTube to promote their products, and you could see ads on every social media platforms just to grab customer attention to their products, knowing that fact that majority audience is online today, whether it is what’s an app, Instagram, Face book or Google everywhere you could see the advertisement marketing your product in digital forms to seek the attention of the audience on Digital platform is called Digital marketing it’s that simple.
What is data in Digital marketing?
If you Google for the exact meaning of Data you could see more than 50 definitions, isn’t it sound confusing to read all definitions? This will give you the exact meaning of Data, data is nothing but the number, symbols, alphabets, or a combination of all, for example, numbers from 0 to 9, a symbol like # @ ?, and alphabets from word A to Z, let’s explain further Now 121212 what is this? For some this means a specific pin code number on another hand for someone it’s his employee number or for students, it’s his examination roll number…Let’s see with another example the word CAR, does not create any specific information like for someone it’s a New car, for someone its a used car, for environmentalist it’s an Electric car, or for Top Professional this means it could be branded car like BMW or Mercedes. Any information in form of numbers, symbols, alphabets, or a combination of all which does not give any specific message or information is called Data in Digital Marketing.
What is the Difference between Information & Data?
You just get to know what Data is. Now If I place this data in any specific place or give you an exact explanation about what it is it becomes information like the previous example the number 121212 if I explain this “My Examination roll number is 121212.” Now, this becomes information for me and in another example for the word car if I said “I just brought Electric Hybrid Car.” This explained what does mean by exact meaning of the word car is. The justification or explanation which satisfies you to get exact meaning out of any number, symbols, alphabet, or combination of all is called Information.
So this is the simple difference between Information and data, whether data does not give you clarity and information gives you exact clarity of specific data. You may hear about data entry Jobs this means nothing but inputting specific data which may or may not contain any information.
What is Customer Data Privacy in Digital Marketing?
If I could talk from a digital marketer’s point of View as we just discussed Data is extremely important to growing your business opportunities and miss use of data, data hacking also increased exponentially, people share their data on different platforms the data you simply use to promote your product the same data can be misused by someone else like the example of the phone number you could use to sms or telemarketing same number can be used to get your OTP (one-time password) to hack your bank account. Understanding customer sentiments accordingly keeping Data private and avoiding getting the data publically exposed is known as Customer Data Privacy in Digital Marketing. If you ever created a YouTube video you could see the option private and public where in if you keep the Video private, you only could see your video, and the public or another person cannot see it unless you share it with someone. The same applies here. You keep your consumer data secrete or private.
Why is Customer Data Privacy So Important in Digital Marketing?
In this pandemic the word we heard about the most is data privacy after Corona Virus, Do you know big social media platforms, Gaming channels such as Tik Tok, Pub G, Huawei, and ZTE are banned by Top most countries like USA, Russia, India due to Data Privacy, countries found that these organizations are migrating data to their countries. You may hear about Cambridge Analytica, where they have imposed their agenda by using consumers face book behavioral patterns by using this we can influence or control people’s mindsets using their data. Understanding the power of this becomes extremely important to keep our consumer data in safe hands also it built and grows the trust of people in you because as a Digital marketer, it is extremely important to keep the customer in their comfort zone so that they could rely on you and do not hesitate to buy or consume the information which you are trying to promote.
How Business take undue advantage of Data Privacy?
Imagine your national Identity number becoming publically exposed, as we said before different people have different use of the same data, from your national Id number hackers extract all your information related to you like your bank account details, your phone numbers, and attempt to make you bankrupt. Business gets to know you’re like and dislikes from your social media behavioral pattern and tries to influence you. If it’s used in fairway it is absolutely ok but if it’s been done is aggressive marketing then it could become your consumer annoyed, some apps or websites try to enter into their consumer’s personal space by asking permission before installing the app use their personal contact numbers, video and audio recording permission in the background to spy the people to look for the promote their product. Many times people have seen the same advertisement on their mobile phones which they have just discussed offline with their friends. This is how Businesses take advantage in the race of Digital Marketing of their products and services.
What consumer Mindset behind not sharing his Data?
A common man deals with news like hacking back account, or someone asking for ransom in digital currency like bit coins by threatening to publicize his private information like personal photos, pornographic images, etc., this scares him a lot, and knowingly or unknowingly he has to share his information every day at every platform like at MacDonald you will have to give your phone numbers just to get one burger, Consumer is started losing confidence and under pressure that anytime somebody can steal his hard earned money from him and added to this most of the countries does not have strong Laws who can protect the consumer rights and give justice to him.
How to gain the confidence of consumers to make them feel like data is in safe hands?
Discipline is the only key that we can use to gain or regain confidence in customers to make them feel like data is in safe hands. Now as we said different organizations have different use of the same data and most of the organizations used to sell their data after optimum utilization to other organizations so that they earn money out of data that is not of much use to them. Here rather than depending on the government to regulate such acts organizations should have come front and tell the customer they keep their data private and mentioned in their regulations that they will not sell their consumer information to anybody else. The marketer must try to promote the product with keeping customer privacy in mind to retain a healthy and long-term relationship with consumers. Marketers should get help from experts to safeguard their data storage and avoid any malware or bug attack on consumer data. Also if they have digital existence such as a website immediately convert to HTTPS instead of HTTP.
The Dangers of Not Protecting Customer Data Privacy in Digital Marketing
Now data is not limited to the photos you are sharing on social media but it includes your internet identity like your government documents, preferences, credit history, medical history, your bank details all such sensitive information if there is no proper rules and regulation to this can be misused by cyber hackers to make you poor. A normal person is on a mobile phone day in and out. And there are N numbers of websites we have to share our phone numbers many times, there are many crypto companies, and digital loan processing companies have taken our National Id cards for KYC, if this data is not managed well this can be like you are sitting on a live time bomb which is enough to end your game if not handled well. As a Digital Marketer if it’s not managed well this can shut your shop by being misused by the competitor and enough to break people’s trust in you.
Customer Data Privacy Laws around the world
If we look at the major jurisdiction in the world like China, the US, EU, and India trying to implement data privacy laws. Where china had not done too much about it and most of the data breach allegations were imposed on China the most, the US has sectoral laws for very particular areas such as Finance, Government, and schools, and there is no right for Non-US Citizens’ aspect of data privacy.EU also has data protection directives in its national laws and implemented GDPR (General data protection rights). India also about streamlines strong data protection laws to protect their people from various digital scams. However, there is a difference between EU and US consumer data protection right.
How to Educate Customers on Their Data Privacy Rights in Digital Marketing?
- Digital Marketer should display a disclaimer such as they don’t sell any data and bind with Non disclosure of data to any third party before taking valuable information from his consumer this create trust in consumers mind before availing services from you.
- While promoting your product one has to educate the consumer regarding data privacy.If email marketing gives option to consumer that anytime they can unsubscribe your mail if they don’t wish to be with you.
- Should avoid aggressive marketing and avoid to annoyed your consumer
- If reminder or any specific information you need to provide can use encryption to eliminate misuse of data
- E commerce Platform supposes to protect themselves from cyber threat like phishing and fake mails by taking IT experts help.
- Should keep eye on market and update yourself to built firewall against new way of misusing the data.
- Do not allow anybody to use your company name on any platform if possible get patent of using your companies name, symbol, and product to avoid misuse.
- Build a strong Cyber Security framework to protect customer data privacy.
- Let People know that they can trust you for their data share with you.
What Tools Can Digital Marketers Use to Protect Customer Data Privacy?
- Digital Marketer should understand the Privacy Law 1st before making his audience aware about it, need to study these laws to get to know different countries have different approach to deal with data privacy
- One should gather only specific information from the consumer, in case of installing any apps before an app activates on someone’s phone, it asks for permission to access certain data points. There should be a clear statement or document that someone can read, and it should highlight precisely what kind of information it will collect.
- Digital marketer should have make privacy policy outright and place on site so that consumer can read it before sharing his information with you.
Privacy policies should state precisely:
- Any and all types of information collected by the website or app
- Purpose for collecting said information
- How the data is stored and accessed
- What security is employed to keep the data safe
- Details of data transfers
- Affiliated websites, third parties, or organizations (because they might have access to the information)
- Use of cookies
- Digital marketer should avoid to give access of customer data every employee so that it has limited access if possible keep data encrypted form so that cannot be accessible to third person without key or password.
- Then companies need security protocols on computers and mobile devices, as well as their cloud-based software. Limiting access to higher functions on cloud-based systems can also prevent data breaches, in addition to digital encryption. Having one or two high-level people, who are trusted, to control access is a good policy to have.
Conclusion
This pandemic gave us a lesson on How Digital Presence is important and how people connect with each other using various platforms. Digital marketing is also an essential part of the New Tech Digital Age, which allows millions of people to sell their services or physical products digitally from sites like amazon.com or Udemy, Upwork, and Fivver, where in this Unpredictable world winning your consumer’s hearts are extremely important. And your action and giving them confidence can create an empire of Trust. We have given you all possible information right from what is data to Customer Data Privacy in Digital Marketing. Hope this will help you to achieve success in your path.
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