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Marketing,
Your Tomorrow, Today
June 14, 2019
Your data is your brand value
Every marketer wants to build trust in their brand, because it fuels the business. But while marketers are increasingly using data to build and measure reputation, they often ignore that in the same way a defective product can undermine their efforts, a data breach can be catastrophic.
Data and The Brand
Customer data is what makes smart, effective marketing possible. It allows us to reach the right people, at the right time, in the right way. It’s the difference between shouting into the wind and having a persuasive, informed conversation. It allows us to measure satisfaction, engagement and ultimately not only what people are buying and when but also how they perceive our brand.
While brand value has many nuanced parts and is scrutinized by marketers, the wider data security is often forgotten. Secure data doesn’t really attract new customers. And data is held by all departments, be it HR or operations or finance.
And when data security is breached, that breach can happen anytime, to any department, to any set of data.
We know the fallout can be devastating. Any sign of unsecure data can sway a purchasing decision from you to your competitor, and a breach can shatter the customer trust and the reputation you’ve spent years building. Your business suffers immediately and the brand could suffer long into the future.
A dip in revenue can mean more pressure on your marketing team to find new business. But it’s now an uphill struggle. Your brand’s perception has changed, and the memory of that data breach can weigh it down for years to come. Damaged trust means fewer leads, conversions, and sales, making data security an issue for both brand and bottom line. And a challenge that requires collaboration.
Mark-IT-ing
Many consider data security the IT team’s concern – and from a technical perspective, it is. But we know that as soon as someone says the word ‘customer’, senior heads turn to the marketing department.
As marketers, we’re on the front line of customer data. We gather it and then use it to inform campaigns, adjust our plans, and measure success. So how can we lead on customer data security?
- Set processes – if every team has its own solutions, the processes for using them and keeping the data secure will be different. Just having an agreed set of best practices in place can cut the chances of a data leak, and
- Non-siloed storage – sales, product, and finance teams store customer data too, likely in their own databases and systems. More storage locations mean more vulnerabilities, so by working with these teams to reviewing all systems, you can help IT to find a secure, central data storage approach.
As the voice of the customer within any business, marketers are best placed to be the stewards of their data. But find out more about how all business leaders are facing the challenges posed by security in our recent report.