Protecting data and ensuring its integrity is of paramount importance in marketing. It profoundly influences every aspect of a company's operations, including its basic accounting, affecting everything from the company's financial health to its reputation.
The 5 key reasons are such.
1. Consumer Awareness of Data Privacy: Today, consumers are more aware than ever of their data privacy rights. Businesses are increasingly expected to handle personal information with care. In a recent survey, consumers reported having a high level of trust in only 12% of the businesses with which they interacted.
2. Complex Rules: A network of intricate data protection directives governs how marketers may collect and use personal information. These include the well-known GDPR and CCPA, but there are also a host of other fascinating laws and strict new rules marketers must follow around the world. Failure to comply with these laws can result in substantial fines that can significantly weaken a company's financial position.
3. Accurate Insights: Ensuring marketing data integrity secures the accuracy and consistency of the reliable data you need to drive your business forward. In our performance-oriented world, decisions based on unreliable marketing data cannot only stunt growth but also lead to costly mistakes. Ensuring you collect the correct data begins with a plan and a clear understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish. Let accurate data drive the decision on which KPIs to choose. Poor data leads to wasted marketing budgets on poorly targeted campaigns.
4. The Price of a Breach: The monetary cost of a data breach is substantial and can include legal fees, regulatory fines, and business opportunity costs. Handling a data breach or security lapse can result in swift and lasting brand damage. The amount of negative press can be astounding. Yet the loss of confidence is harder to gauge and takes longer to recover from.
5. Protecting Private Data: Not only does marketing data contain information about customers, but it also encompasses deeply valuable insights into the analytics of campaigns and the company's proprietary strategic methodologies. Data security means protecting this information from the prying eyes of competitors. Safeguarding confidential data puts a big shield up around your brand. By being a trustworthy steward of marketing data, a competitive marketing department can attract and retain customers. Not only because they are already customers, but also because the set of data-driven methodologies that constitute a competitive advantage is rightfully kept secret. And as for the IT department, nothing makes them look bad like a breach of marketing data.