Balance Personalization and Data Security

Let’s say you are surfing on an online shopping website for purchasing 1kg of apples and if that particular website is offering everything but apples. You will naturally lose interest and leave the site. Accenture survey of 2018 states the same thing- “48% consumer’s poorly curated experience makes them leave a site and make a purchase elsewhere”.

That’s where personalization has a role to play. Who wouldn’t like to get recognized with a unique identity and served with personalized offerings? Personalization offers customers tailored experiences that pins them up with your brand. For that to happen, you need to pursue personalized marketing to gain leverage in a flock of an increasingly competitive marketplace. 

Business Expansion with the help of Personalization

Businesses have to go through rigorous testings on their products before placing them over various marketing channels. However, an effective marketing strategy has a long impact on overall business growth. For instance, let’s assume your company is deploying a personalization approach to marketing. You then need to make sure that you are persuading your target customers by dropping personalized emails, messages, presenting offers suitable for your customer’s unique profile etc. It will give your product necessary exposure, help raise product sales, earn profits and in turn help your business grow. 

Personalization and Data Security

Data security is the biggest concern today, and Gartner’s study is quite evident in this regard. It shows that about 68 percent of customers are doubtful of how marketers will use their data. They are often reluctant to share their data. 

Thus, marketers are compelled to create effective personalized content while making sure that they are preserving their customers’ privacy. There are some legislative measures to protect customers from data breach and related offences. However, businesses need to keep it safe by balancing personalization and data security. Following are the five ways to balance personalization and data security: 

1. Clarify your intentions for using your customers’ data

Make it a custom of your business to inform your customers about how you intend to use their data. It will create an impression that your brand is initiating a transparent deal with your target customers. Subsequently, it saves you from any potential accusations of a data breach by communicating beforehand about your intentions behind using customers’ data.

2. Collect ‘only’ relevant data

With personalization, you need to be mindful of how much’. Always ask what you need and how much you need. For instance, if you are selling a house, you may not need to know about their religious beliefs or political inclinations.

Even if you want to explore ‘hyper-personalization’, make sure you do it deliberately and methodically. 

3. Pay attention to what your customers are conveying

According to Ryan Myers, creative director at Sapper consulting, “if customers dislike something about you, they will let you know”. Therefore, pay attention to what your customer is trying to convey to you. If there is a pattern evident enough to show that customers don’t like the mention of their home address in email marketing, then stop using home addresses next time. 

4. Conduct surveys to gather the necessary information as and when required 

Harvard Business Review suggests that deploying old-fashioned surveys or data collection methods over digital surveillance won’t make your brand outdated. It reduces the feeling of invasiveness amongst your customers and enables even better recommendations. 

5. Keep it to yourself 

When customers trust you and share their valuable data, you become accountable for treating it sacred by keeping it to yourself. Marketers should supervise handling the brand’s data, what is happening to that data, and make sure everything is streamlined in a privacy-compliant way. 

Conclusion 

Businesses can gain a competitive edge by employing a personalization approach with their customers. It saves their valuable time and communicates that they and their unique requirements matter to you. However, it is crucial that you are not over-doing it as there is an issue of data security attached. Thus, you need to maintain a fine balance between personalization and data security to retain customers’ trust and grow your business.