How Consumer Awareness is Shaping the Future of Data-Driven Marketing

We’re a society with preferences. With its evolution into a mega-tech, AI-configured universe, humans have become pickier than their ancestral counterparts. 

The sheer volume of preferences means an incredible range of options. In turn, this provides a resounding opportunity to build a personal brand. 

Data as a Valuable Asset for Marketers

Admittedly, this obsession to position ourselves uniquely in terms of experiences has encouraged mass sharing of data, especially personal data in favor of personalization.  Businesses didn’t take long to notice that; rather they perpetuated this shift to meet their ends. 

Their marketing campaigns now leverage vast amounts of data to customize their offerings. To them, data is the holy grail of entrepreneurial success. And, with the deep-rooted permeation of digitalization, data is the foundation upon which these marketing campaigns are built. 

However, companies understand that this juggernaut pile of data in their servers remains underutilized. 

Quality Concerns

Stats show that only 44 percent of marketers feel confident about the data they have as being high-quality. Interestingly, around 87 percent of the businesses find data being underutilized. Resultantly, they have employed advanced strategic tools including marketing analytics. 

You don’t have to guess it – businesses are all the more eager to extract high-quality, actionable data from consumers! 

But, the question is, whether consumers are now as willing to offer data as they used to.

The Emergence of Consumer Data Privacy

The desire to build a brand is ambitious, but the process may not be as harmless as it appears. Data has become an invaluable asset. This change in perception and sensitivity towards data protection has been steadily increasing. Many factors have contributed to the same.

The pervasiveness of the marketing campaigns cannot be avoided. These personalized marketing campaigns are founded upon the data collected from user activity online including purchase history, demography, and Google searches. Everything you punch on your keypad and onto the screen is registered in the servers for tailor-made marketing campaigns. 

Of course, tailor-made marketing campaigns are primarily meant to create a seamless transactional ecosystem wherein an individual can choose how they wish to build a brand. However, it would be a great disservice to oneself should we not ask whether these choices are free. 

Security Questions

Will the bargain we enter into, the data which we provide, be preserved and protected with as much eagerness as it is sought? It’s a difficult question, made more challenged by the increased attention of global institutions and policy-makers on these issues. Take, for example, GDPR and CCPA. 

Data protection is vital to one’s protection of the right to privacy – a human right under the UDHR. Marketing campaigns are being called out to engage in the mindful collection and preservation of consumers’ data. There is a need to inculcate privacy-friendly personalization in marketing. 

Balancing Personalization and Data Privacy

Over the last decade, consumers have become aware of the insidious dangers of unfiltered dissemination of data for personalized marketing campaigns.

The drive to build a brand should be a sustainable process without compromising the sanctity of your data. Thus, privacy-conscious marketing strategies are warranted, and have appeared.

1. Spell out the Privacy Policy

It is the privacy policy where consumers become acquainted with how businesses will handle and use data. 

Let them know in clear and concise terms how you plan on engaging with data for personalized marketing campaigns including third-party sharing.

2. Offer Choice to Consumers

Consumers find it empowering and credible when businesses extend opt-in/opt-out options including options to update their personal information. 

After all, the data privacy rights of consumers really ought to be determined by those same consumers.  

3. Special Consent for Sensitive Information

Balancing personalization and data privacy involves identifying sensitive information. Information such as health records or credit card details must be obtained explicitly. 

4. Secure Connections for Data Protection

Encryption is a powerful security tool. Any data exchanged between consumers and businesses must be subject to rock-solid encryption to prevent any potential data breach. 

5. Ensure Compliance

Standard compliance with the existing legal frameworks in the country of operation must be secured. 

Should legal protection be inadequate in your country, businesses are advised to align their practices with international standards to maximize consumer experience. 

Conclusion

Global data creation is expected to grow to more than a whopping 180 zettabytes in the next three years. This indicates that marketing campaigns will become larger, more sophisticated, and more targeted, and there will naturally be a greater need to regulate. 

However, the shift in consumer perception of data use in marketing campaigns has necessitated a major transformation in which businesses perceive the role of consumers. 

Today, consumers have conditions. These conditions are rooted in their rights to know whether they can entrust businesses with something as precious as data, the substance of human life.