One of the most important aspects in business today is having and collecting accurate customer data. This data can help a business better understand their audience to make predictions about how to effectively reach them and what channel to reach them through. However, it is important that the business is practicing good data generating habits that focus on compliance with data protection laws. Before a company can collect, use, and generate revenue from lists, they need to take the proper precautions to avoid legal fines and penalties. Use these tips to comply with data protection laws.
1. Prioritize security
According to IBM, the global average cost of a data breach was found to be $4.24 million in 2021, which is up 10% from the previous year of $3.86 million. For smaller to medium sized companies, the average cost of a data breach is $120,000 per incident.
To avoid the costs associated with a data breach and to protect the personal data of your customer, it is paramount to invest in proper security systems with employee training on data privacy best practices.
2. Exercise ethical data collection
In order to ethically collect consumer data, you must be upfront and transparent about what you plan to do with their data, give an option for the customer to choose what information they would like to share, and offer a clear privacy policy. Implementing these three things will help your business to ethically collect information while maintaining compliance with data protection laws.
3. Collect only the data you need
Approximately 60% to 73% of customer information collected by organizations is unused during the analysis process. Collecting too much data can result in what is referred to as information overload. Information overload is a state of being overwhelmed by too much data, making it difficult to sort and validate which aspects of the data are specifically important. The downside to collecting too much data is that it makes it difficult for management to make effective, informed decisions. It is generally a good practice for businesses to decide the following:
- What information to prioritize
- How the information aligns with business objectives
- How the data will be analyzed
- How this data can help improve the business
4. Back up all data
Your customer data list is one of the most important assets to a business and losing it to some sort of disaster would prove to be a waste of both time and resources that went into acquiring the data. This is why your business needs to invest in an effective and reliable backup and disaster recovery plan that stores your data for you in the event of a cyber attack, natural disaster, IT failure, etc. Investing in this service will offer you the peace of mind in knowing that all your data is being backed up and can be reached quickly in the event of a disaster.
5. Update customer data regularly
Outdated or incorrect information such as wrong email, phone number, address, name, and job title can prevent your business from further developing relationships and can prove to be inefficient in day to day operations. For this reason, it is necessary to go through and scrub your list regularly to validate that the information is up to date. Sometimes people change jobs, move locations, and get new numbers or emails and it is necessary to update that contact information.
Having valid customer data that you can analyze will greatly benefit your company’s overall marketing strategy. If you are in need of an IT company/solution that can protect, monitor, and maintain your data, then give us a call today or click here to get in touch.
