In a world of big data, information for sale, and people oversharing on social media, this past decade has lulled many marketers into believing in a post-privacy era of virtually unfettered access to consumer and prospect data.

Even consumers themselves share this perception: according to an Accenture survey, 80% of consumers between the ages of 20 and 40 feel that total digital privacy is a thing of the past. But today this Wild West scenario is becoming increasingly regulated, with growing constraints on the acquisition and use of people’s personal data. Directives such as the European Union’s GDPR and ePrivacy regulations, along with other initiatives around the globe, are ushering in a new landscape of privacy protections.

Much has been written about how to comply with these new regulations and avoid penalties, on this blog and elsewhere. But this new environment is also a marketing opportunity for savvy organizations. Here, we examine some specific ways you can position yourself to grow in a changing world of privacy.

Leverage Data Quality With These Five Key Marketing Strategies

Be transparent. In their 2018 State of the Connected Customer survey, Salesforce.com found that 86% of customers would be more likely to trust companies with their information if they explain how it will provide them with a better experience.

Offer value. The Accenture survey mentioned above notes that over 60% of customers feel that getting relevant offers is more important than keeping their online activity private, with nearly half saying that they would not mind companies tracking their buying behavior if this led to more relevant offers.

Give customers what they want. According to European CRM firm SuperOffice, the post-GDPR world represents an opportunity to create segmented customer lists, through techniques such as separate website pop-ups for different areas of interest and content marketing via social media.

Look at the entire customer life cycle. Many firms offer a one-time free incentive, such as a report or webinar, in exchange for contact data and marketing permission. However, this can lead to fraudulent information being offered to get the goodie (we can help with that), or even a real but never-checked “wastebasket” email address. Instead, consider offering a regular stream of high-value information that keeps customers connected with your brand.

Change your perspective. This is perhaps the most important strategy of all: start looking at your customers as partners instead of prospects. Recent regulations are, at their root, a response to interruptive marketing strategies that revolve around bugging the many to sell to the few. Instead, focus on cultivating high-value client relationships with people who want products and services you offer.

More Consumer Privacy Can be a Good Thing

Whether businesses are ready or not, they are increasingly facing a world of marketing to smaller prospect lists of people who choose to hear from them for specific purposes, starting with Europe and spreading elsewhere. But this can be a good thing, and indeed a market opportunity. By changing your selling focus from a numbers game to one of deeper and mutually beneficial customer relationships, you can potentially gain more loyal customers and lower marketing expenses. In the process, this new era of consumer privacy could possibly end up being one of the best things that happen to your business.

Protecting your customers’ privacy and creating a mutually beneficial relationship starts with having the most genuine, accurate and up-to-date data for your contacts.  Download our white paper, Marketing with Bad Contact Data, to learn more about how quickly customer data ages and the impact on your business.

Once upon a time data was just … data. Today it has become a strategic asset for most organizations, underpinning areas such as market analysis, strategic planning, product targeting and segmentation, and much more. The Economist goes so far as to declare data the world’s most valuable resource, much like oil was a century ago. As a result, organizations are increasingly making its oversight part of their executive suites.

Among C-level executives, the Chief Data Officer (CDO) is still the new kid on the block. As recently as 2012 NewVantage Partners found that only 12% of Fortune 1000 firms surveyed had a formal CDO role, while today this figure has risen to over 63%. And by 2019 this figure is expected to rise to 90%, according to this article from Visual Capitalist.

The Chief Data Officer of 2018: Rapid growth and role confusion

Figures from Visual Capitalist paint a striking picture of how quickly the CDO role has grown in larger organizations:

• The vast majority (83%) have a tenure of less than three years.
• Their budgets have increased by 23% in 2017 alone.
• Their numbers in large organizations have increased from 15 in 2010 to over 4000 in 2017.

On the other hand, like any new function where management roles are scrambling to catch up with technology, the exact functions of a CDO are still evolving. Here are some enlightening statistics from the latest NewVantage survey:

• Change agent or company man? Respondents are split on this, with roughly one-third believing that the CDO should be a change agent from the outside, and another third feeling that he or she should be a company veteran and insider who understands the culture.
• Only 39.4% of companies view the CDO as having primary responsibility for data strategy and results. The rest point to other executive functions for this, with 23.9% even acknowledging no single point of accountability.
• Respondents are evenly split 50/50 on the question of whether a CDO should sit on a company’s executive committee, with 22.6% believing this person must be a data scientist or technologist, and half as many (11.3%) feeling this person must have business line experience in generating revenue.
• There is still a very clear split on how people see a CDO’s responsibilities, between either developing a company’s data and analytics strategy (44.4%), coordinating data initiatives (26.7%), or leading them (20%). However, over 90% believe that the CDO should play a leadership role in these initiatives.

Looking to the longer term, while 12.9% of people feel that the CDO’s role should be temporary or even unnecessary, trends seem to indicate otherwise – particularly in Europe, where the recently-implemented General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) mandates the creation of a formal Data Protection Officer for all public sector firms, as well as private ones with significant responsibility for handling large-scale private or sensitive consumer data. And this mandate is backed up with potential fines as high as €10 million euros or 2 per cent of annual turnover.

The future of the CDO: From data quality to revenue?

Perhaps the most interesting trend to watch from here might be whether CDOs become entrusted with more revenue responsibility. Currently only 2.2% see this as their primary responsibility, according to NewVantage CEO Randy Bean in Forbes. But analogous to how customer support has evolved from being the “complaint department” to becoming the strategic voice of the customer, particularly in the CRM era, we share a growing view that the strategic and revenue roles of managing data will continue to increase. Today’s CDO may focus on policies, procedures and data quality, while tomorrow’s may also be tasked with mining more profitability from these assets.

In the meantime, data has clearly found its way into the executive suite. Every indication so far is that it is here to stay. And for us at Service Objects, it has been a very exciting time indeed to be in the data quality business.