Posted by arlene

Because member and customer data are among the most valuable assets your company has, guaranteeing their security and integrity is critical. Customers want to be sure that information about their preferences and behavior will remain private and won’t end up in the wrong hands. If you can’t give your customers that assurance or control who has access to that data, you will severely undermine your customers‘ trust in you. Here are the steps you must follow to properly ensure the security and privacy of your customer data.

1. Develop and post a clear and unambiguous privacy statement. Tell your customers what data you collect about them and how you intend to use it. If you intend to sell or otherwise share the data you are gathering, let them know the circumstances under which their data might be sold or shared and how they can request that they be removed from your database or list.

2. Develop corporate data-use and data-access policies and controls. If a department or division within your organization builds an email marketing data mart and uploads the information to the corporate data warehouse every week, who has access to it and how will it be used? Can other parts of your organization download data from the warehouse and use it as they see fit? Establishing corporatewide policies for data use and information access is extremely important. That’s why it’s critical to define who “owns” a given database and what rights other internal constituents have to the data it contains. Breaches of internal company data use or data access policies can become a potential threat to data security.

3. Perform regular, outside data-use audits. Whether you build an in-house data mart for your email marketing programs or use a service provider to store and manage your customer data, you should perform formal audits to ensure that neither your company nor anyone else uses the data in ways that go against your policies. An independent data audit can be similar to a financial audit. In fact, several of the Big Six accounting firms have already established divisions that perform data-use and data-security audits.

4. Schedule regular white-box and black-box security reviews. Data security reviews help analyze the policies, procedures, and technologies your company has put in place to protect against unauthorized access to your customer data. A white- box security review evaluates access procedures and password change procedures, as well as the hardware and software protections used to secure your data. In a white-box review, the reviewers have access to all the information they need to analyze your security systems. A black-box review, however, is

More like a simulated hacker attack—an attempt to penetrate and compromise your data security by someone who has no knowledge of how your systems are actually configured.

5. Don’t include “access to money” in your marketing data mart. Including “access to money” (i.e., credit card numbers) in your database instantly makes it a target for hackers. If you store this type of information, you’ll need to take an extra series of security precautions such as building robust “fire walls.” Information about what individual customers have purchased is very relevant and should be stored in a customer profile, but none of that information can be used to perform fraudulent transactions. There are very few reasons (if any) why your marketing data mart needs to contain direct access to money.

6. Encrypt data transfers. Encrypting any and all data that is transferred between your systems will ensure that “sniffers” (hacker types who eavesdrop on communications conducted over unsecured connections) won’t be able to pick up any vital customer information.

7. Determine and implement appropriate levels of security. Security is not an absolute term, and different organizations will have different sensitivities to security issues. Some will invest heavily in expensive fire wall technology, while others will consider fairly simple access protection measures. If the data stored in your database is readily accessible and available through public venues, it’s probably a waste of time and energy to design elaborate security measures to protect against unauthorized access. If, on the other hand, your data includes such customer information as email address, personal names and address, purchase history, and credit card numbers, it’s a prime target for hackers and must be protected with a higher level of security, such as establishing a fire wall. Virtual Private Networks (VPN) is yet another security measure that can be used to create a secure (encrypted) network between two remote sites. This is often done to protect sensitive data when it’s being transferred between sites.

Whether you’ve already made your first attempt to communicate with your customers online or are still in the planning stages, it’s not too early to start gathering data and compiling your customer profiles. But remember: How much data you collect is not nearly as important as how good the data is. The information you incorporate in a customer profile will have a major impact on the type of programs you’ll be able to implement and on whether those programs ultimately succeed or fail, so plan ahead and practice full disclosure with your customers from the very first encounter you have with each and every one. The earlier you know what information you need and the more openly you disclose to your customers what kind of data you collect and how you intend to use it, the sooner you’ll be able to achieve the goals and objectives of your Internet direct marketing efforts, and the faster you’ll start reaping the benefits of establishing relationships with your customers.

It is important to think and plan strategically in order to develop successful Internet direct marketing programs.

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