Many people view data protection as just compliance and largely ignore the positive impact good data protection practices can have on a company. Why this is the prevalent view is not clear considering that BCG has estimated the value of personal data to be in the region of €1 trillion by 2020. Personal data is after all an asset in its own right, with many people coming to the conclusion that “personal data is the new oil”.
To back this up, I want to share a recent campaign we completed with one of our clients, who will remain nameless but has generously agreed to share the numbers. In this campaign, we considered the 8 rules of the Irish data protection acts and paid particular attention to rule 5 “Accurate and up-to-date”. Largely speaking, the campaign was aiming to ensure that all personal data in the database was accurate.
We identified approximately 17,000 customers to be contacted over 38 separate campaigns. Resulting from this campaign, the number of people who opted-in for marketing increased by 57%, and the number of new sales resulting from this campaign increased by 8%. This is a fantastic result. What we found was that customers appreciated the effort by the company to keep their records up to date and also appreciated the company treating their personal data with care and respect.
I must stress that running campaigns must be structured carefully and with the rights of the data subject fully in mind. Contacting people could result in a breach if not done correctly. So, with that word of warning, what does good data protection look like? It means that you have
- quality data,
- information you need when you need it,
- more repeat customers,
- better marketing campaigns,
- long-term profitability, and
- enabled growth in an ever-increasing digital environment.
In conclusion, this campaign resulted in an increase in data protection capability throughout the company, an increase in marketable individuals who want to hear from the company and an 8% increase in sales resulting from the campaign.
For more on turning compliance into a business advantage see www.privacyengine.io
