In today’s experience economy, companies increasingly use data to improve the customer experience and move customers from consideration to purchase. However, consumers are wary of how companies use their personal information. They’ve seen their information exploited for financial and political gain. And while they demand a better experience and understand that data is required to deliver on that promise, they wish to conduct more of their research before contacting sales or offering personal information. According to various studies, more than half of the buying process occurs while visitors remain anonymous.

And then, in 2018, the GDPR became law in Europe. Then the CCPA in 2020, with a significant update in 2023. Privacy laws have only continued to appear around the world since.

Regulators can now impose financial penalties on companies that fail to meet new privacy compliance regulations. But more importantly, due to media coverage about privacy and data breaches, consumers are much savvier. They can end their relationship with companies by not disclosing personal information and withholding consent for email marketing. And they can always stop any further automated nurturing by clicking on a single word: unsubscribe. If customers control access to their personal information, how do you adapt your approach and leverage privacy for growth?

Building Trust Through Compliance

Most organizations today invest substantially to improve the customer experience, increase personalization, and execute cross-channel orchestration. Each requires data to work correctly. In the face of new compliance regulations, the common perception is that less information gathering might occur. But customers who are willing to provide information will give you more precise, detailed data. This trade-off is a vital component of building trust through compliance.

Building a Foundation for Trust

It does not require a significant investment to improve the customer experience by asking for permission at the appropriate time. But you need a flexible framework that ensures you collect the correct information. At a minimum, you need their location to determine jurisdiction, and if consent was granted or not. And don’t forget that each jurisdiction may have dramatically different rules and procedures; your privacy compliance framework must be sufficiently flexible to accommodate those requirements.

Of course, you could make some ad hoc changes to your existing systems, patch them up, and push them out there, creating a minimum-viable privacy solution. This may be your current plan. The problem with this approach is that it’s a time bomb. At the very least, the cost of ownership of your marketing automation solutions will grow as each new legislation requires more and more detailed changes. But in the worst-case scenario, you could lose the opportunity to create deeper trust with your customers.

Privacy Compliance Solutions from 4Thought Marketing

4Thought Marketing offers 4Comply, a privacy compliance API solution that makes it easier to add privacy to your existing applications without building everything from scratch. 4Comply supports consent management and data subject requests and compliance reporting. The whole process is made even more manageable through the 4Comply dashboard. So, in the future, you can accommodate critical changes to legislation through simple administration and not expensive coding. Additionally, our privacy compliance experts are on hand to ensure a smooth transition and answer your marketer’s questions.

To find out more about how you can turn data privacy compliance into enduring customer trust and loyalty, contact our team of experts today.