3 Tips to Balance Personalization and Privacy in Your Email Marketing

It is the ultimate conundrum: how do you give consumers the online experiences they want in exchange for what they might not want to give away? The delicate balance between preserving consumers’ privacy and crafting personalized messages is tricky. Tip the scale too far, and the customer develops mistrust in your company’s intentions with their information. Too short on the other side, however, and you’re unable to give them the tailored experiences they are looking for.  

Finding your balance between personalized user experiences and privacy will ensure that you side-step these pitfalls and will allow you to craft emails for your audience instead of to them. For instance, don’t send everyone on your email list the same messages. Segment your list so your VIPs feel like VIPs, your leads are enticed to become customers, and your customers become raving fans. 

Carefully craft subject lines to convey your message effectively and quickly. We live in a fast-paced world, and 41% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line alone. People open emails that elicit emotional responses – whether that’s a fear of missing out (FOMO), curiosity, humor, vanity, or even greed. Here are three more tips to strike that delicate balance between personalization and privacy. 

1. Communicate Data Privacy Policies Effectively

The bottom line is consumers are nervous when sharing their personal data. Strict international data privacy laws such as the GDPR or CPRA do little to help if they are ineffectively communicated or challenging to understand (as many are). Data privacy policies presented to the average consumer should be more explicit in their potential impact on users (answering “How, What, Where, When, and Why” questions) and concise in their language. 

Either too lengthy to read (only 13% of adults read a privacy policy before agreeing to it) or reduced to opt-in or out buttons, often without thought to users’ time, needs, and potential experiences, there is little to appeal to the audience. Introducing them to your data-sharing relationship through an effectively-communicated privacy policy leaves consumers comfortable with where their data is going and how you will use it. 

2. Build Trust Through Authenticity

In 2020, 85% of people said they wished there were more companies they could trust with their data. They felt that sharing personal information with companies in exchange for products and services was a “necessary evil” but wanted more options.

Here is the ideal opportunity to align those consumers seeking personalization with an authentic data-sharing experience. How so? Giving consumers control over their data, such as providing a friendly message alongside a visible unsubscribe link, will help engender confidence and trust in your company. Use authentic communication methods to optimize the human side of data privacy protection. To this end, understand how your audience wants to be communicated with, build out your messaging and show them they are more than their data.

3. Create, Test, Evolve

No theory is infallible, and everything is a hypothesis until proven. So, the best practice to developing and employing new email marketing tactics is to test and iterate until you succeed. So often, marketing is regarded as a creative field, but there is so much science behind it. When you run any marketing test, it should follow a scientific approach, from your hypothesis and research to your testing, observations and conclusions. 

So, what elements of your email campaigns should you test? Nearly anything can be a variable in your email tests: audience segments, different sending times and frequencies, subject lines, and more. Testing these elements is the ideal way for finding the balance between tailored messaging and data privacy in your email marketing. Data-driven insights only come from testing, so craft emails, test variables, and evaluate the results to determine your next best steps. 

Optimize Your Customer’s Data Journey With SiteCare

If you’re unsure where to start on your journey of navigating the fine line between honoring customers’ data privacy while trying to deliver personalized experiences, then get in touch with the experts at SiteCare. Our email marketing services help you reach current and prospective customers through newsletters, drip campaigns, and powerful features on an easy-to-use platform. We can also help you optimize and personalize the user experiences on your WordPress sites to create a truly impactful online experience for your targeted audiences.