The past five years have seen sweeping privacy laws and compliance regulations enacted around the world to protect both B2C and B2B consumers. Clearly this is good for consumers. But what may not be so obvious is the opportunity privacy and compliance opens up for businesses to better serve their customers.
We operate today in a buyer’s world where expectations are high, choices are plentiful, and people want control of their engagement and process with companies. Done thoughtfully, privacy and compliance is an opportunity to put your buyers in charge by re-thinking your buyer-seller relationship and governance approach. Rather than wait for laws and punitive regulations, businesses should go all in and put global, universal governance and permissioning in place for all interactions, experiences, and data management. It’s a bit of work up front, but it pales in comparison to the thousands of hours and millions of dollars businesses invest chasing governance, pushing away prospects and customers, and risking brand reputation and fines.
The smartest investment is to put a strategy and plan in place, committing to a more modern approach to governing customer privacy and managing data compliance. Here’s what B2B teams can do to be proactive in a buyer-driven world.
1. Set Your Own Global Privacy and Compliance Standards
It all starts by reviewing the privacy laws around the world to understand and document their core requirements. Work with your legal and risk team to understand these requirements and then build your governance strategy based on what you learned. A smart list to start with includes: General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and Consumer Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) in California, and Canada’s CASL.
Use the most stringent regulations as your standard for how you manage customer privacy, document compliance and govern data. Once in place, this becomes your global governance standards that ensures protection for your audiences and protection for your company. A common mistake is trying to manage to dynamic, varying regional laws. In the end, this takes more time and more resources.
A warning: Some marketers, sales pros and executives may become nervous. Even fight this move as your database numbers will likely go down, your marketable audience may at first shrink, and random acts of list and data dumps will be banned. Just remind them in business terms, it’s not about big database numbers — how big your database is, how many emails you send, how many forms get filled out. It’s about the quality. Marketing (and selling) today is about identifying, engaging and developing a trusted relationship with the buyers and audiences that matter to your business.
