The Right to be Personal: Getting it Right for Consumers and for Business

The evolving legislative landscape and consumer behaviour and expectation can appear challenging to marketers. The last decade has seen a proliferation of mobile, social and digital channels, changing the way customers interact with brands, even in physical channels. Personal information supports customer engagement whether it is for buying, service or marketing and it can be captured from all of these transactions, interactions, reviews, shares and the like. To build a value-driving personal information asset means entering a data-value exchange with consumers, but one where there is a careful balance struck between what the company intends to do with that data and what its customers expect to happen.

The Right to be Personal

Marketers who see the opportunities presented by GDPR and meet – or even exceed – the requirements of GDPR earn this right for themselves. That means having the permission and trust from individuals to demonstrate across all of a brand’s marketing and interactions that it knows, understands and positively engages with consumers and their needs. The benefits to brands of getting this right are powerful – return on investment is 30% higher for companies who use data and analytics to personalise their marketing and customer engagement (source: SAS and Forrester Research). Brands can earn the right to be personal if they are clear in the way they recognise, identify, understand, interact with and reward their customers.