Email Marketing: What You NEED to Know after the Epsilon Debacle

The Email Marketing breech has been all over the news. It seems like many of our favorite brands were the victims of this egregious hacking of what might be one of the largest “vaults” of opted in email addresses.

In the marketing world, email marketing is more important than ever before. More and more consumers are using email as a major form of communication, task management, social media access and storage for coupons. Even with all the talk about social media in the blogi-sphere (and twitter-verse) it is still impossible to escape the fact that more people use email than any other medium for digital communication and sharing content (according to Read Write Web). The truth is, you can’t create your account without an email anyway.

So what does the tyrant that hacked Epsilon‘s client databases have access to? How can you protect your company from being subject to the same kind of breech?

For the most part, they only have access to what your customers might now give them. The biggest threat is the criminal mind blasting the lists using the identity of the client to gain information that they don’t have. Of the several large companies that have been affected, several are banks and financial institutions, including JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Capital One and others. If you’re bank sent you a message prompting you to log in, many consumers would click and log in without even thinking to verify it is not a phishing site. The same kind of danger is with posing e-commerce sites, but what can you do to help ensure your customers aren’t affected? Here are some practices from the marketing point of view that will also protect your customers from being fraudulent damage.

1. Unique design and practices. It’s well designed email that generates high response rates, but it’s also a branding effort. If you are consistently building your brand with a unique format, and design presentation, something that deviates from this will trigger a red flag for your customers.

2. Trust reputable and knowledgable marketing providers. Let’s be fair, Epsilon is one of the worlds leading providers. They are definitely knowledgable. This only alerts us to the fact that it is important to protect your sensitive information, and make sure it is in the hands of professionals who know the ins and outs, and how to respond in the rare case of a crisis.

3. Reassure your customers that you value the relationship. Inevitably, people will be more protective of their email after a news story like this. Perhaps the most important thing marketers need to be aware of is that the standard for the level of trust needed to gain a direct marketing relationship is likely higher. Show this trustworthiness in your marketing practices. Don’t share your list from one division to another, allow customers the opportunity to opt in or out, and use the best resources for protecting that information.

We (At Indianapolis Marketing Company redwall LIVE) believe permission based marketing is more valuable and important than any other form. It’s important to protect this model especially when dealing with people’s personal information.

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redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that Provides Campaigns Strategies and Tools for Successful Marketing.