However, with this increased use of email marketing comes an increased risk of data breaches and security threats. That’s why it’s essential to take steps to secure data in email marketing. In this article, we’ll provide nine tips to help you do just that.

Tips To Secure Data In Email Marketing

1. Use a Secure Email Service Provider

A secure email service provider offers encryption, spam filtering, virus protection, and other security features to ensure the safe transmission of your emails. Using a secure email service provider can help prevent unauthorized access to your email account, reduce the risk of spam emails, and protect the privacy of your sensitive data.

When choosing a secure email service provider, look for services that offer end-to-end encryption, two-factor authentication, and robust spam and virus filtering.

2. Use Strong Passwords and Two-Factor Authentication

Strong passwords and two-factor authentication are critical to email security. Weak passwords are one of the most common causes of email security breaches, and two-factor authentication can help prevent unauthorized access to your email account.

When creating a strong password, use a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Moreover, two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security by requiring a second form of authentication, such as a verification code sent to your phone.

3. Use a Secure Marketing Automation Platform

When it comes to managing your email marketing campaigns, it’s important to use a secure marketing automation platform. By using a secure platform, you can help ensure that your customer data is protected and that your campaigns are delivered safely and efficiently.

A reliable platform like Mautic offers a variety of security features. For example, it provides authentication options such as DKIM, SPF, and DMARC to help ensure that emails are legitimate and not spoofed or phishing attempts. Mautic provides regular security updates and patches to address known vulnerabilities or threats.

4. Implement Data Access Control Measures

Data access control measures are security measures that restrict access to sensitive data to authorized users only. Examples of data access control measures include passwords, firewalls, and access controls. Implementing data access control measures can help prevent unauthorized access to your email account and sensitive data, reduce the risk of data breaches, and protect the privacy of your customers’ personal information.

To implement data access control measures, you can use tools like role-based access controls, two-factor authentication, and multi-factor authentication.

5. Regularly Back Up Your Data

Data backup involves creating copies of your email data so that you can recover it in case of a data loss event, such as a cyberattack, natural disaster, or hardware failure. Regular data backups can help ensure that you don’t lose important data and can help reduce the impact of a data loss event on your business.

To back up your email data, you can use cloud-based backup solutions, external hard drives, or backup tapes.

6. Use Anti-Malware and Anti-Spam Software

Anti-malware and anti-spam software can help prevent malicious emails and attachments from reaching your inbox. These types of software can also scan incoming emails for potential threats and remove them before they can cause any harm.

Malware is any software designed to harm your computer or steal your personal data. Malware can be hidden in email attachments or links that, when clicked, download the harmful software onto your computer.

Anti-malware software can help detect and remove these threats before they can cause damage. Similarly, anti-spam software can filter out unwanted emails that may contain phishing attempts, which are fraudulent emails designed to trick you into giving away sensitive information such as login credentials.

7. Keep Your Email Software Up to Date

It is important to keep your email software up to date to ensure that you have the latest security patches and updates. This can help protect against known vulnerabilities that can be exploited by cybercriminals. Software updates often contain security patches that address known vulnerabilities and help protect against new threats.

If you fail to install these updates, you are leaving your system open to potential attacks. Cybercriminals are constantly looking for new vulnerabilities to exploit, so keeping your email software up to date is an important aspect of maintaining data security.

8. Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN)

A VPN can help protect your data by encrypting your internet connection and hiding your IP address. This can help prevent cybercriminals from intercepting your emails or accessing your network. VPNs work by creating a secure and encrypted connection between your device and the internet. This helps to keep your online activities private and secure from hackers and other malicious actors.

When you use a VPN, your data is encrypted, and your IP address is hidden, making it more difficult for cybercriminals to intercept your emails or gain access to your network. This is particularly important when using public Wi-Fi networks, which are often unsecured and, therefore, vulnerable to attacks.

9. Conduct Regular Security Audits

Regular security audits can help identify vulnerabilities in your email marketing system and ensure that your security measures are up to date. These audits can also help identify areas for improvement and provide recommendations for enhancing your overall data security posture. Security audits typically involve a thorough review of your email marketing system, including your software, hardware, and policies and procedures.

By conducting regular security audits, you can help ensure that your data security measures are up-to-date and effective in protecting your sensitive information.

Conclusion

Implementing the tips discussed in this article can help secure your data in email marketing and protect your business from cyber threats. From using secure email service providers to conducting regular security audits, each tip plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety and confidentiality of your sensitive information.

By following these best practices, you can improve your overall data security posture and enhance the trust and confidence of your customers. Remember, data security is not only important for compliance but also for building a strong and reliable reputation in the market.

Cecylia Nejman is a writer with a deep focus on tech, security, IT, software. You can read more about secure data at Cybernews.

Undeliverable Email

But is our email marketing campaign being received? So many articles (like this) have been written to help us get our emails where they need to go. Unfortunately reaching the inbox is now more challenging than it has ever been. According to Return Path;

Regardless of the reason, declining inbox placement rates represent a serious concern for marketers. With one out of every five emails failing to land in the inbox, brands are missing out on a full 20% of their opportunities to connect with customers and earn their business.

There are many factors that impact whether our information/offer will get to our intended audience. SendGrid outlines four key components to determine if your email marketing campaign will be delivered. They are;

• Message Infrastructure Health
• Message Content
• Sender History and Filtering
• Receiving System’s Availability

Interestingly enough, you can impact 3/4 of these factors. Can you guess which ones? The only item that is truly out of your control is the receiving system’s availability. All other elements you have the ability to impact or control. It’s not by manipulating spam filters or blasting out 5 times as many emails in one week to gain a better return.

Greater Email Marketing Campaign Returns

So how do we capitalize on the missing 20% and maximize the existing 80%? I’m glad you asked. There are many tactics that will help you achieve this end. But this post is not your typical how-to. I’d like to step back a moment and look at an approach that will guide your email marketing strategy.

The 2015 Deliverability Benchmark Report produced by Return Path, states that the greatest email delivery rate was achieved by industries that relied the heaviest on customer relationships. Think about that for a moment. The greatest returns are not achieved by the best technology, the most creative campaigns, or the highest budget. These results were due to the development of deep customer relationships.

So if the key to getting your email marketing campaign delivered is deep customer relationships, how do we foster them? As we connect with our customers and influence our buyers via email, we must consider the following elements to effectively reach them.

• Trust: We know that all relationships are built on trust. Why is it so difficult to realize? Because trust is developed over time and requires many interactions. It requires patience. Industries like retail, health & beauty and apparel achieve stronger placement because they are typically high-touch environments. Real interactions with real people provide greater levels of trust. If you want to connect with your audience, humanize your interactions. Make it personal. Understand the need in the context of their environment, and deliver value in a meaningful way. John Kottcamp says it best;
  

  Companies that excel at delivering rich, personalized online experiences not only produce more loyal customers but also outperform their competition on the stock market, according to a recent five-year study conducted by Forrester Research. (source: MarketingProfs)

  Personalized means more than tagging a first name in the greeting. It means gaining a deeper understanding of where they have visited, what their interests are, and connecting your value to that information in an authentic, meaningful way.

• Analysis: Developing trust in a relationship is like strengthening a bridge between you and your customer. It starts on shaky ground and then begins to gain strength as you continue to provide value according to their need in the moment. As you interact with your customer, it is important that you never stop listening. Listening or analyzing the feedback they provide in the form of interactions with you and your brand. This requires time and talent. The proper analysis of traffic and customer data will further ensure that you are a trusted provider. Data is a double-edged sword. It can make you a relevant star, or it can make your brand feel disconnected and irrelevant. Which leads us to our final point.
• Relevance: I was at the local coffee shop the other day, chatting with a friend. We were having a discussion about how many vacationers were stopping in. A gentleman overheard our conversation and tried to make a joke, but it turned out to be an awkward moment as we didn’t understand what he was referring to. This was not about his joke, but about the fact that in that moment we could not relate what he was saying to our conversation. This made his joke awkward and irrelevant. The point is, if you want to develop trust with your audience, you must be able to relate to them in the proper context.
  

  “Achieving such personalization requires knowing deep context: not just a customer’s demographic data but also the time and location she accessed content, the search terms she used to find it, the referring site that directed her toward it, and—most important—her behavior before, during, and after consuming it…” (source: John Kottenkamp)

This approach works. Maximizing each email marketing campaign begins with content that builds trust, is built on proper analysis and is relevant to the customer.

Relevancy is the marketer’s secret weapon, and the fastest path to revenue. Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened and marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns. (source: Campaign Source)

In summary, the ability to deliver your email marketing campaign is not based on whether you can sidestep spam filters. It is in your ability to develop trust with your customers. If you can not do this with confidence, take the time you need to develop your marketing and communication strategy with these important elements at the helm.

These recommendations are simply the tip of the iceberg. What are other ways you’ve discovered help your email marketing campaign get delivered? Share them in the comments below!

There is a multitude of evidence pointing to the increased effectiveness of sending personal emails versus a corporate newsletter type of email. But just because you’re sending a personal email does not mean that you have to personally write the email each time. There are plenty of times when you find yourself sending almost the identical email multiple times to different individuals. When you find yourself in one of these situations you should stop and think – is there a better way. The answer is yes. Mautic gives you the power of sending automated (and personal) email messages.

So what does a personal email look like? We’re glad you asked. There used to be the idea that just using a name in the salutation line would be enough to consider your email “personal”. But we believe it’s much more than just how you address someone. Being personal is a number of things and a “Dear John” is only the beginning, in more ways than one.

Personal emails mean they come from you and not your business. This means you should send email not from a generic corporate or organization email address but from a personal address. This is important for several reasons. First, if you send from a personal email address your recipients are far more likely to open your email because it feels like a personal message from you to them. Second, many times your personal address will have an avatar associated with it that will cause your leads to recognize your face in their inbox.

Personal emails are more unique than just the beginning. This means customizations and personalizations should occur throughout the email. Lead fields, product specific information and other unique aspects of each lead should be used throughout the email. Admittedly this is a bit of a fine line as you don’t want to pretend there is a strong relationship with a potential lead when they don’t believe there is. And you certainly don’t want to compromise a potentially good relationship by appearing to impersonal. This takes time and practice.

Personal emails look personal and not like a corporate newsletter. Don’t send emails meant to engage users that look like they are a standard HTML newsletter meant to simply share the latest sales and special offers. You know exactly the type of email we’re talking about. There is certainly a time and a place to send newsletters to your users. Mautic can easily handle sending these types of emails, but when we’re talking about personal emails we are specifically focusing on sending emails to engage leads and lead to further conversations.

This is how Mautic helps you. Mautic lets you create personal emails and have them sent automatically. All the benefits of the personal touches mentioned above but without the significant amount of time it takes for you to send them individually. You can read more about this process on our blog. We hope you found some value in this post and if anything it causes you to think about how you send emails to your leads. Engage your leads and increase your potential sales.