Consumer Data – How To Collect It And Protect It

Consumer data is used for many things and there are some good reasons that businesses collect this data. This type of information helps businesses target the people that will be most interested in them, and it helps them to give consumers what they need or want.

Social media sites like Facebook use consumer data collected from your computer’s search engine, and what you look at on their website, to determine what ads you’ll see when you sign into your account. Whatever your reason for collecting and using consumer data, it’s important to know the strategies for collecting it.

Protecting Consumer Data

When you are collecting information from customers, it is very important that you protect that info. While it’s not likely you are going to be asking for anyone’s social security number, you do want to take precautions to make sure that everyone’s information is protected from hackers.

If someone is purchasing items from your website, you put up security to protect them so that someone else doesn’t steal their identity. You need that same amount of protection for the survey info and any other information you are getting from them. People tend to value their privacy and will be more likely to respond to your request for data if they know that their personal information is protected.

That means having a data security system, like network software from Trend Micro, set in place to ensure no hackers or viruses attack that info. Along with advanced security, you also want to make sure that you are doing regular checks for viruses and malware. Early detection is the best way to protect your customers if a breach does happen.

Do what you can to learn about your customers so that you can offer them the best in services and products, but make sure that you are also doing all you can to protect them and your own website as well. Protection means not only securing your website and all of their information, but also checking your system often to make sure nothing has gotten in that could be a threat to that private information.

Collecting Consumer Data

If you want to make sure that you are offering the right advertising to your viewers, you’ll need to collect data from them so that you can find out their interests, hobbies and buying habits. How do you do that?

Start with requesting feedback from your customers. Request that they write up a testimonial to your services that they have enjoyed, or leave them a space to put feedback when they purchase from you or use your website.
You can also set up surveys that can be automatically emailed to people when they visit your site, sign up for your newsletter, or make a purchase. Surveys can be varying lengths, but make sure you leave them with open-ended questions to get the most diverse information.

You can also simply use the activity from your site’s analytics. You can also do something as diverse as setting up a usability test to see exactly what parts of your site visitors are attracted to. By spending more time on so that area, you can use it as a template to make your whole website attractive.