Modern digital marketers already have a lot on their plates – from creating a strong content strategy to crafting persuasive copy and optimizing conversions, there’s so much that demands their attention. A sound digital marketing strategy will incorporate a blend of content marketing, social media, email marketing, and strengthening customer relationships, among other things. But apart from this, there’s another thing that commands your consideration – cybersecurity.
Neglecting cybersecurity can gravely cripple your business, and more importantly, your customers’ sensitive personal data. And so, in this post, let’s learn some basic cybersecurity steps you must take in the various areas of your digital marketing strategy.
1. Social Media Marketing: While it is essential to keep all your security software, tools, and plugins up-to-date, most data breaches occur because of human lapses. Downloads from dubious websites, weak passwords, and shared credentials are some common reasons for security breaches. In particular, one important marketing channel that needs your extra attention is social media.
Information informally shared over say, Twitter or Facebook, is effectively an open invitation to hackers. Once compromised, your business account can be used to share hateful posts or sensitive information that will shatter your business’s online reputation.
Establish a firm policy for your company’s social media accounts that permits only a select few people to access social profiles. Then, tutor them on how to minimize these risks.
2. Email Marketing: A common hacker tactic is to hack into one of your email accounts and then use it to send spam emails, which involves scam or malware-infected emails. Most ISPs and servers have set up spam filters to distinguish and block spammers based on the IP address.
In essence, hackers want to hunt down your site’s legit email address to do their dirty work while staying under the radar.
If this happens, your website could be blacklisted and blocked by hundreds of servers. This can cripple your email marketing campaigns. Even if you correct the problem, users are very likely to desert your business once you’ve been known to be compromised.
Use software that will allow monitoring and security for all your email communication through encryption. It’s smart for all marketers to be trained in adopting safe email practices in their communications.
3. Content Marketing: Most companies use a Content Management System (CMS) to simplify their blogging and content marketing requirements. As you can guess, the majority of these businesses use WordPress.
It enables you to easily upload, edit, and publish new content like blog posts. However, as the most popular CMS, WordPress is also one of the most common targets for hackers. If hackers break into your site, they can steal sensitive business information and spread malware to your site users. This, in turn, can blemish your business’s credibility. So, if you’re using WordPress or any other popular CMS, it’s crucial to integrate security features. Install the security plugins and frequently update all plugins without fail to ward off most threats.
Moreover, use a strong password (a combination of alphanumeric and special characters) for your CMS and if you’re on WordPress, see to it that you edit the default login URL (ending in /wp-admin). Also, refrain from accessing your CMS from public Wi-Fi networks, such as from airports or your local coffee shop, which are not secure as the data you send or receive is not encrypted.
This means that cybercriminals can easily extract your password and compromise your website. If you have to use a public Wi-Fi network, make sure to use a VPN on your device.
4. Customer Relationship Management: Developing solid relations with your customers is all about establishing trust. Install SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocols on your website. This will ensure that sensitive consumer information is not saved or transferred in plain text format but is encrypted instead.
This is particularly important for online businesses such as e-commerce or drop shipping websites where consumers need to input a lot of personal data. Additionally, you should also never save customer data that isn’t needed and erase any data which is no longer helpful for your business. Put in place and practice strict data security policies for your marketing team.
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