| Good morning, Marketer, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. That’s an old truism, but it gains new meaning when it comes to privacy and data-driven marketing. The customers you know, you’ve built a relationship with them. They’ve contacted you for advice about a product or problem to solve. You’ve followed up with a message when it came in handy for them. You’ve become a trusted source, and they feel like you know them. You’ve personalized, but without being too creepy or out of left field. For customers lower on this ideal spectrum, you might have their data in a privacy compliant way. But do they feel like you know them? If they don’t feel that way, it doesn’t matter what you know about them. Because the real actionable data is the data you use to build value in the customer relationship. It also helps to communicate transparently about how you know what you know. Chris Wood,
Editor | 