Amanda Bohne, Chief Marketing Officer, AppNeta Earning the trust of prospects is the greatest challenge facing marketers today, bar none. Sure, consumer data is abundant given the many channels brands use to interact with their target customers. But this information is also held at a premium, with consumers being more discerning than ever about the brands they do business with and which pieces of data they’re willing to share. While shoving unsolicited content in front of prospects was never a best practice, there’s a “law of large numbers” element that drove many marketers to use that approach anyway. But especially in an age where ad-blockers are becoming more common and we’re bound by increasing regulation, marketers have to get creative about how to earn trust and entice prospects to want to learn more. Getting someone to share their data and opt-in to engage is more valuable now than ever before.For starters, regulations pertaining to data protection and ownership are becoming more and more common across the Globe, adding a legal dimension to how companies access and leverage the data they use to qualify prospects. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for instance, gives citizens of the EU unprecedented ownership over their data, allowing them to restrict certain businesses from accessing it while calling for it’s retrieval (or deletion) when an individual believes their data is being misused. Similarly, the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) gives broad data protections and ownership to users in the Golden State -- a document that many predict will be a model for larger legislation on the national stage. Like GDPR, the CCPA is designed to prohibit businesses from getting greedy with the vast quantities of consumer data they’ve been able to cull in an age where social media and digital commerce, to name just two culprits, have become behemoth data-collection channels in their own right. It’s not all bad news for marketers, however. Instead of looking at these regulations as stifling or limiting, we should view these new mandates as a challenge that encourages us to “up our game” and put ourselves in the shoes of the prospects we’re targeting.Just as real estate is all about “location, location, location,” for marketers, it’s about “relevance, relevance, relevance.” Regardless of whether they’re buying for themselves or on behalf of their businesses, people are more likely to engage with highly relevant brand experiences. By leveraging purposeful and targeted messaging -- as opposed to “spray and pray” broadcasting -- marketers can build trust with the prospects, increasing the likelihood of success and opt-in.

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