Privacy…Respect It While Marketing to Your Target Audience

written by Kurt Seiber

As a new member to the DMAW, I found the keynote address at the annual to be very relevant and eye-opening. Mark Rasch – Director of Cybersecurity and Privacy Consulting with CSC – gave an awesome presentation!

Obviously privacy is always a concern. When you couple that with today’s advanced communications and technology available at our fingertips with smart phones, it becomes even more important to respect privacy.

In conversation at the networking reception, someone mentioned a statistic that there are over 300 million active mobile subscribers in the USA alone. Mobile phones are a very personal device. Technology with location based services, facial recognition, near field communication and a new technology called FootPath used in malls to track a shopper’s activity allows retailers to ping your cell phone with coupons as well as gather data about you.

My biggest take-away from this presentation was the opportunity the mobile channel offers direct marketers, non-profits and retailers to reach their target. The challenge is respecting privacy while at the same time making sure your message is relevant.

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Kurt Seiber is Director of Business Development and Packaging Consultant at MOSAIC.  He can be reached at ksieber@theMOSAICteam.com.