4 Tips for Security in Digital Marketing

You invest a lot of time and money in your digital marketing campaigns, making sure that you do everything right. However, even when you’ve chosen the best tools and tactics to reach the right audience, you could lose everything if you don’t follow good security practices.

If you want to know more about security for digital marketing, the following four tips will help.

 

CMS

A content management system (CMS) can simplify content marketing. After all, you need a convenient way to organize, schedule and maintain the content that you publish.

Without a doubt, the most popular CMS in use right now is WordPress. The software commands almost a two-thirds share of the CMS market and powers nearly one-third of all websites.

For this reason, choosing WordPress makes sense, but it also attracts hackers. Fortunately, some security features built into WordPress can make it more secure, so you should learn to use them.

You should also browse the many free and premium plugins that can Harden your WordPress installations. Changing the default log-in page for your CMS can also eliminate many common threats.

Other factors that can improve the security of your CMS include choosing a hosting company that has a good track record for security.

 

Email

Let’s be honest. You wouldn’t use email for marketing if it didn’t get results. Unfortunately, email continues to be a primary target for hackers who want to take over your account to send spam.

Once your domain gets flagged for spam or other abuse, your messages will stop getting through to your recipients.

Increase your security by using an email client that supports encryption. You should always have an encrypted connection between your device and your email provider. Additionally, look for email software that will encrypt the messages that you send as well as your email archives.

Another key aspect of email security, outbound filtering, prevents your systems from spreading viruses and malware. This also prevents SMTP leaks that can give hackers access to your email server.

Within your company, make sure that everyone receives training for the safe use of email systems.

 

Customer Data

It’s a familiar story and it usually goes like this: Customers find out that the company they’ve trusted with their personal information has been hacked. As a result, many become victims of identity theft and other types of fraud. It’s extremely important you know how to prevent that from happening.

Improve your customers’ experiences by making sure your website is secured with SSL technology. This will encrypt the private data sent between your site and your customers’ web browsers and form a basic layer of protection.

Another way to reduce your exposure to data breaches is to minimize the amount of data stored by your company. Consider allowing a third party service provider to process payments, so you don’t have credit card numbers and other sensitive data on your servers.

You can also take a proactive approach to network security. Make sure that you have a professional security audit performed on your business’ network at least once a year.

To reassure your customers, publish your data management policy online. Specify exactly what your company will and will not do with your data. Enforce your policy by requiring training and compliance from all your team members.

 

Social Media

Social networks aren’t the most secure environments in the world. With billions of active daily users, there’s no wonder why so many social media accounts get hijacked and compromised.

Protect your firm by creating a sensible social media policy that requires the use of strong passwords. Your policy should also cover the use of personal social media accounts by your team members.

Training will again play a big role in keeping your social media activities secure. Make sure that your entire staff knows how to recognize spam, phishing attacks and malicious social media add-ons and apps.

Finally, restrict access to company social media profiles by limiting the number of people in your company who have access to valid login credentials.

 

Final Thoughts

As you can see, security and digital marketing have a stronger relationship than you might’ve previously thought. Even if you’re doing something as simple as publishing to your blog, security matters. As you implement the above tips, look for other ways to improve security as you execute marketing campaigns.