Jodi Daniels is helping some of your favorite brands to completely transform the way they use and protect your data. Her goal is simple: to help companies keep your data private while still providing you a great user experience. While serving more than twenty-three brands in house to build their privacy programs, she has found that privacy is one of the most important factors for companies looking to build a loyal customer base moving into the next few years. Since launching her own privacy consulting company in 2017, she has served hundreds more clients in the same capacity and built a name for herself as a privacy expert. She is a frequent guest on podcasts, speaks regularly at industry events, and recently released her book Data Reimagined: Building Trust One Byte at a Time – Amazon.com – which achieved bestseller status within the first month of being released. Whether working, speaking, or writing, she is passionate about helping companies and CEOs have the right information to keep their company headed in the right direction in a data centric era. Here are some highlights from her bestselling book.

Data inventory

Imagine a store that didn’t keep inventory of their products. It would be chaos. Keeping track of everything would be extremely difficult, it would be hard to track down items that are misplaced or stolen, and clients would not be happy. The same happens with data. “We worked with one company that had five different CRMs. It was a mess trying to keep up with all of the data they had for their clients and where it was going.” In her book she shares information for understanding how data is collected, used and stored within a company. This information is key in helping companies comply with required privacy laws. “If you don’t know how information is used, it is impossible to comply with privacy regulations.”

Changing data

“When you are able to set up the right system, you can start to utilize your data in a better way.” One of these ways is to set up a system that allows you to change data. One example of this is a new partner purchasing baby furniture. If you buy a crib, the store should know that in a few years, you will need toddler furniture, and then later big kid furniture. Creating a system that allows for this update can help keep a past customer interested instead of annoyed with meaningless marketing. “The company should be able to use the data more intelligently and the consumer should be able to say stop sending my baby information.” Not only does updating information keep your marketing relevant, it also helps build a sense of camaraderie between the business and its customers.

Building trust

One common theme that Jodi noticed while working with some of the corporate brands she managed was that privacy services don’t always seem to align with improving the customer experience. In her book, she emphasizes the importance of making sure to put your customers first – even when meeting the ever changing regulations of privacy laws. “Privacy should be used as a way to improve your customer relationships. It should be made as personal as possible.” The very nature of privacy makes this a difficult objective, but Jodi shares the importance of taking the time and effort to turn privacy practices into a very public activity. “It’s extremely important for clients to trust the businesses they interact with.” In today’s world of instant website profiles, online tracking and ads… it’s actually a big selling point that you take someone’s data privacy seriously. Whether sharing data policies with your clients, creating systems to protect their data, or deleting old information, Daniels insists on the necessity of using data privacy as a way to stand out from the crowd.