With the fact that marketing is becoming predominantly digital, email in particular has become a huge driver to generate more leads, conversions and ultimately sales.
It stands on other distribution channels such as affiliate marketing, SEO and even social media. In fact, email marketing has been found to be the favorite channel of most marketers in a survey conducted by Gigaom.
While it may be easy to simply click and send a bunch of emails, at least we’re worried about a full inbox. Email is considered to be one of the most valuable online distribution channels, but it is also the least secure. With the user’s personal information at stake, email channels must be protected at all costs.
Lastly, not only ensure that your marketing campaigns are effective, but also protect your brand’s reputation and help your customers, past, present or future, from fraud and cyber-attack email marketing.
Email Marketing and the important role of information security
What is phishing email?
Phishing is a major threat to marketers because it can directly affect marketing efforts and return on investment (ROI) significantly.
According to the Venture Beat, for every $ 1 spent on email marketing, there is $ 38 ROI (some even believe this number goes up to $ 42).
So, what exactly is a scam?
There are many fraudulent variations but most of them follow the same pattern.
Phishing works via electronic communication, often via email, in which the sender imitates a trusted entity by using social engineering tactics to convince the recipient that they are legitimate and vice versa, get personal or financial information for malicious purposes. It is not just a financial loss; Phishing also affects your company’s brand and reputation.
A major drawback with email scams is that anyone can encounter them.
Social engineering has come a long way and even top CEOs fall victim to phishing emails (this particular type is called “whaling”). Today, businesses are increasingly seeing more malicious emails flooding their inboxes. Symantec statistics show a disturbing fact: one of 131 emails in 2016 contained malware.
Phishing is an extremely successful tactic for hackers to get what they want, and marketers should be more cautious. Phishing emails have a huge impact on email marketing campaigns, so it’s important to know the warning signs.
Here are some warning signs to look for when identifying potential phishing or fraudulent emails:
- Lots of lexical and grammatical errors: We are all human and make mistakes, but when an email has spelling and grammatical errors, there is a reason to be suspicious of because a trusted entity and professional rarely makes blatant spelling errors.
- Check for any personal lack: If an email is sent directly to a person, a vague greeting without a specific name or title also asks for suspicion.
- Urgent issues: If the email message appears to promote a sense of urgency or is flagged as “of high importance”. If that happens, the email may be forged. Pay special attention to emails that ask for an “at your earliest convenience” answer and call for specific actions, such as online information verification. Usually, emergencies are handled by phone, so when in doubt, check another form of communication.
- False Hyperlink: Hackers often hide malicious links in hypertext within the content of emails. Before clicking, hover over the destination address. If there is a mismatch between the text and the web URL, it is likely that the email is trying to redirect you to a malicious website.
- Request personal information. If you are required to provide personal information or are required to verify your identity by clicking on the link, be alert. For example, banks will never ask you for personal information via email. It only takes a second to verify the link before you continue to click or download the attachment and that can help you avoid the overwhelming burden and consequences that come with phishing attacks.
Best information security practices
Learning how to uncover contradictions and suspicious content in emails is a useful skill for anyone, but for marketers, sharing this type of information with customers can make a big difference on the effectiveness of the campaign.
Besides, regardless of campaign success, you should find ways to build customer trust by keeping your customers safe from cyber-attacks originating from email.
Therefore, we recommend the following methods:
- Ask the recipient to add you to their address list. Before you start your email marketing campaign, ask your recipients to add your mailing address to their contact list so that your campaign emails are not moved to spam or spam folders. Doing this also means that the recipient will see a warning if a fake email (which appears to be coming to your company) appears in their inbox because the sender who is not in their address book will be pinned. flag.
- Verify your email. Validating your email is a great way to prevent phishing attacks even before they reach your customer’s inbox. This is possible because email authentication ensures that the sending server has the right to use the domain name listed in the header of the message in the first place, thus “verifying” the sender’s legitimacy. As a result, email authentication acts as a security tool.
- Add disclaimers: Adding disclaimers at the end of your email and reminding customers that you will never ask for financial and other sensitive information via email can help recipients detect red flags in Fake emails in the future if they receive them. Even if you have an email authentication in place, the difference in a letter can trick the recipient because they believe they received a legitimate email from you.
- Create general security awareness. We have shared our own tips for detecting phishing emails, but reminding your customers about these warning signs is also beneficial for your campaign. Besides just including the disclaimer at the end of your email, launching a short online security campaign can reap long-term benefits.
Email marketing is a powerful and responsible tool from marketers.
Before you start your email marketing campaign, putting importance on security is the first step you should take to ensure your email reaches your customers with the right impact. Taking some basic measures to protect your customers from email-based website attacks also means that you can focus on other aspects of the campaign, knowing its success will not. hampered by spam filters and your email is mistaken for phishing emails.
How does the level of security affect your campaign? Is it positive or negative? Share it in our comments below!