How to Personalize Print Marketing without Compromising Privacy

Protecting personal and confidential information is at the core of many industry regulations. However, personalized data is also vital to creating effective marketing print materials. So what’s a marketer in healthcare, finance, insurance, pharmaceuticals and the like to do? For ease, efficiency, and security, we’d argue there’s no better solution than secure commercial printing with a certified print partner. And we’re going to use this blog to explain why.

What Constitutes “Sensitive Data” in Print Marketing

For marketers, the types of sensitive data they’re most likely to need fall into two categories: Personal Health Information (PHI) and Personal Indentifiable Information (PII). PHI refers to any information related to a patient’s health, healthcare, and healthcare payments. PII is information that can be used to track an individual such as name, birthdate, ID numbers, or phone number. This data is essential for providing meaningful, accurate, and personalized marketing resources, such as:

• Welcome packets
• Enrollment kits
• Loyalty offers
• Newsletters and announcements

However, because it’s protected, it must be implemented appropriately, with adequate security precautions. Failure to do so risks losing trust with clients, reputational damage, and legal repercussions.

Secure Personalization Tactics

Secure commercial printers practice a variety of tactics to ensure the variable personal data you send offsite to them is always protected, tracked, and documented. These tactics include:

• Establishing and maintaining a secure, encrypted file transfer system.
• Access controls limiting and documenting who can access print facilities, print equipment, and printed documents.
• Comprehensive audit trails and production logs that record every time a file or printed product is accessed, altered, or handled.

For a closer look at how in-house and outsourced printing compare when it comes to protecting sensitive data, check out our article, In-House vs. Outsourced Printing: Which Is Safer for Sensitive Data?

Wallace Carlson’s Secure Variable Data Workflow

At Wallace Carlson, all print files are submitted and managed via a 256-bit SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encrypted file management system. This is the same encryption standard implemented by many financial institutions and e-commerce companies. Whenever a file is uploaded, downloaded, accessed, edited, or otherwise interacted with, a record is made. Those records can be pulled and reviewed in the event of a regulatory audit.

We also implement robust physical security protocols including facility access controls, surveillance, and activity monitoring. In short, we take our responsibility for securing our clients’ sensitive print data extremely seriously. To see if we’re the right commercial printer to handle your regulated print marketing needs, reach out to our team today.