Today’s digital world faces an unprecedented rise in cybercrime with one in three businesses experiencing a data breach in the past year. In addition, of the thousands of new websites set up in the last two years, around 90% of them were linked to cyber scams. 

It is more important than ever for organizations to act quickly and upgrade their digital security, and one key area to focus on is your business’s digital campaigns. Good cyber security has become an absolute essential for digital marketers in 2022, and here, we take a look at why.

Digital Marketing is Critical for Business Growth

In recent years digital marketing has become more important than ever for your business. Globally, there have been seismic shifts in our online activities, and too little time or effort has been allocated to implementing safety policies in offices. With more people shopping online the consumer market has also become increasingly digitized; companies have to ensure that they are putting in the time and money to make their digital marketing efforts a success.

Two direct post-pandemic impacts on digital marketing have come about:

1.  a general move towards remote patterns of working, 
2.  a surge in companies transferring most of their business operations online. 

In the face of our new remote office set-ups, it has become critical to implement safeguarding procedures that can successfully protect widely published and shared content as well as any vulnerable data.

Given the fact cybercrime has never been more dangerous, it is crucial to consider how your staff’s flexible working patterns affect (and threaten) your business’ security on a day-to-day basis.

The same consideration applies to protecting content produced for websites, across technologies that support content strategies, and content published on digital platforms. 

Cyberattacks Can Ruin Your SEO

We often think of cybercrime in terms of its cost to the company. For example, hackers might steal funds directly, or indirectly by defrauding customers, not to mention the cost of putting right the problems that have been caused by the breach. But what can be even more damaging is the fact that cyberattacks can ruin your standing with Google and other search engines.

One key issue is that if you suffer a hack, and Google notices, you may find your business has a“This site may be hacked” message attached to it. This message will naturally put searchers off clicking on your site, and could lead to a significant drop-off in web traffic, especially if your business is reliant on organic search traffic. 

In a world where digital marketing and the value of SEO matter, even more, it’s vital to protect the visibility and success of your business on every search engine results page by adhering to good cybersecurity practices.

Avoid Damage to Your Reputation and Reach 

The immediate consequences of a hack are obvious. But what is less clear is the long-term damage – and much of this comes from the negative publicity that a hack can have on your business. Reputational damage hangs around – hacks often make the news, and customers remember. 

Building up trust is far harder than losing it, and once customers lose faith in your brand it can be extremely challenging to win them over again, even if you have later put in very powerful security measures. In particular, if customers are trusting your website to pay for products and share their personal banking details or private contact details with you, it will prove very hard to win them back again.

Poor Cybersecurity and Data Protection

It is also worth pointing out that cybersecurity is an important issue when it comes to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance as well as other data protection rules and regulations. This can be a major problem beyond the digital marketing department. 

According to Simon Monahan, Product Marketing Director at Redscan: “The consequences of failing to meet GDPR compliance requirements around personal data can be significant.” Indeed, businesses can be fined up to €20 million, or four percent of global turnover – whichever is higher.

Monahan recommends penetration testing as an important part of the solution. “A penetration testing service is a form of an ethical cyber security assessment designed to identify and safely exploit vulnerabilities affecting computer networks, systems, applications and websites”

“All businesses are advised to conduct a penetration test at least once a year, as well as after any significant upgrades or modifications to the company network”.

Cybercrime can be costly in more ways than one. These issues are all important with regard to digital marketing and give your business a strong incentive to invest properly in the protection you need. Cybercrime affects your digital marketing success in many ways. As your marketing efforts have become increasingly important to grow your business in a changing world, so too has it become vital to keep your company secure.