One of the foundations of building a marketing automation program is populating your database of prospects, leads, and clients. However, many industries have regulations in place that restrict the methods by which you can contact individuals, particularly based on personally identifiable information (PII), such personal health information (PHI) in the healthcare industry.
These regulations vary by industry, but in the healthcare example, they’re established by the federal government by way of the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
There are several tactics you have at your disposal, however, to build a richly populated lead database without inadvertently compromising PII.
Start with Your Loyal Followers
If you currently communicate with your business partners or market consumers who have agreed to consume your content via email, social media, etc., you already have a baseline lead database for which your marketing automation naturally lends itself. Once you start automating your content and assets, include messaging that encourages peer-to-peer sharing between business leaders and the consumers you most want to reach. The best way to encourage peer-to-peer sharing is to provide authentic, original content that your loyal followers will naturally want to send to others—and drive net new opt-ins that automatically populate your growing lead database.
