These days, ethical marketing is critical to implement for the good of your customers and data. GDPR affects us all so as digital businesses we need to make sure we are doing our due diligence to provide accurate marketing effects, so they do not overinflate the benefits of our products. For marketers who are ethical in their marketing efforts they will benefit from increased consumer trust, often being happier to have their Contact data sync stored and communicated too via a variety of digital channels.
Business Morality
Ethical marketing is coming from a place of morality. They are for those that see injustices in the world and want to correct them. They often develop their entire business model to facilitate this. Building on ideas that companies have a social responsibility to give back the communities they work with or other vulnerable communities throughout the world they care about and want to support.
If you care about a cause, you can do the great work that you do and help those that are less fortunate then yourselves. This can have a massive positive effect on employees and customers that interact with your brand.
This is because they will feel a sense of purpose when going about their daily tasks for your business. Nothing unifies more then a common cause, so use that to your advantage. Set an ambitious target for the company to hit letting them know that they will be rewarded and so will the causes they care about.
Company PR
Businesses that focus on supporting those that are less fortune get an instant PR boost. It can also help streamline marketing communications because you can unite your brand around supporting your group. Many companies who use this model often commit to protecting consumer data and privacy alongside the cause.
You need to be morally consistent with your PR or your messages could be undermined by bad press surrounding inappropriate use of consumer data. Data is a valuable asset so make sure that you protect your customers. If you do end up making a mistake though, your consumers will respect you more if you are up front with them about your errors. Nothing frustrates consumers more then being treated like children so do not patronize your audience with lies.
Systematic Responsibility
There is a level of social responsibility that many companies need to exert to maintain the positive relationships with their business partners and the greater public at large. If your production process starts out creating significant plastic waste for instance, be sure that you do your best to change to bio-degradable plastic that does not clog up the world’s oceans for as long.
Coming back to the idea of transparency, an informed consumer will hate it if you are purposefully misleading with your adverts about bio-degradable materials as well. If you go from using plastics that take 100 years to plastics that degrades in 60 years, that is not a huge difference. Consumers will pick up on that and take fault with your company. Damaging your company’s moral mission.
To conclude, whether you believe that business’ have a moral obligation to their consumers to implement honest, greener, polices is up for debate. But if you do decide to go down that road make sure you are consistent and make full use of it in your marketing material. Exaggerating your involvement with causes could cause you more issues though so tread lightly.
