Ethical Marketing

 

 

 

 

 

The world of marketing – whether it is marketing in the offline world or marketing online – is more complex than what you might think at first glance. Just as there are ways to effectively market products and services, there is also a right and wrong way to market services and products, from an ethical standpoint.

 

When most people think in terms of ethical marketing, they know that ethics plays into the sales copy that is used to sell the product or service. For example, it is unethical to make claims that are false concerning the product or service, or to make false claims about expected results from the use of a product or service.

 

To get around this issue, as well as many FTC laws, many companies use very fine print to counteract what their marketing message is promising. We’ve all seen it. Consider the weight loss commercials that show peoples before and after pictures. If you zoom in close, you will see that at the bottom of the page or screen, there is very small print that states that these are not average results, and that you may not lose as much weight, in as little time, as the person on the advertisement.

 

Does that small print make this type of marketing anymore ethical? If you ask truly ethical people, they will tell you right away that this small disclaimer does not make the marketing ethical at all. It only serves to make the advertisement legal. There is a difference between breaking the law and being unethical. Can sales be made this way? Absolutely – consider that the weight loss industry is bringing in billions of dollars each year, yet there are still an overwhelming number of people who have tried those products, but are still overweight.

 

The diet companies are raking it in, selling the product with their unethical marketing, and leaving overweight people disappointed, feeling like failures, and in many cases physically harmed in the process. They are making money at the true expense of others, in terms of money, emotions, mental health, and physical health.

 

So, the question is, do you want to make sales in this way? Hopefully, you have a strong moral code that won’t allow you to do this type of marketing. Hopefully, you are only willing to include information in your advertisements that is true and proven, without all of the hype, or using examples that are well above the average results. This is what ethical marketing is. It is the ability to market a product, and still make sales, without false promises or hype.

 

While using true and accurate sales copy is essential to ethical marketing, there are also other forms of unethical marketing, such as sending spam email, spam faxes, or spam text messages, which is becoming the newest thing in unethical marketing. It is also unethical to trick people into giving you their information, or to trick them into spending more money than they originally intended to spend during the ordering process. For the most part, when you are trying to ensure that you are using ethical marketing practices, simply avoid doing anything that you wouldn’t want another company to do to you as a customer. If you adhere to that one rule, and look at things from a customers point of view, you won’t have to worry whether or not your marketing is ethical.

 

Related Articles:

 

Ethics in Network Marketing

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more information on the author and how we can help you build a respectable and profitable business, contact:

 

To Your Success

 

 

Jed A. Reay

 

Jed A. Reay

Managing Partner of 5 Star Success Team

800-863-4592 Option #1

www.jedreay.com

www.jedthecommunicator.com

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