Whether you’re in business online, offline or both, sticking to ethical marketing practices will benefit not only your customers, but also the long term health of your business.

Consumers like to believe they are supporting ethical businesses and they don’t want to be taken advantage of. If your business does cross the line you can expect some backlash. That backlash might come in the form of increased customer complaints right through to a full blown protest with negative International media coverage.

What your particular customer base considers to be ethical or not will depend on what others believe in their community, the particular culture they’re living in as well as their religious beliefs and the beliefs that have impacted them from their immediate family.

If you’d like to take a strong stance and treat your customers well the first thing to do is understand that people aren’t credit card numbers, they’re human beings with hopes and aspirations just like you. Treating them like they’re a number, as if in the scheme of things they don’t matter too much, will not help your business grow, indeed it could lead to failure.

As a minimum your everyday marketing practices should be ethical, such as representing your products and service without exaggeration, avoid using misleading headlines, do not force your customers into an auto recurring billing plan without them noticing etc.

The Good News

The good news is that if you are ethical in your marketing practices you can extend that to other areas of your business and tell your customers about it! This is truly a way to capture hearts and make your customers feel good about buying from you. Of course it goes without saying that you only shine a light on that which is truly deserving. It’s no good stating that your business uses green energy only to be found out later that a tiny 1% of your energy comes from green sources!

Here are four things you can do now to incorporate an ethical marketing action plan into your business:

1. Determine what you and your customers would consider to be ethical, keeping in mind those things mentioned above: culture, religion, community, family etc.

2. Decide on the most critical aspects of your business where ethical practices could come into play: energy, staff, supply chain, paper, ad copy, sales page copy, disclaimers, pricing etc.

3. Focus on your top three areas and devise action plans around implementation. For example, if your disclaimers are not up to date and your continuity billing programs are somewhat veiled, then draw up plans for what changes need to occur and how they will happen and of course by when they will happen.

4. Create a marketing plan that will leverage the fact your business is ethical. How can you inform your customers and potential customers that you adhere to ethical policy across your business? How can your customers benefit from your stance? Is it by way of a positive association? Is it by way of them now being able to buy fair trade coffee from your store, or is it by way of them knowing they can trust your business now that all your disclaimers etc are up to date?

There are a great number of ways that a business can go wrong when it comes to doing what’s right and wrong. Keep the following areas in mind and ensure your business doesn’t take part in or inadvertently support anything unethical: child labor, marketing inappropriately to children, exaggerated claims, targeting people who are vulnerable (sick, poor, desperate) with highly emotive and fearful tactics, pressuring suppliers in terms of cost, false scarcity and pressurized selling.

It’s About What’s Right and Wrong

Ethical marketing is about right and wrong. The society in which we live will more often than not hold a general view of what constitutes right and wrong, if you work within those boundaries you will stand out from your competitors and gain more loyalty and praise from your customers.

Do the right thing and your business will be rewarded.