Why ethical marketing is the way of the future

What is ethical marketing all about and why should your business engage in more ethical marketing practices? Alex Ford provides the answers.

Everywhere you look, there’s a focus on sustainability and ethical practices. Businesses are using more environmentally friendly packaging, or printing less to save paper – but is their marketing ethical?

Ethical marketing is a relatively new concept, and many people aren’t aware that such a thing even exists. But in a time where social media platforms are engaging in questionable practices, and our online worlds are saturated with more and more digital waste, businesses should be scrutinising the impact of their marketing practices

What is ethical marketing?

Ethical marketing encompasses many different things depending on what marketing practices you’re currently using. It covers issues like privacy and data collection, and how transparent your business is with communicating this. It also includes digital waste – by pumping out content piece after content piece and uploading it to the cloud, you’re leaving digital dust everywhere.

When looking at the ethics of your current marketing efforts, it’s essential to note where and with whom you’re spending your money, and to what end. Essentially, ethical marketing comes down to what you value as a business, and whether your marketing practices align with these values – are you really walking your talk?

Given the pervasive nature of social media and digital consumerism, many SMEs think they don’t have any other option. If your customers are in these spaces, won’t you be missing out on valuable engagement and sales?

Not necessarily.

Here are several ways that you can engage in more ethical marketing practices – without losing your audience.

Review your social media platforms

Given that Facebook and TikTok are the least trusted social media platforms in the US, if you want to stick with them, you’ll need to have a pretty good reason.

TikTok has been in the news a lot lately over their unethical data privacy practice. Last year, they went through a class action settlement of $92 million – the result of lawsuits filed mostly on behalf of children, some as young as 6 years old, claiming that TikTok engaged in the “theft of private and personally identifiable TikTok user data.”

Facebook has also had its share of scrutiny, again involving data collection, but also about its notorious algorithm. Worryingly, the more likely a Facebook post is to violate Facebook’s community standards, the more user engagement it receives. This has left the platform rife with hate speech and misinformation, a frustrating result for small businesses struggling to reach their audiences amongst all of this sensationalist content.

There are plenty of other social media options around, and if you want to quit Facebook like we did, the results are better than you’d think!

Reduce your digital waste

Digital waste is still a foreign concept to many, but it exists. We’re not talking about hardware like computers and smartphones, although that is another problem. We’re talking about the data that we generate taking up huge amounts of server space and using up valuable energy resources.

In fact, a report by anti-virus software firm McAfee details that the electricity needed to transmit the trillions of spam emails sent annually is equivalent to the amount required to power over two million homes in the United States – while also producing the same level of greenhouse gas emissions as more than three million cars.

Instead of creating new content every week, try to reuse existing content to reduce your digital waste. It’ll save you time, and help you move forward with a more ethical marketing framework in mind.

Look at traditional marketing methods

Believe it or not, social media advertising isn’t the be-all and end-all. With nearly 3 out of 4 users (74 percent) believing there are too many ads online, it’s time to take it back to basics. Because social platforms are absolutely saturated with content, audiences can get overwhelmed and tune out – especially when 44% of users find the ads to be irrelevant to their needs.

You don’t need to be taking out ads in newspapers or running the same old television commercials – you can get a bit more creative with how you use traditional marketing. Think hitting the streets with samples of your product or experiential installations to disrupt the everyday. People are always looking for new things to share on social media, and you’ll get where you want to be without agonising over ad spend budgets and algorithms.

Alex Ford is the founder and CEO of Socialike. Ethical marketing doesn’t have to be difficult. Socialike was founded to look at digital marketing differently. Founded in 2018, we established ourselves as an ethical marketing agency, aligning our actions with our values and creating a future-focused, sustainable business model. We pride ourselves on helping Kiwi SMEs understand the impacts that their marketing efforts might have, and we’re encouraging them to get on board with making a change. After all, ethical marketing is the way of the future.