In every industry, it’s easy to fall into the ‘minimum level of acceptable deception’ trap in your marketing, where you look around at your competitors and decide that their minimum level of transparency must be okay, so you can follow suit.
But what about your personal and business values? How can you make better ethical marketing decisions so you can go beyond the minimum and attract your target person to your business? Check out my video to find out more.
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In today’s video, I talk about a key aspect of communication ethics in marketing, which considers the minimum level of deception that you may be tolerating when you communicate with your target person.
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Truth Leads to Trust, which Leads to Loyalty
In any industry, it’s easy to fall into the ‘minimum level of acceptable deception’ trap in your marketing, where you look around and see the level of truth-telling from your competitors and decide that this must be okay – because everyone else is doing it. You might say to yourself, ‘Well, our competitors are saying this, so we’re gonna do it too because otherwise, we’ll lose out on business.’ You can convince yourself that you have no other choice and that you have to live with this minimal level of deception – this low bar of truthfulness in your marketing.
Often, however, this minimum standard becomes the norm, so unfortunately a lot of businesses only end up doing the minimum – they don’t go above and beyond. But the truth is, if you do go above and beyond – if you actively try to do more, be more transparent than your competitors, be more ethical than your competitors – it becomes one of the key reasons that you stand out from your competitors, so it’s kind of a win-win. Not only are you practising your business ethically and practising your marketing ethically, but you end up having more loyal customers as a result!
Understanding Ethical Fading
What do I mean by ethical fading, and why mention it here? It’s actually very similar to what I mean when I’m talking about the minimum levels of deception – essentially, you’re avoiding the moral implications of a choice you’ve made, whether it’s telling a lie, allowing a lie to persist or pretending that misleading someone doesn’t matter. Like the minimum level of deception in marketing, it challenges your ethical values.
If you haven’t already taken a look at my ethical fading video, I highly recommend you do – and then I suggest you listen to the episode of Simon Sinek’s A Bit of Optimism podcast on ethical fading. This is a fascinating topic and starts a conversation that I think needs to surface more often when we consider how to market products and services ethically.
Going Above and Beyond the Minimum
What are the minimum standards that you have for yourself? Make sure that you’re going beyond your minimum and acting in line with your values, whatever your industry and whoever your customers are. I assure you that when you do, you will attract the right people to your business – the people who agree with you and who are aligned with your values – and your business marketing practices will become easier and feel more authentic.
The only thing that you lose on the way may be some of that profit, but do you really want to profit when you’re unhappy? When it’s difficult? When you’re possibly contributing to a worse world?
Putting Your Trust in Ethical Marketing
What are the values that you want to have in your business?
It’s something to think about. I imagine that many of you reading this blog or watching this video are already going well above your minimum, but it’s good to consider because sometimes it’s hard to see. Even though this is something I live and work by, I still have to question myself a lot of the time and ask myself, ‘Am I going beyond my minimum?’
If you’d like some help with exploring how you can go above and beyond to grow an ethical, trustworthy business that attracts loyal customers, please do get in touch – I’d love to help you out.