4 Ethical Considerations for Digital Marketers in 2021

Ways to make sure your digital marketing stays ethical all year round

Although ethics are of paramount importance to digital marketing, they’re often overlooked by professionals in the field. Marketers should be regularly updating their own ethical policies based on best practices established by the industry at large and by any new legislation. This will keep their marketing efforts legally sound and give customers their due privacy. As you prepare for digital marketing in 2021, we’ve come up with four ethical considerations to help you make sure your marketing tactics are in accordance with privacy laws. If you’ve been neglected these, you’ll be glad we took the time to review and catch you up to speed. Let’s begin.

Update Your Privacy Policies

If you use a website as a platform to conduct business, you’ll need a privacy policy. People have privacy rights you have to consider when collecting data, which means you need to disclose what data you’ll be collecting, what it will be used for, and how you will keep it secure.

Making a policy sounds complicated, but there are easy ways to create them online. You can use tools like Free Privacy Policy to quickly make your own and ensure you’re disclosing everything your customers need to know. Even if you’ve created one in the past, sometimes new plugins added to your site will collect new data and you’ll need to periodically update your policy according.

Advertise Truthfully

This should go without saying, and yet false advertising is still rampant on the Internet.

Avoid lying to your customers because you’ll only lose their trust and ultimately hurt your digital marketing efforts.

In the Internet age, everything is under high scrutiny, and customers will not be afraid to talk about you online—imagine being defamed by a group of angry former fans on Twitter.

Be honest about what you do or sell, and don’t try to oversell yourself. Take note from companies such as Google and Apple, who invite their customers to give feedback and help in the development of their products.

Explain Your Endorsements

Many digital marketers endorse products and don’t explain why. And even if they do, they don’t make their message clear enough for audiences to understand it. Luckily, there’s a quick solution to this problem—tell a story. People love stories and, if you learn the art of storytelling, you can easily speak to audiences in a language they understand. Explain your endorsements through storytelling, and your message will sound clear and authentic.

Avoid Solicitation

It’s against the law to put mail in mailboxes without paying for postage and having it stamped. You should take that same principle and apply it to your online and text interactions with your others. It’s okay to cold email and reach out to people—however, avoid sending too many messages and locking them into email campaigns. You should always include an ‘opt out’ button or option to allow your audience a way to discontinue emails or texts. This is a common courtesy that goes beyond the legal requirements to do so that will win you much goodwill with your leads.

Final Words

There are many ethical issues digital marketers should take into consideration in 2021. It’s to your benefit to keep these in mind, make sure you’re abiding by the law, and be fair to your consumers.