Identifying problem areas

- Just because you've nailed down what marketing ethics means to your company, you can't expect everyone to adhere to your guidelines. Sharing a definition doesn't instantly penetrate your organization or resonate with all of your employees. Why? There might be systemic issues in your company's approach to marketing. These issues may prevent good marketing ethics from taking hold. When it comes to ethics, here are several problem areas to keep on your radar. Do you know that busyness and tight deadlines can lead to greater chance of unethical behavior? When marketing teams become too busy, you're shorthanded and deadlines are really tight. Then, managers may overlook errors in communication, hoping that no one will notice. That's a red flag. Deadlines and time crunches can't be an excuse for unethical behavior. What's next? Do you see any red flags when it comes to how employees reach their goals? If you're heavy on performance evaluations that come with bonuses, well, here's an area to look at more closely. Take a look at how employees reach a means to an end. Whether it's written or unwritten, if you're pushing employees to reach goals at any cost, then you might be encouraging unethical behavior. When you encourage that kind of mindset, it reflects in the harmful choices and actions. You see this a lot when marketing metrics, leads, and sales projections are inflated in reports both shared internally with leadership and publicly with the media, investors, and your customers. Another potential red flag: have you counted the number of leaders in your organization who are role models for ethical behavior? If it's not every leader, then you have an issue. Your entire leadership team must endorse your marketing ethics and be the company role models. Have you evaluated your ethics training program? Are there any red flags there? And if you don't have a training program, then you need to start one and all employees should go through the training. Why? For one reason. Social media goes across your entire company. If you want to make sure your employees are sharing information and acting ethically with the public. Lastly, you've heard the familiar saying. Make a mistake once and it becomes lesson but make the same mistake twice and it becomes a choice. Well, if you don't know who documents questionable marketing practices at your firm, then that's a red flag, too. If employees have no knowledge of prior mistakes, then they're placing your company in harms way. With changing teams and employee turnover, you always want to have access to information on what's worked and what to avoid in your marketing practices. Go through and answer the questions posed in this video. Use these areas but also take the time to talk to people in your company to uncover other potential problem areas. When you work to reduce the problem areas, then your marketing ethics will go beyond definition, into marketing action with good judgment.