Ethics in digital marketing

Importance of Ethics in Digital Marketing

1. Importance of Ethics in Digital Marketing Submitted by- Yashika Gupta Date- 14 th April,2020

2. Introduction Digital marketing is the advertising of brands using all forms of digital advertising. Privacy and security both are some ethical issues that are supposed to influence the purchase behavior of the customer. As more and more people are starting to realize how important doing business ethically is and it looks like this is spreading to the marketing domain as well. This means that the approach people take in digital marketing has changed a lot since companies first started promoting their brands on the web. But how important is ethics when it comes to digital marketing?

3. Importance of Ethics in Digital Marketing Customers demanding more -Things are the same when it comes to marketing and consumers prefer buying from companies that don’t just promote their product but are also ethical about their marketing efforts. This has resulted in companies who create false scarcity just to bolster their sales to do much worse than in the past. Moreover, they have to be honest when it comes to testimonials and avoid fake ones which have been quite popular in the past. Being transparent about data -Of course, even in this day and age, no company is forced to share all their data with the public. However, taking a different approach and being transparent about it is something that has helped a number of companies reach new heights. Any data you can collect about your performance and share it with your customers can do wonders for your company.

4. Importance of Ethics in Digital Marketing Protecting customers’ privacy -The biggest problem all companies face is hackers who’re ready to do everything it takes to get their hands on customers’ sensitive data. Businesses are responsible for investing in security and protecting every piece of information they collect from their customers. When that data is stolen, the company is supposed to take full responsibility for it. Throughout the last decade, we saw the reputation of some companies be ruined completely because they failed to protect their customers’ data. Ethics and social media marketing -One of the places online where companies can promote their products and services is social media. Companies in all industries are already on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Not only that they use these platforms for promotion but that’s also where they communicate with customers directly. Although this comes with benefits of its own, there are also things businesses have to be careful about.

5. Ethical Issues in Digital Marketing We are currently living in an era where digital technologies are becoming more important in most sectors of the economy and where companies are pushing social selling and digital marketing While digital technologies offer organizations considerable benefits to customers such as greater access to information and convenience, there are some ethical issues that are emerging due to its increased use: 1. The Digital Divide 2. Marketing to children 3. Privacy issues 4. Social Exclusion

6. Ethical Issues in Digital Marketing The Digital Divide:  Expansion in channels of communication has made Internet technology more accessible to people around the world since the beginning of the 21st century.  However, the disparity in ICT adoption between developed and developing countries, referred to as the Digital Divide, has continued to grow which has implications for public and private organisations .  Those who lack access to online resources in developing countries are immediately put at a disadvantage as they already have little access to other socio-economic resources.

7. Ethical Issues in Digital Marketing Social Exclusion:  Related to the Digital Divide is the issue of social exclusion which refers to individuals who cannot afford digital devices such as broadband connection and 3G phones.  In the era of digital, where basic IT skills are required for entering the labour market, individuals without digital devices are unable to take advantage of learning opportunities and engage in wider levels of social networking. Privacy issues:  As a result of the dot.com bubble and later the introduction of Web 2.0, new policies in terms of privacy and protection of customer data are being introduced by governments.  Online privacy policies must be continually updated because of the evolutionary nature of Web 2.0 platforms.  Concerns about security have grown in recent years and the release of new government policies is something that must be anticipated by organisations .

8. Ethical Issues in Digital Marketing Marketing to children:   The final ethical issue in this list is using the Internet to market to children.  Children have long been known to be the one of the biggest advocates of Internet usage but they are vulnerable to the Internet in many ways.  For example, they may not realise that their every mouse click may be monitored, they may be unable to evaluate the accuracy of information they view or be unable to understand the nature of the information they provide to advertisers.

9. Conclusion To some, things discussed in this slides may seem like common sense. Unfortunately, not all businesses see it that way and there has been a lot of cases of this throughout history. However, as the entire business world is moving towards protecting customers, we see more and more businesses caring about being ethical in their operations, including digital marketing. The web is constantly evolving and it looks like we’ll see some new tools and strategies be designed specifically to encourage being ethical in digital marketing.