AUTHORPoulomi Choudhury Digital Marketing Agency - How to Identify a Good FitTerms like ‘conscious consumerism’ and ‘conscious living,’ have begun to become part of the online shoppers’ lexicon. Yet, ethical digital marketing agencies practicing fair and honest business are tough to come by. According to a 2015 study by Nielson Global Survey on Corporate Social Responsibility, almost three-out-of-four millennial buyers are ready to pay extra for sustainable offerings and 81% of millennials even expect their favorite companies to make public declarations of their corporate citizenship. However, this “ethical” purchasing behaviour is not only specific to a generation. According to the same study, 66% of global respondents of all ages say they are willing to pay more for products and services that come from companies that are committed to positive social and environmental impact, which up from 50% in 2013. The fact is, thanks to the digital space, any product or service today can be “looked up” by the consumer - and if they are unsatisfied by the company’s transparency and commitment towards creating a positive social impact, then they will take their custom to another provider. Business have begun to realise that pro-social messages, sustainable manufacturing methods and ethical business standards will bring in more business. However, social enterprises often work within the constraints of low budgets and have to depend on the expertise of external agencies to help with their marketing strategies. So, identifying an ethical digital marketing agency is very important for any socially responsible business. Implicit code of conduct of a good digital marketing agencyIn this post we will discuss practices that an ethical digital marketing agency will avoid at all costs. An agency should be open and transparent about their strategies before businesses can give them a contract for marketing a brand or product. Unethical or black hat SEO practicesUnethical or black hat SEO practices are only concerned with short-term gains, and if an agency promises a very quick increase of your page ranking in a search engine result page (SERP) you should be wary. Some of the main black hat SEO techniques include stuffing keywords, spammy blog post creation, hidden text placements, content automation, cloaking, sending automated queries to Google and buying links. Back in 2011, the New York Times published an article titled, The Dirty Little Secrets of Search about an SEO investigation of J.C. Penney, which found that thousands of seemingly unrelated websites were linking back to J.C. Penny’s website. The company was allegedly involved in a “link scheme,” which can often involve the “death penalty” of being completely suspended from coming up on Google’s search engines. Doug Pierce of Blue Fountain Media in New York described this as the “most ambitious attempt” at gaming the Google search algorithm. Any ethical digital marketing company worth its salt will find cleaner, more efficient ways of optimising websites for search. There are a number of ethical ways to build links and increase traffic to your website. Identifying guest posting opportunities to write high-quality content for ethically conscious consumers that link back to your website is one of the ways your marketing agency can aid your business ethically. Spam email practicesThere are number of different laws that guide the use of email marketing for commercial purposes. In the USA they have the CAN-SPAM act, in Canada CASL laws apply, while in the UK and Europe they abide by Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations of 2003. With the most recent GDPR (Global Data Protection Regulation) coming into effect on May 25 2018, it’s more important than ever to follow an ethical approach towards mailing people with your products. While list-buying is still in the grey-area of legality, an ethical approach towards marketing should go beyond merely acting within the constraints of legality, but also attempt to act with empathy. If you send information that users are genuinely interested in, they will happily engage with your content. When looking for a new digital marketing agency, ask them how they plan to build your email marketing list. This should give you a good guess about their approach towards running a clean and honest campaign. Clickbaiting on social mediaA number of digital marketing companies resort to clickbaiting, sensationalism and controversy to garner clicks. Content marketers employ clickbait tactics through sponsored posts on sites like Mashable, BuzzFeed, the somewhat dated ViralNova, and Slant (now on what looks like a permanent “hiatus.” While these tactics work when it comes to analytics showing traffic to your website, they also have high bounce rates. Two-thirds of people who click on sponsored content leave within 15 seconds or less, according a study by Chartbeat. One of the foremost reasons for the prevalence of clickbait as a means of marketing is due to the industry’s obsession with measuring success of a page by clicks and page views. Which is why, we suggest a more cost-per-impression (CPI) or cost-per-click (CPC) approach towards marketing, which lowers the pressure on digital marketing agencies towards having to report high click-through rates.
It’s important to watch out for clickbait marketing even more in 2018 because Facebook will begin to “demote” posts that are obviously using “engagement-bait” content. At the end of the day, selecting a digital marketing agency boils down to finding out how well their business ethics align with yours. It’s often useful to have a look at the agency’s past client portfolio. If this does not raise any major red flags, meet the management face to face and tease out their strategies related to list building, email campaigns, SEO, and social media. This should give you a good insight into the agency’s policies. If you would like to know more about how the team at EthiMarketing can help you, feel free to contact us. ReferencesDeloitte, Bling it on What makes a millennial spend more?
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/consumer-business/deloitte-uk-young-luxury-shopper-2017.pdf Insights, The Sustainability Imperative http://www.nielsen.com/ie/en/insights/reports/2015/the-sustainability-imperative.html Insights, The Green Generation, Millennials Say Sustainability is a Shopping Priority http://www.nielsen.com/ie/en/insights/news/2015/green-generation-millennials-say-sustainability-is-a-shopping-priority.html Forbes, Millennials Expect More Than Good Products, Services To Win Their Loyalty https://www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2014/05/22/millennials-expect-more-than-good-products-services-to-win-their-loyalty/ The New York Times, The Dirty Little Secrets of Search http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all Remy Albillar, The Good, the Bad and the Rankings: A Straight Shootin’ Discussion About Ethics in Digital Marketing https://www.eminentseo.com/blog/rankings-discussion-ethics-in-digital-marketing/ MailChimp, About Compliance for Email Marketing https://kb.mailchimp.com/accounts/compliance-tips/about-compliance-for-email-marketing Columbia Journalism Review, What it’s like to get paid for clicks https://www.cjr.org/analysis/the_mission_sounds_simple_pay.php Chartbeat, Does Native Ad Content Work? http://blog.chartbeat.com/2014/04/01/native-advertising-work/ Engadget, Facebook will begin demoting ‘engagement bait’ posts in News Feed https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/18/facebook-demoting-engagement-bait/
2 Comments
1/24/2023 09:15:45 am
Nice Information! Los Angeles-based agency will develop your business goals. Tack Media is a web design agency in Los Angeles with over 25 years of experience as a website design agency for leading brands.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |