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If you find yourself questioning any of your marketing tactics and are looking for responsible alternatives – you’re in the right place.
1. Controversial Platforms
Not all PPC is created equal. You might find some really cheap deals for PPC ads on platforms that may call into question the integrity of your brand. Really look into your platforms before advertising on them. Are they linked to exploitation, for instance? Make sure you only advertise with brands you are happy to share airspace with and know that the platforms you choose to advertise with, you are actively supporting.
2. Familiar Cold Communications
Buying a list of cold leads and sending them a communication that suggests you already know them is likely to result in a lot of very unhappy non-prospects. Cold communications can be a bit of a stab in the dark at the best of times, but if you do undertake this activity, make sure your messaging respects the fact that you don’t personally know the person receiving it.
3. Fickle Pricing Policies
Some companies choose to price their services based on what they think the client can afford as opposed to value-add or cost-based pricing. It’s fair to offer preferential pricing for start-ups, family and friends, but on the whole, pricing should be clear and transparent. You might not want to make your rates public knowledge, but at least keep them consistent.
4. Over Inflated Promises
“Pay us £500 and we’ll get you 50 qualified leads, guaranteed.” How can anyone guarantee ROI? Marketing and PR are highly variable industries. Yes you can benchmark past success and give an indication of what ROI might be, but making over inflated promises is misleading and negligent. It also sets a bad precedent for the rest of the industry.
5. Black Hat SEO
This is no longer the keyword-stuffing 90s. Get clued up on Google’s guidelines and make sure that whether you work with an external contractor or in-house experts, your SEO is not employing black hat tactics. This can include something as innocuous as offering an incentive in return for a link to your site. Take heed or face penalties and blacklisting.
6. Discriminatory Targeting
Targeting on the whole is a double-edged sword. Social media platforms (for all their faults) offer unrivalled ad-targeting. However we have a responsibility as marketers to ensure we don’t discriminate against certain audiences such as minority groups from jobs, financial products or housing etc. Facebook recently cracked down on this in a big way, read up on their policy.
7. Misleading Headlines
Headline writing is a science and an art, both from a click-through and SEO perspective. Adding numbers, capital letters, keywords and action words can help both to perform more successfully. However writing misleading headlines perpetuates click-bait and fake news (and we all know where that gets us).
8. Scraped Content
Scraped content isn’t only bad for organic visibility, but it is detrimental to your UX. However, much like black hat SEO, you might not even know you’re guilty of it. What do your product list pages look like? Do they contain much copy? If not, add descriptive copy bloack. How long was your latest blog post? Ensure they are long enough to be worth ranking and reading.
If you’d like to make further changes to your marketing activity or are looking to drive more visitors to your website responsibly, get in touch.
