It's not a usual Friday in office today. It started with casual chit chats and moved on to some serious discussions. You must be thinking that since India lost to Australia yesterday in the 2015 cricket world cup, we have a lot of free time now, to talk about other things in life. Well, so true. The discussion today led to a point that encouraged me to pen down this flip side of socially inspired marketing.
I don't need to emphasize that we all have learned about business ethics during our educational or employment tenure. The same ethics apply to all business functions, including marketing. But, why do marketers forget about ethics when they roll out marketing campaigns?
In the recent past, we all witnessed the emergence of 'online and social marketing. With the emergence came the ability to identify the customers, their digital journey, their buying behaviors, and their most-likely next purchase. Because of this knowledge today, the marketers have become more powerful in their organizations. But, just because they know so much about their customers, including all of us, is it ethical to just identify them and bombard them with further emails and phone calls?
One of my colleagues told me that once he visited a banking site and was intrigued by their offers. My colleague got engaged enough to allow them to drop their spy (cookies etc). The next day onwards he started receiving so many marketing calls that made him block numbers and file for complaints. This example just added to my point which I raised on ethics. I think, this is the biggest flip side of Socially Inspired Marketing.
Why do we forget about ethics when we become the in-charge of MQLs? I am still thinking...
I don't need to emphasize that we all have learned about business ethics during our educational or employment tenure. The same ethics apply to all business functions, including marketing. But, why do marketers forget about ethics when they roll out marketing campaigns?
In the recent past, we all witnessed the emergence of 'online and social marketing. With the emergence came the ability to identify the customers, their digital journey, their buying behaviors, and their most-likely next purchase. Because of this knowledge today, the marketers have become more powerful in their organizations. But, just because they know so much about their customers, including all of us, is it ethical to just identify them and bombard them with further emails and phone calls?
One of my colleagues told me that once he visited a banking site and was intrigued by their offers. My colleague got engaged enough to allow them to drop their spy (cookies etc). The next day onwards he started receiving so many marketing calls that made him block numbers and file for complaints. This example just added to my point which I raised on ethics. I think, this is the biggest flip side of Socially Inspired Marketing.
Why do we forget about ethics when we become the in-charge of MQLs? I am still thinking...
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