Wrestling with the Ethics of Marketing? 7 Rules to Consider

Recently a colleague suggested I post a comment on a competitor's blog. He wanted me to object to the writer's hard-sell tone and his negative comments about our product.

"Of course, don't post it from your company email address," he added. "Use an anonymous account."

This exchange raised so many issues that I was concerned for a moment about who might be monitoring our email. First, to suggest that blogging shouldn't be used for selling would make me look clueless at best and certainly hypocritical. More important, hiding my identity struck me as just plain unethical—and counterproductive to boot.

As professional services marketers, it's our job to get people to trust us and our firms. If they engage us, they'll likely be sharing confidential and, in many cases, intimate information. If they can't trust what we say when we're just trying to get to know them, how can they choose to do business with us?

The American Marketing Association's Statement of Ethics is a good place to begin. Their guidance to marketers includes "consciously avoiding harmful actions or omissions by embodying high ethical standards…" and "striving for good faith and fair dealing." After all, our reputations, and those of our firms and our colleagues, are an important part of what clients are choosing. For law firms, the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct provide specifics about where and how attorneys can advertise; nearly all states have adopted professional conduct rules that follow this format.