CGM blog: Five top tips to market your business ethics

31 Mar CGM blog: Five top tips to market your business ethics

It may seem an increasingly cynical world, but wearing your heart on your sleeve has more value than ever.

How so? Well, a recent survey of top US business people found they valued the attributes of reputation, trust, integrity, ethics and image ahead of ability.

That’s right, your values and the way you look is deemed to be more important than actually being able to do the job.

Why? Because people buy from people. Most of us feel we need to trust people we work with or provide a service for us. We value their integrity, we buy into their reputation, we respect their ethics. The way they present their business supports this view – they can simply seem to be a good fit for us.

This isn’t style over substance – it is values driven, not the quick-wins, numbers-game sales and marketing.

Marketing your values doesn’t have to be tacky. Here are five ways you can easily add ethics to your business marketing:

1. Make sure people can view your ethics and values

Create a ‘vision and values’ pages or ‘mission statement’ (or both) on your website. List your core values. Emphasise your commitments to best practice, customer service, the environment and other obligations. Make sure your language is user friendly.

2. Work with charities that are close to your heart

Make sure you promote your charity work or good causes you support. But do it gently. Don’t make it sound as if you do it for self-serving purposes but to encourage your contacts to support you and chosen causes. That said, don’t oversell your charity work or expect others to always buy into it – it is personal choice, not a stick to beat people with.

3. Be a host with the most

Contrast these two speeches. A reception where the MD opened his speech by boasting about how much money his company had made (but omitted to thank his hard-working staff), and another where the owner told the audience about their healthy breakfast scheme and fun staff away days. Which one would you warm to? If you host events make sure they reflect your business ethics and values. If you speak publicly, talk about positive, ethical attributes and aspects of your business.

4. Doing good is good for business

Okay I’ve nicked a Richard Branson phrase here but, seriously, what is big and clever about deriding ‘do-gooders’. What’s the preferable alternative? To do bad? Your best marketing assets should be your staff and colleagues, clients and contacts. As Nike would say ‘just do it’. Just being good and doing good will spread the word – the cheapest, up-close-and-personal form of marketing you can get. If your staff understand your values and are hard-wired do-gooders, good will bounce back to your business.

5 Blog your beliefs

You know I believe this stuff. Why? Because I’ve taken the time to blog about it. It is a choice. It matters and makes a difference. Blogging about your ethics and way you do things rather than just what you do can reinforce your values. It can build bridges, forge relationships, gain respect. People respect people with unshakeable values. If you fail to mention it, they may never know…..

Chris Green is an author, broadcaster and media consultant and managing director of Chris Green Media.