Marketing Compliance: Why a Human Touch Still Matters
If you’re a marketing manager juggling multiple campaigns, you know that keeping compliant is a huge part of the job. Let’s talk about marketing compliance and why it’s so crucial for your campaigns.
What is Marketing Compliance?
Marketing compliance is about ensuring that your advertising and promotional materials adhere to legal and ethical standards. It’s like rules of a game—except the rules come from laws and regulations designed to protect consumers.
Imagine you’re launching a new product. You’ve got an campaign ready to roll out. But before you hit “publish,” you need to ensure everything from ad text to disclaimers is in line with regulations. This is where marketing compliance comes in.
A Framework for Marketing Compliance Reviews
As a seasoned copywriter and technical writer, I’ve found that effective marketing compliance reviews generally follow these steps. They are: 1) understanding guidelines, 2) fact-checking, 3) reviewing legal text, 4) assessing images and language, and 5) integrating compliance.
Take the financial industry, for example. Financial compliance is regulated by entities like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
A financial ad might read, “Invest in our high-yield mutual fund and earn up to 10% returns annually with no risk.” This needs a closer look.
The SEC says you must mention any risks, so claiming “no risk” isn’t accurate. FINRA wants ads to be fair and not misleading, so you’d need to tweak that to reflect the real risks. The CFPB also doesn’t allow anything that could trick consumers, so it’s important to revise the sentence.
A better version would be: “Invest in our high-yield mutual fund and potentially earn up to 10% returns annually. Please note that all investments carry some level of risk.
The Role of Marketing Software and the Human Touch
While marketing software has become a game-changer in automating compliance checks, it’s not foolproof. These tools are fantastic for catching obvious issues, but they might miss the nuances that a human reviewer can catch.
Here’s why a human touch is still essential:
Context matters.
Software can scan and flag keyword issues, but it may not fully understand the context in which words are used. A human can provide the necessary context and interpret regulations in a way that software might miss.
Let me share a story from my experience. I once worked with a company that catered to government contracts, yacht owners, and international clients. In this role, I was responsible for proofreading and conducting compliance reviews of core content. This experience taught me a valuable lesson about the importance of understanding the context in which marketing materials are used.
For instance, while the government sector requires strict adherence to regulations and formal language, marketing materials aimed at yacht owners needed a less formal approach. Additionally, when marketing products for international markets, compliance had to account for different regulations in various countries.
In such scenarios, a broad-brush approach wouldn’t have worked. Instead, it was crucial to tailor compliance checks to fit the specific audience and regulatory environment. This nuanced approach ensured that every piece of content was appropriate and effective for its intended audience.
Scenarios can be complex.
Some compliance scenarios are complex and require interpretation of the rules. For instance, a marketing campaign that uses multiple channels and diverse messaging needs a nuanced approach to ensure full compliance.
Marketing is creative.
Creativity doesn’t always fit neatly into compliance checklists. A human reviewer can balance creativity with compliance, ensuring that your campaigns are both compelling and compliant.
The Role of Marketing Compliance in Sales Funnels
When building a sales funnel, ensuring your marketing is compliant matters at every stage—from getting attention to making a sale. Each part of the funnel has its own challenges, and you need to be careful to follow the rules.
Awareness Stage
At the top of the funnel, you’re trying to grab interest with content like blog posts, social media ads, and emails. It’s important to make sure this content follows the rules and doesn’t make false claims. For example, if you’re promoting a financial product, you need to be clear about the possible risks and rewards.
Consideration Stage
In the middle of the funnel, prospects are thinking about whether to choose your product or service. At this point, it’s important to ensure your marketing materials—like case studies, white papers, and webinars—meet industry standards. A human touch is especially helpful here because you can customize the content for different audiences while still staying compliant.
Decision Stage
At the bottom of the funnel, where the goal is to turn leads into customers, compliance becomes even more critical. This stage might involve legal contracts, payment processing, and final marketing messages. Making sure these elements are compliant with the laws protects both your company and your customers.
While software can help automate many of these checks, a person can review to ensure details are handled correctly. This approach enables your sales funnel to be both effective and compliant
Ready to enhance your marketing compliance efforts?
In conclusion, while marketing software can ease the compliance process, experienced professionals can still ensure campaigns adhere to guidelines. By including compliance checks at each sales funnel stage, you can protect your brand and build trust with your audience. And by combining software with a skilled copywriter, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are effective and compliant.
To your attainment,
Tanya
P.S. Got questions? Email them to me or leave them in the comments.
