How Compliance With Federal Laws Is Linked With Your Marketing Efforts

A company’s reputation and its overall word-of-mouth in the market is a product of its marketing, service, product performance, and legal compliance. Businesses that perform well in all other dimensions, but fail to comply with federal rules and regulations such as moving arbitration laws, customer privacy laws, marketing compliance, etc. fail to attract and retain consumer trust in their brand. Your company’s integrity is dependent on your overall compliance environment and ethical conduct, and one wrong step could bring all the trust that you have worked for over the years to come crashing down.

How is Marketing and Compliance linked?

Compliance is an integral part of marketing efforts for any given organization. Infact, most marketing strategies include a section of marketing compliance that guides content production and outreach. These rules and regulations ensure that the actions and decisions made to reach consumers and promote products and services are legal, ethical and made after a sound and well-informed directive.

While some companies may think of this as an afterthought, it is in fact essential to include such guidelines for your creative and administrative teams to follow. Especially for industries that are heavily regulated such as pharmaceuticals and fintech, compliance is a major aspect of their overall operations.

Who keeps companies in check?

For marketing communications, depending upon whether your company is operational in the United States or in the United Kingdom, the United States Federal Trade Commission Act or the European Union laws that govern privacy may be keeping you in check. Any marketing move that you make, including ads, sponsored content, tweets, etc. are likely to be checked by the above bodies for compliance.

What should companies do?

Instead of relying on simply lawyers and legal consultants, companies should themselves be aware of legal requirements as well. They would be able to get assistance with their legal consultants only if they themselves have basic information regarding the requirements of compliance. Any strategies or marketing moves the company makes the need to be compliant with all federal laws. Any requirements and licenses that their business needs, the company should obtain and update accordingly.

Companies should follow the given below steps in their operations effectively:

1. All marketing campaigns and programs should be backed by compliance and quality checks that are performed by multiple and dedicated entities
2. Obtain all federal and state level information regarding laws, licenses and regulations that pertain to the company and its operations
3. Work with legal and ethical compliance teams hand-in-hand while introducing new modules or altering existing ones
4. Get consumer and general public feedback to understand their ethical perception and overall image in the public’s eyes.
5. Work on any discrepancies found, if any, between the company’s assumed and actual position.
6. Be aware of existing and newly formed regulations by the Federal Trade Commission in the United States
7. Make sure that all your advertisements are honest and sell a realistic version of your product/service
8. Any exaggeration in your advertisements should be done in a way that conveys comical context or humor, and if needed mention in asterisks
9. Any disclosures about the product or service should be very clearly stated in all marketing communications
10. Do not spam your customers or potential customers with marketing messages and emails that they did not sign up for

Your legal compliance affects your overall company image – if you fail to comply with any of the federal or state level regulations, even a minute one, your customer base is likely to view you as dishonest and unreliable. In order to become successful in your business operations, you need to ensure that there is no question about your company’s and your system’s integrity and honesty. Other than that, in order to ensure support from trade commissions, you need to stay in compliance with all their rules and regulation. Non-compliance would lead to putting you under their radar and being under constant surveillance. If that happens, you would have trouble running your operations smoothly because you would feel you are under a constant threat of non-compliance and in line for fines or penalty. In order to achieve your customer’s trust, and in order to gain your own peace of mind, compliance is essential.