4 Topics You Should Avoid in Your Marketing

The world of digital marketing can be a bit of a minefield. Through your blog, advertising, and social media channels, you have to keep your audience engaged, informed, and entertained at all times. You want them to come back time and time again to consume your content, promote your brand, and ultimately buy your product or service. And what you want to avoid at all costs, is to upset or offend people.

You’ve seen it with brands time and time again. They make a tasteless advert or post an ill-judged tweet about a contentious political topic and suddenly they are besieged by an onslaught of angry complaints. This can be disastrous for your business reputation and is likely to cost you several customers. 

So how can you avoid this? For a start, there are several topics you should stay away from in your marketing at all costs. They will cause nothing but outrage and are unlikely to do you any favors. Here are the top four topics brands should avoid.

Political issues

It’s obviously important for brands to stay relevant, and you can’t really avoid mentioning things like a global pandemic or the US election. However, it’s important that you don’t position yourself in favor of a particular view. Take the recent election for example. It was the biggest thing happening in America for several weeks, and loads of brands mentioned it in their marketing, and rightly so. It’s relevant to every single person in the country. But if your brand speaks out in favor of Biden or Trump, you’re going to alienate about 50% of your customers. Avoid your personal biases and opinions when posting on behalf of your business, and keep all your messaging in line with your brand.

Tragic events

Bad things happen all the time in the world. There are wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and diseases. Sometimes these events happen on such a mass scale that the whole world is talking about them, but they should never be used as a means of promoting your business. That’s not to say you shouldn’t acknowledge them in your business blog or social media channels, but you should only do so in a way that shows solidarity and empathy. By all means, show some sympathy or impart some relevant wisdom pertaining to the event, but never use a sales message in the same breath.

Other contentious topics

There are loads of issues that have long sparked debate between different viewpoints. Topics like abortion, the death penalty, and drugs, are all contentious and unless these subjects are directly relevant to your business you should refrain from expressing a viewpoint. For example, don’t start a Twitter debate about the benefits of medical marijuana unless you are a healthcare provider or a company that sells CBD candies. 

Religion

There are over 300 hundred religions represented in the US alone, and your customer base will likely be a varied demographic. Religion is very much a divisive issue and has been for millennia. Try to steer clear of religious opinions or preferences if you want to keep your followers on board.

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