Before I started The Empathy Hub, I had to grapple with a complex question. What constitutes responsible marketing in mental health? There’s no static answer, and that’s the way it should be.

Content marketing for mental health companies was a natural fit for me. I had experience, education, and passion for both writing and psychology. I understood the principles underlying mental health products and services and could navigate academic articles.

But for a while I avoided mental health writing gigs.

Why did I resist writing content for mental health companies? The answer involves the complicated ethics of marketing in health care… and psychics.

But first, I need to give you a brief understanding of what it’s like to be a freelance writer.

My Early Days in Freelance Writing

I started freelance writing while completing a postgraduate degree in creative writing.

At that point, I had no plans of making a career out of content marketing and did very little research about how best to get started. Platforms like Upwork and Freelancer were thriving. I simply set up a profile and started responding to job posts.

Freelance platforms seemed perfect at first. But their flaws soon became apparent. While there are some great clients who use Upwork and its ilk to find writers, most are looking for the cheapest labour possible and care little about the quality.

Many clients paid as little as $1 per 1,000 words. For it to be worthwhile, I had to filter jobs by the pay on offer rather than what I wanted to write about.

Before long, I was doing tedious work on topics completely new to me. I did more research than clients expected for far less than what I deserved.

I would have rather spent hours on one quality article targeted at people than on a dozen targeted at the algorithms. But I soon realised most clients cared more about quantity and keywords than quality and accuracy. My focus turned to SEO.

Mental health writing gigs came up in the feed but I knew I was too passionate to take them on. I would have spent way too much time on work that wouldn’t pay the bills. If the right opportunity came along, however, I intended to grab it with both hands.

That was until I wrote for a psychic agency.

Content Writing for Psychics?

I didn’t go looking for the gig. A long-term client in the insurance industry pivoted to an online psychic counselling agency. It worked with a BetterHelp-type model, matching customers with the ‘right’ psychic. He asked me to write both copy and blogs for them and offered more than I’d ever earned for content before.

Although I don’t believe in psychic powers, many people do and I could appreciate that they might find these services useful. I had no qualms in agreeing…

…until I actually started writing. That was when I realised two things:

• People who might have chosen an evidence-based approach would read my content and see a psychic instead
• I was… bending the truth

I would have been able to overlook the first point if psychic services had research supporting their efficacy. Or if the psychics needed to have legitimate qualifications and a proven track record. Or if the company took any measures at all to vet the psychics. Or if they’d face consequences for misleading mentally ill customers.

But the second point was a dealbreaker no matter what. Even if they truly believed in their approach, I didn’t. It was unethical for me to do marketing work for them.

Psychology and Science

Unlike with psychic counselling, I studied psychology and know about the importance of mental health awareness. Why would I have a problem with writing about it?

One of the first things you learn about psychology in higher education is that it is, to some degree, a soft science. While you can study physical matter under a microscope, thoughts and emotions can’t be quantified. I’ve never met anyone who believes they can describe their own inner world in a way that comes anywhere near to completion.

Therefore, psychological studies usually involve qualitative research, based on people’s best efforts at describing their subjective experiences.

Pseudopsychology

This hasn’t prevented psychology from becoming a powerful field of study, leading to treatments that are extremely effective. It has, unfortunately, led to a slew of pseudopsychology, which has grown exponentially in the social media era.

There’s a wide spectrum. You get social media influencers speaking platitudes about positivity in order to sell ghostwritten books; startups marketing unproven herbal remedies or giving under-qualified therapists access to clients; and entrepreneurs jumping the gun or exaggerating the research on treatments that are truly promising.

All can be dangerous, but it’s often those that are closest to legitimacy that cause the most harm. They are the shady businesses I was most likely to unknowingly end up working with.

Undifferentiated Marketing

We don’t have ads for prescription medication in South Africa. In fact, the very idea of it sounds strange to us. After all, you can’t buy these meds because you saw an advert on TV.

Of course, the point of these ads is to get people to ask their doctors for a prescription. Although this still doesn’t clarify things. Should a patient really be telling their doctor what to prescribe?

In my early writing days, I was suspicious of mental health marketing for this very reason. Mental health treatment is not one-size-fits-all. What works for me might not work for you. This is especially true for psychiatric medication.

Undifferentiated marketing is dangerous in the realm of health care, whether physical or mental. Did this mean that mental health marketing was always unethical? If not, how would I navigate the nuances, without being either reckless or overthinking everything?

Personal Priorities in Industry

Let’s not pretend: making money is every person’s first or second priority no matter what for-profit industry they work in. I am passionate about mental health and love what I do, but would my life be different if I never had to work for money? Of course!

I don’t expect the founders of mental health companies to be saints who only care about making the world a better place. In fact, if they were, their success would likely be far more limited. After all, finances are a way to measure success in the modern world. Money and competition often drives companies to improve what they do for the world.

But making life better for people with mental illness needs to be one of their top priorities too.

If I did not prioritise my vision of a better world, I would take the easiest mental health jobs, no matter whether I believed in them or not. The same is true for business owners. If monetary and career success are the only priorities, it is as worthwhile to decrease the quality of a product to sell more as it is to improve its results.

Companies that regularly reaffirm their purpose are more likely to be intentional with their marketing. They target those who might actually need what they offer, and ensure that all the information they put out into the world is accurate.

These are the companies I seek to work with, even if it’s not always easy to spot the difference.

Ethical Marketing is Not a Once-Off Consideration

Any company is a construct, and therefore cannot be considered ‘ethical’ or ‘moral’. Owners of companies and their staff are human, and therefore cannot be perfectly consistent. Circumstances are constantly changing, and the way an entity does business can change drastically even without a change in personnel.

Choosing an ethical approach to marketing is therefore not a one-and-done matter. It is a decision that needs to be made over and over again. It needs to come up when things are going well… and when the business is struggling.

I’ve found myself wavering on many occasions since I stopped extolling the benefits of psychic services. There have been lean periods when it has been tempting to grab the nearest opportunity.

But, if you keep your priorities top of mind, you ultimately return to doing things according to your values.

If you’re looking for quality mental health content that raises awareness while getting results, get in touch with The Empathy Hub for a custom content marketing strategy.