Marketing Drives Compliance Impact

Good compliance can’t exist without good marketing. While this may sound surprising at first, it makes sense when you recognize that both compliance and marketing share a common goal-shaping human behavior. Many employees see compliance as a burden, often avoiding the compliance team altogether. How do you change this narrative? By applying marketing strategies, you can shift compliance from being
seen as restrictive to something that creates opportunities and minimizes risk.

Why Marketing Is Important for Compliance

The success of compliance depends on the same principles that drive successful marketing: creating awareness, engaging the audience, and influencing behavior. Compliance professionals aren’t just rule enforcers-they shape behavior. By adopting marketing strategies, they can communicate their goals better, improve the organization’s compliance culture, and gain employee buy-in.

Empower People Using Marketing Tactics

A successful compliance program isn’t limited to documents—it’s about making employees feel involved and accountable. Compliance should empower people to make the right decisions rather than being viewed as a set of restrictions.

Overcome the Compliance Perception Problem

One of the main challenges in reshaping compliance is overcoming its inherited reputation as a roadblock. Employees often see compliance as an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, a set of checkboxes. However, reframing compliance as an enabler—something that creates potential and minimizes risk—can change this perception. Acknowledging employees’ views and addressing them directly is the first step. Marketing teaches us that effective communication starts with empathy.

Simplify the Message for Greater Impact

Simplicity is key to changing perceptions. Compliance professionals deal with complex regulations every day, but the message to employees doesn’t need to be complicated. Overloading employees with too much information or legal jargon can alienate them and reinforce the idea that compliance is an obstacle.

To build a culture of compliance, break down policies into easily digestible pieces, and use relatable examples or visuals. Clear, concise communication helps employees understand the value of compliance and how it affects their day-to-day work. Simplicity builds engagement and encourages participation.

Build Engagement and Ownership

Like a well-executed marketing campaign, a successful compliance program creates a sense of relevance and ownership among employees. Compliance initiatives should engage employees through interactive training, workshops, and open forums. Creating spaces for dialogue improves transparency and allows employees to voice their concerns.

By framing compliance as a benefit rather than a burden, employees are more likely to embrace it. When they understand that compliance protects both them and the company, they feel empowered to make ethical decisions. This sense of ownership is key to building a strong compliance culture where employees actively participate rather than passively follow instructions.

Avoid Common Pitfalls in Compliance Marketing

While marketing strategies can greatly benefit compliance, some potential pitfalls must be avoided. One of the biggest risks is reinforcing negative perceptions by being too rigid or inflexible in messaging. Compliance teams must strike a balance between enforcement and support.

The goal should be to build a culture of openness where employees feel comfortable approaching the compliance team with their concerns. When compliance is approachable and supportive, it’s far more likely to influence behavior positively.

Transform Compliance into a Positive Force

Ultimately, the success of a compliance program depends on how it’s communicated. When marketed effectively, compliance becomes more than just a set of rules-it becomes a force that empowers employees & drives success across the organization. By simplifying complex regulations, addressing negative perceptions, and encouraging employee engagement, compliance teams can reframe their role from the “office of no” to something that builds trust, integrity, and opportunity.

Workshop Plans and Future Opportunities

Looking ahead, there’s growing interested in using workshops to help compliance professionals improve their skills. Hands-on learning experiences—such as workshops and real-world problem-solving sessions provide more engaging alternatives to traditional, static compliance modules.

As organizations continue to evolve, so must their approach to compliance. By adopting marketing techniques, simplifying messages, and using new tools, compliance professionals can build a stronger, more resilient culture that empowers employees and supports long-term success.

Three Key Considerations for Marketing Compliance

When marketing compliance, focus on three fundamental questions:

• What are you offering?
• Who are you offering it to?
• How are you communicating it?

While these questions may seem straightforward, they require careful thought and intentionality. Jumping too quickly into how to sell
compliance without fully understanding the “what” and the “who” can lead to missed opportunities.

What Are You Offering?

Compliance professionals should carefully consider what they are offering. Compliance teams often believe they are offering relevance-helping the business operate ethically and stay within legal bounds. However, without realizing it, they may be offering something else: fear, friction, or a checkbox mentality.

Who Are You Offering It To?

Understanding your audience is critical in both compliance and marketing. Compliance is often viewed as the “office of no”-a department that stifles innovation rather than enabling business growth.

To overcome this, compliance teams need to understand employees’ mindset. Marketing compliance effectively requires addressing biases and showing employees that compliance is about creating opportunities and minimizing risks.

How Are You Communicating It?

The goal in marketing compliance is to create an environment of ease and openness. Compliance professionals should ask themselves whether their efforts create barriers or foster engagement. If compliance processes are difficult or obstructive, employees will resist. But
when compliance is framed as something that simplifies work, employees are far more likely to engage.

Crafting Your Compliance Message

To craft an effective compliance message, focus on empowering responsible decision-making. Prioritize raising awareness and enhancing issue-spotting over simply delivering information. Always favor clarity over legal jargon. Timeliness and relevance matter-deliver the right message at the right time and keep it simple to maximize impact.

Communication Tactics

When communicating compliance, be clear, accessible, and goal-oriented. Use modern tools to simplify content without losing meaning and use positive reinforcement to drive behavior change. Shift the role of compliance from gatekeeper to enabler, helping teams proactively manage risks while promoting a collaborative, supportive culture.

Engaging and Motivating Employees

To engage employees, frame compliance as an enabler. Use interactive activities, tailor your approach to individual motivations, and celebrate wins. Share best practices and adapt based on feedback to build a positive, committed team. Continuous improvement in compliance and ethics requires measuring effectiveness, identifying gaps, and making necessary adjustments. Whether through small
changes or larger initiatives, addressing gaps with empathy and collaboration strengthens both compliance and company culture.

Dr. Hemma R. Lomax, CEO of COMPAAS 360

This article, “Marketing Tactics to Increase the Impact of Your Compliance Program,” is based on key insights shared by Hemma in a recent  webinar conversation with Eric Dates, Head of GTM at VComply. Hemma is an award-winning ethics and compliance executive leader. She is a compliance coach and provides boutique advisory services for organizations.