Podcast 2: Discovering Your Ethical Marketing Activities
Feb 25, 2020
Marketing yourself in an ethical way is key to building a sustainable business you’re proud of. One that helps you to thrive personally and as a complementary practitioner, coach or therapist. Ethical marketing is about being human and communicating in a way that feels right to you and your clients.
Ethical marketing activities are based on your personal ideas of right and wrong, or in other words, your values. Your professional body will have ethical requirements that you are required to adhere to too. They are different from the legal requirements of marketing including:
- Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) codes
- Data Protection (GDPR)
There are many marketing activities that are legal but won’t feel ethical to you. You need to decide on your rules when it comes to ethical marketing and employ the activities that reflect them.
Questions to ask yourself to help you discover your version of ethical marketing:
What do you like best about your marketing?
Consider all the marketing you’ve done so far and decide which activities you like the best. Where have you been visible and feel proud of the way you showed up in the world. What marketing has been complimented for by your peers and friends? Which activities have attracted clients to your door?
What don’t you like about your marketing?
Are there things you do that really don’t feel good to you? Do you struggle with certain aspects that you feel you ‘should’ do, but absolutely hate doing? Are you doing some activities just because your peers do them? The answer to this question will help you work out what to stop doing as it’s not a good fit.
What are your communication strengths?
How do you communicate best with people? Are you a networker and like to build in personal relationships and connect with people directly? Are you a visual person and create amazing graphics or artwork? Do you love writing and find you can easily find your flow with it? Are you comfortable and confident in front of a video camera? Are you a talker and communicate best when speaking?
Knowing how you best communicate will help you to pick the best marketing activities for you based on your communication strengths as well as what feels good.
What marketing activities do you enjoy doing the most?
What marketing activities are you doing where the time flies and you find yourself absorbed in them? Do you embrace technology and find it easy? Are you happy with the more traditional offline activities?
What do you like about other practitioners marketing?
Whilst I don’t want you to compare your marketing to others, you can get inspiration from how they market themselves. You can also look at other industries for marketing inspiration, you don’t need to limit yourself to health and well-being. Is someone doing something you’d like to be doing for your audience too?
What don’t you like about other practitioners marketing?
Again, similar to the things you like, what are the things you don’t like about how other practitioners show up in the world? These will give you ideas for what you want to avoid in your marketing.
When you think about trying new marketing activities, what sounds like fun?
Think about things you find fun – what hobbies do you have that you really love doing? What type of marketing activities could be inspired by your idea of fun?
Reflect on the answers to your questions and decide what marketing activities feel ethical to you. What ones fit with your values and how you want to be seen in the world. Which ones fit with your communication strengths and the things you find fun?
If you struggle working out which ethical marketing activities suit you best, book a discovery call and find out how I can help you.
Podcast 2 show notes:
- Introducing this episode (0:27)
- What is ethical marketing (0:39)
- What do you like best about the marketing you’re doing? (2:06)
- What don’t you like about your marketing? (3:01)
- What are your communication strengths? (3:57)
- What marketing activities do you enjoy doing the most? (5:44)
- The things you like about other people’s marketing (6:50)
- What marketing don’t you like? (7:40)
- What sounds fun to try? (8:22)
- Consider your answers and decide what marketing is right for you (9:02)
