Ethical Marketing: A Guide for Podcasters with Chrysa Sto

Rachael: 00:00:09

Hi, and welcome to podcasting 101 with Rachael. This podcast is for busy female entrepreneurs who run their own businesses and want to start a podcast, or who may already have a podcast.

I want to share practical information and tips on how you can get your podcast started and managing it along the way. I'll also be interviewing other female podcast hosts to give you real insight into what it's like having your own podcast.

Hi everyone, and welcome to this week's episode.

Today we're going to talk about ethical marketing, what it is, what it means to my guest, and how you can implement this into your podcast and your business. Let me introduce you to Chrysa Sto. Chrysa is a seasoned podcast consultant and manager for ethical and eco conscious service businesses.

She works with human centric marketers, coaches, and change makers who want to connect with their audience, increase business leads, and expand their network through impactful podcast conversations. She's the host of the human to human business show, which aims to bridge the gap between profitability and ethical marketing sales.

A podcast that is coming soon. So welcome, Chrysa. It's lovely to have you here.

Chrysa: 00:01:27

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for the invitation, Rachael. It's glad to be here.

Rachael: 00:01:34

Yeah, we've had a few conversations now over LinkedIn and calls and things, so I just want to dive right in and what is ethical marketing?

Chrysa: 00:01:45

Yeah, thanks so much for doing, for making the question. So there are a lot of information about ethical marketing, and in the recent years, this term is turned into a buzzword.

So for me, because I'm a podcast consultant and manager, I combine like the ethical marketing principles into podcasting or I integrate them.

So for me, because there are a lot of definitions out there, it's being transparent and putting the customer or listener or, you know, people first when you do your marketing and sales.

When I say like being transparent, I mean, for example, when you're running marketing campaign, have you considered how you use, how to structure your emails, for example, or your podcast episodes with the listener and viewer in mind? Have you considered like minimizing the countdown timers that you have in, or the language that you use in your marketing campaign?

Like, we need the language, not be pushy and nothing direct people into making a decision that they might not need.

So transparency means to me, putting the person first, letting them know what they are going to get from any marketing campaign, from any product or service that you advertise, letting them know and informing them of what's in it for them and what the package includes without the.

Rachael: 00:03:22

Extra, you know, the kind of like scarcity, mark.

Chrysa: 00:03:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, this.

Rachael: 00:03:30

You have to get it right now. Others, you're never gonna get it again.

Chrysa: 00:03:33

Exactly. Yeah. This scarcity. The scarcity. The scarcity word is the word that I was looking for.

Rachael: 00:03:39

Yeah.

Chrysa: 00:03:39

Without the scarcity.

And some people, you know, might be, because I always get the question, but if we know, get out of the equation the scarcity and the, you know, the scarcity thing and the countdowns and, you know, the language, like doors close in x day, in x date, how do we sell? Like, how do we sell to people? And my answer is, we sell to people by actually providing a product or a service for them.

The product or service they need and they want as well. Like, we need to have both. Because think of this. Imagine this.

Imagine that you're selling, you're running a campaign, you're launching like a membership or something, and you're bringing in, like, you have a goal of 50 people and you're bringing in 20 people. And those 20 people see within, like, can see in the membership that, for example, they sold to something and they.

They are not getting what they, they've been sold to, if that makes sense. What happens with those 20 people? They are likely to sign off and, like, leave the next month or whenever this.

Their subscription ends, and they are more likely not to recommend you to. To their friends, business friends, collaborators, etcetera. And, you know, you are out for them. You're out of the equation for them.

You know, maybe they unfollow you or something, but it's not the unfollow that matters. Is that when we say about, when we mention ethical marketing is not tricking people into making a decision they don't want or need.

Rachael: 00:05:30

Yeah.

Chrysa: 00:05:31

In a nutshell, yeah.

Rachael: 00:05:32

I mean, absolutely. It's that also that kind of bro marketing that you kind of get all that.

It's also the type of thing that tends to put, especially women, a lot of women, female business owners I've spoken to, that kind of pushy set. I don't want to be the sales makes me icky. I don't want to be that pushy salesperson we think of that.

I know in the UK, it's that pushy truck salesman or car salesman, that someone's like, kind of almost bullying you into a decision that isn't potentially right for you. You know, especially with some people have questions over, say, the amount of investment. You know, we all have a budget in mind.

We all have a certain amount of money that we can spend, whatever that amount is. And you know, I've heard of people saying, you know, I can't afford this. And then you get the answers like, well, you can't afford not to.

Da da da da. You should never be pushing somebody who's saying they haven't got the budget or they can't afford to interest sales.

So you're just saying that we have to take all those things into consideration and not be like that and be like you said, clear and transparent. Yeah, yeah.

Chrysa: 00:06:40

Clear and more human centered. You know, we need to treat people, people in our marketing campaigns or sales calls, like, as we want to be treated.

You know, when we get on a sales call or when we sign up for a low cost product and we are interested in getting into their high paying, you know, product, but not quite there yet because of maybe of, you know, low budget or interest or time. So, again, like, we need to treat them in our marketing, including the podcasting, as we want to be treated. Yeah.

And this is where the podcast comes in.

Like, how I integrate these principles into podcasting is actually podcasting, you know, is a marketing arm from, for many businesses out there, they use it to promote their services, products, and work, you know, build their authority. So same principles apply to podcasting.

Like, if you throw into an episode, five ads saying and mentioning five different services that you have or five different workshops that you're about to launch by the second ad, I think the listener will skip, you know, will live. Definitely.

So being mindful of how many ads are you putting into episodes, how long are the ads are ads is just an example, you know, putting again the.

The person, the people first and considering those little things that make a difference because for me as a listener, because I listen to a lot of podcasts, again, if you open up an episode, because we say to people, you know, put the. The ad at the beginning of the episode, right? So the ad can be listened. But if the ad is too long, you. You've lost me. You've just lost me.

And I'm not, like, interested to listen to the episode right now after I listen to a two minute ad, for example.

So it's those little things and that make a difference, that make a difference into how we approach podcasting and marketing from an ethical standpoint.

Rachael: 00:09:03

I listened to a podcast a while ago, actually. It was done by my friend Hannah McCormick on the showing up solo podcast. She had a lady on. They talking about, like, trauma informed sales.

And I know that's you're talking about ethical sales, but there was a little bit of a crossover there, like, but, you know, having those principles of considering the language that you're using and what you're putting across, taking, really taking into consideration, you know, these, quote unquote, people you're trying to reach or whatever. Yeah, they are people. We are all humans. And I love what you said about, you know, treating them how you want to be treated.

I say that to my kids all the time, like, this is how we have to be. You treat other people how you want to be treated because that is, you know, basic kindness and compassion to everybody, really. And I love that.

I think that we do need to not get too persuaded to be too blunt in our language with ourselves. Obviously, we have to be clear because clarity is important.

But you can be clear and have that clarity and not be creating that feeling of scarcity or, you know, panic buying and things like that.

Because I think nowadays as well, everybody just switches off from, I know that I would and a lot of people that I've spoken to that would just, I don't want to engage with that person because they are just trying to make the sale.

Chrysa: 00:10:31

To make, to get the sale. Yeah, definitely.

Rachael: 00:10:33

They don't care about you. They're not going to really look after you as well when they've brought you into the fold, when you've bought their product.

Are you going to be looked after? Are you going to, are you going to feel that they can do what you want them to do, whatever services you've bought off them.

So all that care you'll take on the front end will hopefully then ensure them to show who you are really. And be authentic.

Chrysa: 00:11:00

Yeah. And also, like adding to that what we are saying.

Another example that, you know, some people might want to, my being there should listen to is I see a lot of people, you know, putting out, don't want to mention like that what technology is being used, but I see a lot of people putting out, like photograph live workshops. And the workshop is not actually live, is a recorded workshop and that is being advertised or promoted as live.

This is completely unethical and this is completely like, you don't want to do that because people and listeners and viewers, like all of the people all over the Internet and people especially that are engaged in business conversation, business and sales are aware of those things and practices and also intentional their decisions over their purchasing decision.

So for me, I get, I get that you can record the workshop and, you know, can be an evergreen, evergreen workshop that you can promote and release again and again, but you can do it simply by, you know, putting the workshop wherever you want on your website or wherever and letting people know that this is a recorded workshop that uses the practices of like today and of this year and you can still use it. That's it. Because. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that because I recently stumbled upon those things.

Rachael: 00:12:36

Yeah, those workshops, yeah, I've come across that as well.

And it was like a free, like, it was used as a lead magnet, but yeah, which is like you say it's totally fine, but I think they say it's a, it is a live workshop when actually it's not a live workshop because, you know, I noticed it because you could buy it at any time. And I was like, oh, I don't, how is it live? How is she doing? And they're like, oh, right, because it was live. But I think like, you're right.

It's making that clarification between, you know, I, we did this workshop. It was, we thought it was a great success. Everybody got loads out of it.

You will still get the benefit of the workshop even though you're watching a past recording of it. Like transparency.

Chrysa: 00:13:20

Yeah. And the people that are interested, actually interested in the workshops, in these workshops content, they will actually buy it.

Like if, even if it's recorded. Like I bought myself a few workshops that are, that were recorded and like, they were great.

Rachael: 00:13:37

Yeah. I've, a few of them.

I've bought the ticket for the live workshop knowing I couldn't go check that I had the recording so that I could at least then think, actually, I really want to listen to this, but I can't go live. I'm going to listen to the recording. So I've purchased it kind of ahead of time, knowing I wouldn't be able to make it. But like, got that.

Because it's still, there's lots of value to be had from those types of those types of things. What are the biggest things or the biggest challenges that podcasters come up against in terms of ethical marketing?

What are the ways that we can incorporate this into our practice, into our podcast, into our, into our business? And what are kind of like the easiest ways or the easiest things to think about?

Chrysa: 00:14:22

Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question.

We can go a lot of ways in this question, but I'll talk about three things people can do, either, like people interested in integrating ethical marketing into their business or into the podcast.

So first, again, going back to the transparency part, just be mindful of what language you use in your marketing campaigns when you get to sales calls.

For example, one thing about sales calls that I like and I practice is getting the permission from the person that I'm speaking to to actually send the proposals or send an offer. Like this applies to everyone, so you can ask them, like, is this okay with you?

Is this like, can I move forward with sending you a proposal about what we talked about? You know, simply this thing makes a huge difference because it shows your humor side to the other person.

It shows that you care, actually care for them and want their permission to move forward. Then it's not like one other sales call on your to do list.

For example, the first thing is this, when we talk about sales goals, when we talk about podcasting, I would say again, because there's a lot of, there are a lot of ads, you know, incorporated into podcasting these days. And I know, you know, it's necessary thing. It's working. Ads are working.

But be mindful of how long your ads are, what type of content, like what type of offers you advertise within those ads.

If the, if those offers are still applicable to the listener, if the offer is like for example, a workshop, make sure you mention that this is, you know, a paid workshop, a free workshop, things like that. But clarity, increase the clarity into your ads and make them short, sweet and to the point, like in a nutshell.

And third is about marketing and how we show up like on social media, on our newsletters. So again, for example, let's talk about newsletters. When we talk about newsletters and promoting your products or offers within a newsletter.

I like the newsletters to be short, to highlight the link or the button, you know, they want me to go through.

But I don't like for example, countdown timers that, you know, they are not, they don't represent truth because, for example, because I've seen from the inside people have like doors close tomorrow and they still accepting people like two days into the future, starting from tomorrow.

So if you have like availability for one more week, if you want to include countdown timer, it's better to change the date or make a short video, you know, informing people, hey, I am increasing the, I'm, you know, I'm adding one more week into the campaign or something like that. Just be transparent with them rather than, you know, closing the doors and then de aiming people about joining the program or whatever.

These things, these things don't work. And actually it's a, how do you call this in English?

Oh, gosh, I cannot remember the term right now, the phrase, but it's like pushing them away from you and like pushing them to not unfollow you. But not engage with you, like, in the nearby future.

Rachael: 00:18:21

Yeah. You're repelling them away from you. Really?

Chrysa: 00:18:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rachael: 00:18:25

Because I personally don't see the, the need for that type of marketing. That's something that I would never do.

I mean, I've seen some people I know that have got a countdown timer, but they are saying, you know, it's a couple of days, so the cart closes. They're not pushy emails. They're saying it's closing and it closes when it says it's gonna close, because they.

I know that one of the ladies I know this done is she is very much does not want to do. She does not do pushy, Sal. She does not do that kind of thing. And I think that you're saying you're doing what you say you're gonna do.

Chrysa: 00:19:00

Yeah.

Rachael: 00:19:01

Rather like we've talked about previously about the scarcity, and it kind of makes people panic, doesn't it? Like, oh, no. On clothes, things all the time. Oh, there's only one left in this. And you like me. I don't know.

Chrysa: 00:19:15

Yeah, but, but think of. Think of, like, think of yourself five years ago. I don't know how, like, how. I don't remember how many years are you in a business?

But think of yourself five years ago. Because if you. If you take. If you ask me, I've been in that position.

I wanted, like, a course or a workshop or something so badly because I, at that time, I thought that it was going to help me, you know, achieve x. And at that time, I couldn't afford it. And it was, you know, emotionally, it touches.

It touched me like, it touched my emotions and I felt, like, bad. I felt, you know, oh, I'm not gonna do it. You know, when I didn't, I.

When I wasn't aware of, like, that things are going on a circle, these courses, you know, relaunching in a few months or whenever, but, yeah, it actually tries to pursue people into buying now, you know, so they have, like, the target number of students they have put into their lists. But it's not putting people first because it doesn't. It's not like this practice doesn't think of the. Of the person's. Person's needs.

So, for example, another thing that you can do is if you have, like, a small audience and you're in the first stages of launching courses. Workshop, a paid workshop or a subscription service, something like that is you can have connection calls, for example, for.

With people that might be interested, might be a good fit or might know someone. This is like purely a practice that I love because it's just what it says.

It is like a connection call and just mentioning, for example, we can say, how can I support your business? We can have this question at the end or like, you know, can you, can you spread the word about the thing that I am launching next month? This is it.

But this makes a huge difference because people are likely to want to help you. So using this ethical practice, you know, you're increasing the chances to have people, you know, buy your course product workshop.

I know it's time consuming. I know it doesn't have to be like an hour, you know, 60 minutes call. It can be 15 minutes.

Just connect with the person, you know, touch base and mention what you have coming up and if they are willing to help you. Like simply and clearly.

I've done it with, with one of my services, like I had like at the beginning of five years ago when I was launching the business. And I also done it, not this to promote like one of my services, but for the podcast.

When I wanted to feedback, I reached out, for example, to 20 people via email 101 and it made a difference to the feedback that I've gotten from them. So, yeah, again, like going back to the connection piece and to speaking to people one on one makes a difference.

I know it's time consuming and there are a lot of ways, you know, you can promote product or course, but if you are in the beginning phase of your journey, I think this will help a lot and also shows that you care about them.

Rachael: 00:22:55

Starting with good intentions building. Yeah, you know, start from the beginning.

Chrysa: 00:22:59

Yeah, exactly.

Rachael: 00:23:00

In terms of your podcast and your clients, what other ways do you implement? Do you think about it in terms of when you're bringing guests into your podcast or your writing?

Or is it mainly just mainly to do with the marketing and promotion side of things for your podcast?

Chrysa: 00:23:21

Yeah, that's a good question, definitely. Can, you know, you can integrate ethical principles of your ethical marketing principles into your writing and into your.

When you open up the episodes, in your intros, in your. Within the episodes, or when you write, for example, a podcast description, the language can be more human centric, let's say. Let's call it.

Yeah, I'm trying to think other ways you can use this for your podcast, but it's definitely, it relies heavily on like, you know, it connects heavily with promotion part and the sales part, because when we talk about sales and marketing, it's the persuasive thing, you know? Yeah.

But aside of that, you can have a look at what language you use in, in your social media posts, for example, how you start your post or how you start your newsletters that connect with the podcast, you know, when you promote an episode on social media. Or you can have a look at your hooks for the short form content, for reals, TikToks and YouTube shorts.

You can have a look at, you know, being intentional and being authentic. Authentic in your short form videos. Yeah.

Rachael: 00:24:40

Yeah, I love that. I think that with having a podcast being, know, trying to be as authentically you as possible is always the way, the way forward.

Like, when I first started my podcast, I had a different podcast to this one. I think I started to look at it more of as a news presenter type thing to start with.

And it was like, yes, I'm going to be not like an investigative journalist, but, you know, like, I've got to put on a voice, like a radio voice or something. And that just wasn't really me.

And it took a couple of episodes to get into that, to start being me and really think about the guests as not some, like, you know, this is an interview, da da da da. Like, yeah, thinking of them, but they're just a person like me. I want to get their story.

I want to get their expertise and, and like you say, you know, thinking we're all just humans and building that connection, so. And then having that flow through to our promotional kind of tactics, I try to employ those kind of tactics myself.

I tried to, when I talk about my guests that come on in the, and the episodes, try and talk about it in a way, you know, that I'm speaking to you. Yeah. Not like, announcement, my podcast is here. Come and listen to it now, please. Like, you know, I think that there's a lot of.

I've not seen too much of that, but I think that that's a bit of a mistake that people can make when they're promoting it. It's not just about you. It's about, like, what are you providing for your listeners, for your audience? That's. It's about.

It's about them, really, isn't it? That's why you're doing this.

You know, I'm doing this podcast to help women launch the podcast for their business, to manage it along the way, get some tips and advice. So that's the standpoint you want to come from.

So, you know, applying that to your own business and your own podcast, that you're there to help and support other people rather than, yeah, put it all back on you and we go.

Chrysa: 00:26:32

Yeah, this is me. Sorry, I wanted to mention one more thing. Yeah.

In the last, in the last question that you asked for, like, what else we can do in terms of incorporating ethical marketing or ethical marketing principles into our podcast. So I know this can be a huge episode. I don't want to, you know, to get that much to that much dig in, like that much to it.

But one example is we all, we all use AI, right? Incorporating a, using AI into your podcast.

For example, I use descript and yeah, descript is a great platform to use for your videos, for your podcast, for your short form videos, whatever.

But when you use something like this script, be mindful of when you edit in this script and you do the chopping thing and you just, you know, it's not about, it's not about just, you know, putting an episode, chopping the, cutting off the arms and ass and just releasing it. You know, it's when, when we craft an episode, that is why, you know, why we actually exist. Like podcast managers and editors, we craft the story.

We try to be mindful of the things that need to cut off and take out and the things that need to be taken in, maybe in order to craft a whole episode that is actually pleasant to listen to.

So this is just one more thing, like, be mindful of how use I, or like, AI writing into your, like, putting a podcast episode and getting social media captions. Yeah, I know, I get it. It's good to incorporate AI, but have a second look when you have this, like AI, incorporate AI written social media posts.

Have a second look, like is this. Sounds like you make a few edits, maybe spend a few, a few minutes, make a few edits.

So you make it sound like you, you make it appear like you've written it, like from there, not from the beginning. It's okay to use AI, but you polished it. So it's actually you speaking through this text.

Rachael: 00:28:59

Yeah, I tend to use AI as a kind of jumping off point because I can never really get it to sound like me. And there are lots of those words that, you know, it uses it.

If you read someone else's post, you're kind of like, okay, yeah, they use chat GBT or something. Yeah, I've been using Claude AI recently and I've just got the paid version of it.

At the moment I'm just trying out and I've been pretty happy with it, but I, I've been using it for some SEO descriptions for my website, which I found work really well. But it gives me an idea of some of the points. It just makes it easier to pick out those points.

But then, yeah, we all have the way that we like to write, and I like to write quite personably. I don't write very formally at all, really, and I like to do it in that way. And yes, it does take longer to do it that way, but I don't know.

For me, it kind of feels like I would rather do less and have more me in it than kind of churn out some of the AI stuff that doesn't sound quite like you because I don't have. I don't think it'll really hit the mark with the people that are either. That are reading it.

So you're not best representing yourself, your podcast, your business. If you're using a lot of generic things and you don't really speak like that or you don't really, they're not your words.

So those are just things to bear in mind.

Chrysa: 00:30:18

Exactly. Yeah, definitely.

You're not representing your brand and your, you know, values, but you also, you know, you're not kind, not, you know, ethical in terms of how you present yourself because this is what you put out there is not actually you. You know, it's a huge difference to use AI as you, as you do, for example, to.

To have it as a jumping points and to incorporate AI, like, heavily into your episodes. Into your part of the episodes. Yeah.

Rachael: 00:30:51

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for this conversation, Krissa. It's been really great chatting with you and learning more about ethical marketing.

There's some great points and advice have been brought up there, and I just think the key one is what you said about treat other people, how you want to be treated and, you know, being kind and sticking to your authentic self. Thank you so much. Would you like to just let us know where you hang out the most or where people can find you if they want to get in touch?

Chrysa: 00:31:17

Definitely. Thank you so much for having me, Rachel. It was a great conversation. I think there were a few great points people can listen to and get some tips.

And so I mostly hang out on LinkedIn. You can find me at chrysostowe. Also, if you google Chrisostowe, my website will pop up.

Probably in the second place, it's, you know, it's chrissastoilody.com, but it's tricky to pronounce it and to spell. Yeah. So just type Chris Astow and my LinkedIn and website will pop up.

Rachael: 00:31:51

So. So, yeah, brilliant. I'll pop all the links in the show notes as well, so you can easily.

Get in touch with Chris if you need to and thanks again and we will catch everybody soon. Thanks a lot. Thanks for listening to the show. If you'd like to connect with me or get in touch, then head on over to my website.

If you liked the episode then I'd love it if you could leave me a review in your chosen podcast app. Your feedback is much appreciated. See you next time.