Ethical Marketing: A Guide for Podcasters with Chrysa Sto
➡️ Are you looking to grow your business and connect with your audience in a meaningful way?
In this episode, we explore the world of ethical marketing and how it can transform your podcast and business practices.
I'm joined by Chrysa Sto, a seasoned podcast consultant and manager for ethical and eco-conscious service businesses. Chrysa shares her insights on implementing ethical marketing principles in podcasting and beyond.
What is Ethical Marketing?
Discover the core principles of ethical marketing:
Transparency in your campaigns and communications
Putting your audience's needs first
Avoiding pushy or manipulative tactics
Learn why these principles are crucial for building trust and long-term relationships with your listeners and customers.
Implementing Ethical Marketing in Your Podcast
Chrysa offers practical tips for integrating ethical marketing into your podcast, including:
Crafting thoughtful ad placements
Creating authentic, value-driven content
Using clear, honest language in your promotions
Ethical Marketing Challenges and Solutions
We discuss common ethical marketing challenges podcasters face and provide actionable solutions:
Balancing promotion with valuable content
Avoiding misleading "live" workshop claims
Crafting genuine, non-pushy sales messages
Key Takeaways for Ethical Podcast Marketing
Be transparent: Clearly communicate what your audience can expect
Prioritize human connection: Focus on building relationships over quick sales
Use AI responsibly: Ensure AI-generated content aligns with your authentic voice
By embracing these ethical marketing principles, you'll create a podcast that not only grows your business but also genuinely serves your audience.
Connect with Chrysa:
https://chrysastoiloudi.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrysasto/
Transcript
Rachael Botfield: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to Podcasting 101 with Rachael. This podcast is for busy female entrepreneurs who run their own businesses and want to start podcasts 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. Like into what It's like having your own podcast.
Hi everyone, and welcome to this week's episode. Today we're gonna 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 [00:01:00] 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 Sto: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for the invitation. Rachael. It's glad to be here.
Rachael Botfield: 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 Sto: Yeah, thanks so much for doing for making the question. There are a lot of information about ethical marketing. And in the recent years this this term is turned into a buzzword. So for me, because I'm a podcast consultant and manager, [00:02:00] I combine like the ethical marketing principles into podcasting or I integrate them.
And So for me, because there are a lot of definitions out there, it's being transparent and putting the customer or listener or, people first when you do your marketing and sales. When I say being transparent, for example, when you're running a 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 to not be pushy and not 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 [00:03:00] from like any marketing campaign, from any product or service that you advertise, letting them know and informing them of what's in it, what's in it for them and what the package includes without the extra,
Rachael Botfield: the kind of like scarcity marketing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is it. Yeah. This is it. You have to get it right now or you're never going to get it again. Exactly. Yeah.
Chrysa Sto: The scarcity word is the word that I was looking for. Yeah. Without the scarcity. And some people, might be because I always get the question, but If we, get out of the equation, the scarcity and the, the scarcity thing and the countdowns and the language doors close in X day in next date.
How are go, how do we sell? Like how do we sell to people? And my answer is, we sell to people. By actually providing the product or service for them, a product or service they need, and they [00:04:00] 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 you have a goal of 50 people and you're bringing in 20 people. And those 20 people see. Within can see in the membership that, for example, they sold to something and they, they are not getting what they've been sold to, if that makes sense. What happens with those 20 people?
They are likely to sign off and the next month or whenever their subscription ends, and they are more likely not to recommend you to, to their friends, business friends, collaborators, et cetera. And you are out for them you're out of the equation for them. Maybe they unfollow you or something, but it's not the unfollow that matters.
What matters is the. [00:05:00] When we say about when we mentioned ethical marketing is not tricking people into making a decision they don't want or need.
Rachael Botfield: Yeah, in a
Chrysa Sto: nutshell. Yeah.
Rachael Botfield: Absolutely. It's also that kind of bro marketing that you get all that. It's also the type of thing that tends to put, especially women, a lot of women female business owners that I've spoken to, yeah, 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 putting you into a decision that isn't potentially right for you. Especially with some people have questions over, say, the amount of investment, we all have a budget in mind and we all have a certain amount of money that we can spend, whatever that amount is, and, I've heard of people saying, I can't afford this.
And then you get the answers like you can't afford not to da. And it's you should never be pushing somebody who's [00:06:00] saying they haven't got the budget or they can't afford to into a sale. So you're just saying that you, we have to take all those things into consideration and not be like that and be.
Like you said, clear and transparent, yeah.
Chrysa Sto: Yeah, clear and transparent and more human centered, we need to treat people in our marketing campaigns or sales calls like as we want to be treated, 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, product but not quite there yet because of Maybe of low budget or interest or time.
So again, like we need to treat them in our marketing, including the podcast thing as we want it to be treated. And this is where the podcast comes in, like, how I integrate these principles into podcasting is actually podcasting, is a marketing arm [00:07:00] from, for many businesses out there.
They use it to promote their services, products, and work, build their authority. So same principles apply to podcasting. 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, will live.
Definitely. So being mindful of how many ads are you putting into the episodes? How long are the ads are? Ads are just an example, putting again 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 the, an episode because we say to people, put the ad in the, at [00:08:00] the beginning of the episode, right?
So the ad can be listened. But if the ad is too long you've lost me. You've just lost me. And I'm not like interested to listen to the episode right now after I listened 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 Botfield: 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. . I know that's, you are talking about ethical sales, but there was a little bit of a crossover there yeah.
Having those principles of considering the language that you're using and what you're putting across, taking, really taking into consideration, 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 treating them how you wanna be [00:09:00] treated.
I say that to my kids all the time this is how we have to be. You treat other people how you want to be treated because exactly. That is, basic kindness and compassion to, to everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Really, and I love that. I think that we do need to not get too persuaded to be too blunt in, 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, 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, to make
Chrysa Sto: the share, to make to get the sale.
Yeah. And they don't care about
Rachael Botfield: 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 [00:10:00] 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 Sto: Yeah. And also adding to that, what we already saying, another example that, some people might want to, might in, might be interested to listen to is I see a lot of people, putting out, don't wanna mention like the, what technology is being used, but I see a lot of people putting out like portable live workshops and the workshop is not actually live, it is a recorded workshop.
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 of all over the internet and people, especially that are engaged [00:11:00] in business conversation, business and sales are aware of those things and practices and also intentional of their decisions, of their purchasing decisions.
For me, I get that you can record the workshop and, can be an evergreen co workshop that you can promote and release again and again. But you can do it simply by, putting the workshop, whatever you want on your website or wherever and letting people know that this is a recorded workshop that uses the practices of today or this year.
And you can still use it. That's it. , because, yeah, I just wanted to mention that because I recently stumble upon those things. , yeah. These workshops
Rachael Botfield: I've across, 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 say, yeah, just fine.
It is a live workshop when actually it's not a live [00:12:00] workshop because, 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 because it was live. But I think you're right. It's making that clarification between, 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 it. Yeah. The workshop, even though you're watching a past recording of it you're not having that transparency.
Chrysa Sto: Yeah. And the people that are interested, actually interested in the workshops, in these workshops content, they will actually buy it.
If, even if it's recorded, like I, I've bought myself a few workshops that are, that were recorded and they were great.
Rachael Botfield: Yeah. I've, a few of them. I've. bought a live, bought the ticket for the live workshop, knowing I couldn't go, checked 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 ahead of time, knowing I wouldn't be able to make it, but got [00:13:00] that because it's still, there's lots of value to be had from 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 business? And what are like the easiest ways or the easiest things to think
Chrysa Sto: about? Yeah. Yeah, it's 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 in their city and integrating ethical marketing into their business or into their podcast. So first again, going back to the transparency part, just be mindful of what language you use in your marketing campaigns, in your, 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 [00:14:00] that I'm speaking to get the permission from the person that I'm speaking to.
to actually send a proposal or send an offer like this applies to everyone. So you can ask, can you can ask them like, is this okay with you? Is this can I move forward with sending you a proposal about what we talked about? Simply this thing makes a huge difference because it shows your human side to the other person.
It shows that you care, actually care for them and want their permission to move forward. 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 calls, when we talk about podcasting, I would say again, because there's a lot of. There are a lot of ads, incorporated into podcasting these days.
And I know that, it's necessary thing. It's working ads are working, but be mindful of [00:15:00] 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 mentioned that this is, 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. It's 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 Ling or the button, they want me to go through, but I don't like, [00:16:00] for example, countdown timers that, they are not, they don't represent truth because, for example, because I've seen from the inside, people have like doors closed 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 a countdown timer, it's better to just change the date or make a short video, informing people, Hey, I'm increasing the, I'm, I'm adding one more week into the campaign or something like that. Just be transparent with them rather than, closing the doors and then DMing people about joining the program or whatever.
This thing, these things don't work. And actually it's a, how do you call this in English? Oh [00:17:00] gosh. I cannot remember the term right now, the phrase, but it's like pushing them away from you and pushing them to not unfollow you, but not engage with you, like in the nearby future.
Rachael Botfield: Yeah. You're repelling them away from you, really.
Yeah.
Chrysa Sto: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Rachael Botfield: Yeah. Because I personally don't see the need for that type of marketing. That's something that I would never do. 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 till the cart closes. They're not pushy emails.
They're saying when it's closing and it closes when it says it's going to close as well. Because I know that one of the ladies I know that's done it, she is very much, does not want to do, she does not do pushy sales. She does not do that kind of thing. And I think that you're saying, you're doing what you say you're going to do.
Chrysa Sto: Yeah.
Rachael Botfield: Yeah, exactly. Like we've talked about previously about the scarcity and, It makes people panic, doesn't it? Oh no, [00:18:00] I see it on clothes things all the time. Oh, there's only one left in this and you're like, really? I don't know. Yeah.
Chrysa Sto: But think of think of yourself five years ago.
I don't know how, like how, I don't remember how many years are you in business, but think of yourself five years ago. Because 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, achieve X.
And at that time I couldn't afford it. And it was, emotionally, it taught you, it touched me like it touched my emotions and I felt but I felt, Oh, I'm not gonna do it. When I didn't, I, when I wasn't aware of that things are going on a circle, these courses, relaunching in a few months or whenever.
But yeah, it actually tries to pursue people into buying now, so they [00:19:00] have 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 person's needs. So for example, another thing that you can do is if you have 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 a mentioning.
For example, we can say, how can I support your business? We can have this question at the end or can you spread the word about the [00:20:00] 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're increasing the chances to have people, buy your course product workshop. I know it's time consuming. I know it doesn't have to be like an hour 60 minutes call. It can be 15 minutes. Just connect with the person, 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, yeah, five years ago when I was launching the business and I also have 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 one on one and it makes made a difference [00:21:00] 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 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 Botfield: Starting with good intentions, building, start from the beginning.
Chrysa Sto: Yeah, exactly.
Rachael Botfield: In terms of your podcast and your clients, what are the 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 the marketing and promotion side of things for your podcast?
Chrysa Sto: Yeah. That's a good question. Definitely can't, you can integrate ethical principles of ethical marketing principles [00:22:00] into your writing and into your, when you open up the episodes and your interest 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. Otherwise you can use this. for your podcast, but it's definitely, it relies heavily on it connects heavily with promotion parts and the sales part, because when we talk about sales and marketing, it's the persuasive thing, but aside of that, you can have a look at what language you use.
In your social media posts, for example, how you start your posts or how you start your newsletters that connect with the podcast. When you promote an episode on social media, or you can have a look at your hooks for the short form content for real stick talks and YouTube shorts, you can have a look at, being [00:23:00] intentional and being authentic in your short form videos.
Yeah.
Rachael Botfield: Yeah. I love that. I think that We're having a podcast being, trying to be as authentically you as possible is always 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 a say. news presenter type thing to start with.
And it was like, yes, I'm going to be not like an investigative journalist, 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 this is an interview, da thinking of them they're just a person like me.
I want to get their story. I want to get their expertise. And like you say, thinking we're all just humans and building that connection. And then having that flow through to our promotional kind of tactics. I try to employ those kind of tactics myself. I try to, when I talk [00:24:00] about my guests that come on and the episodes, try and talk about it in a way, that I'm speaking.
To you to, yeah. Not like announcement. My podcast is here. Come and listen to it now. Please. I think that there's a lot of, I've I've seen too much of that, but I think that's a bit of a mistake that, that people can make when they're promoting it. It's not just about you, it's about what are.
providing for your listeners, for your audience. That's, it's about them really, isn't it? That's what you're doing this. 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.
Applying that to your own business and your own podcast that you're there to help and support other people rather than put it all back on you and be go.
Chrysa Sto: Yeah. I wanted to mention one more thing in the last question that you asked for what else we can do in terms of incorporating ethical marketing or ethical marketing principles into our podcast.
So [00:25:00] I know this can be a huge, I want to, I don't want to, to get that much to dig in that much to it. But one example is we all use AI, right? Incorporate in 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 podcasts, for your short form videos, whatever.
But when you use something like Descript, be mindful of when you edit in Descript and you do the chopping thing and you just, it's not about putting It's not about just, putting an episode, chopping the, cutting off the arms and ass and just releasing it. It's when we craft an episode, that is where, why we actually exist, like product managers and editors, we craft the story.
We try to be mindful of [00:26:00] 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 you use the eye or 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 AI incorporated written social media posts, have a second look like the, is this sounds like you make a few edits, maybe spend 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 the, not from the beginning.
It's okay to use AI, but you polished it. So [00:27:00] it's actually. you speaking through this text.
Rachael Botfield: 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, it uses that if you read someone else's post, you're okay, yeah, they use chat GBT or something.
Yeah. I've been using claude. ai recently, and I've just I've got the paid version of it at the moment, I'm just trying out and I've been pretty happy with it. But I've been using it for some SEO descriptions for my website, which I found to 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 person, 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 feels like I would rather do less and have more me in it than churn out some [00:28:00] of the, AI stuff that doesn't sound quite like you because 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 are 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 Sto: Exactly. Yeah, definitely. You're not representing your brand and your, values, but you are also, you are not.
Kind of not, ethical in terms of how you present yourself because this is what you put out there is not actually it's a huge difference to use AI as you do, for example, to, to have as a jumping points and to incorporate AI like heavily into your episodes. And do your part of those episodes.
Rachael Botfield: Yeah. Thank you so much for this conversation, Krista. It's been really great chatting with you and learning more about ethical marketing. There's some great points and advice that have been brought up there. And I just think the key one [00:29:00] is what you said about treat other people how you want to be treated and, 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 Sto: Definitely. Thank you so much for having me, Rachael. It was a great conversation. I think there were a few great points people. Can listen to and get some tips. And I mostly hang out on LinkedIn.
You can find me at Chrysa Sto. Also, if you Google Chrysa Sto, my website will pop up probably in the second place. It's it's Chrysastoylodi. com, but it's tricky to pronounce it and to spell. Yeah. So just type Chrysa Sto and my LinkedIn, a website will pop up. Yeah.
Rachael Botfield: Brilliant. I'll pop all the links in the show notes as well so you can easily get in touch with Chrysa if you need to.
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 [00:30:00] 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.