Marketing with Heart – How Helping Professionals Can Stay True to Their Values Online

🎙️ Episode 9: Marketing with Heart – How Helping Professionals Can Stay True to Their Values Online

In this episode, we explore how therapists, coaches, and other helping professionals can market ethically without compromising their integrity.

✨ Ethical Marketing & Alignment
Discover why ethical marketing goes beyond avoiding sleazy tactics. We discuss how to be transparent about who you serve, what you offer, and how you work—without exaggeration or fear-based messaging.

💬 Using Values-Based Language
Learn to choose words that reflect care and clarity. From shifting away from clinical jargon to crafting copy that feels inviting, you’ll hear examples of how language can either create trust or build walls.

🌱 Staying Grounded in Your Mission
We share practical ways to check that your marketing always aligns with your deeper purpose, even when business gets busy. You’ll leave inspired to ask yourself: Does this reflect how I want clients to feel?

🛠️ Practical Methods for Values-Driven Marketing
Get actionable tips you can implement today—like including value statements on your website, writing team bios that show your heart, and creating educational content that doesn’t feel salesy.

🌟 The Long-Term Benefits
Ethical, values-based marketing isn’t just the right thing to do—it builds trust, nurtures lasting client relationships, and fuels sustainable growth rooted in connection, not coercion.

🎧 Tune in to learn how to lead with empathy, transparency, and purpose in every aspect of your online presence.

#MarketingWithHeart #EthicalMarketing #ValuesDrivenBusiness #HelpingProfessionals #Podcast

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02.414)
you

Speaker 1 (00:07.256)
Hey there, you're listening to From Keywords to Connections.

we talk about more than just SEO.

We explore the real stories, strategies, and moments that help people connect in meaningful ways.

Mary and Winnie bringing you honest conversations about strategy, growth, and the connections that matter most.

We're so glad you're here.

Speaker 2 (00:50.03)
Hello and welcome back to From Keywords to Connections with Winnie and Mary. Last week we explored the power of personal stories and marketing, how showing up authentically can help build trust and connection. This week we're diving deeper into values driven marketing, what it looks like to stay aligned with your mission even in a noisy digital world. We'll talk about what ethical marketing really means, how to use language that reflects your values.

and ways to check that your content still feels like you. If you've ever struggled to promote your work without feeling salesy, this one's for you. So let's get started.

Yeah, so I think this is really good to kind of pair along with the last podcast we did because it talks about authenticity, using your voice, making sure you're staying in line with your ethical guidelines, your ethical practices, and being ethical in how you market yourself. And that's a huge thing, especially for helping professionals being ethical because there's HIPAA guidelines, there's all kinds of

practices in place and guidelines in place that ensure that they follow a specific set of standards to remain ethical in how they treat, how they deal with client information, client interaction, and all of those things. And it can feel a little crazy to try to figure out how to do that and how to stay consistent and market yourself without feeling like you're trying to sell yourself somehow.

The first thing I'm thinking about mainly is ethical marketing and then that alignment and what that means. I think ethical marketing really means, you know, having that honesty about who you serve, being honest about what you offer, not over promising and undersell, you know, and then under providing and how you work. You know, don't make those huge exaggerated promises that I can fix you. I can solve all your problems. I can do all of these things.

Speaker 1 (02:58.456)
You're going to leave here way better than you came on the first visit. We're going to solve everything or fear based messaging. Don't, you know, make them feel that whatever is going on with them is scary and they have to see you because something bad is going to happen if they don't. So it's highlighting how values like consent, empowerment, accessibility can be reflected in your content and sales process.

I think a part of this is also, you know, having those niches can help with that ethical marketing. You know, instead of saying, you know, no matter what your problem is, I'm going to be able to help you being honest. You know, here's what I do. And these are the different things that I can help with straight up front. So that way they're getting in contact with a helping professional who is aligned with treating what they're struggling with and

vice versa that you can provide that kind of care and love that way you can provide the level of quality of care that you really want to to your patients.

All right. Let's be realistic. You do have to do some kind of marketing. do have to do some kind of sales related, some type of... Unless you live in a tiny town where you're the only doctor and everybody knows your name and everybody just says, go to Dr. So-and-so because he does everything.

because my friend down the street went there and the aunt goes there and everybody goes there. gonna be honest, I kind of live in one of those towns, but still.

Speaker 1 (04:36.024)
I do too. And I mean, that works. Referrals work in those types of situations, but you're, if you're in those competitive areas like New York and Cal, anywhere in California, the bigger cities, yeah. Anywhere where there's competition, you need to, you know, differentiate yourself somehow. And that involves that marketing, you know, and that sales process. So

or even those mid-sized cities.

Speaker 1 (05:02.658)
this is a good thing to talk about, about how to do that in an ethical way and really align that with your values. So I think one of the first things you can do is use what we call values-based language. And what that really is, is using empowering language, using language that reflects care and clarity. It's not...

clinical. It's not like you're writing a master's degree paper for your professor. You're writing for the average person on the street who is in a crisis or who is in need of support. the words used in your copywriting, your blogs, your service pages, whatever, your social media posts, whatever you're doing, yeah, it matters. So it needs to reflect that care and that clarity. You don't want to use language that alienates.

Like you want to use language, like for example, healing from trauma instead of treating trauma disorders, because people don't want to think about themselves. I mean, I don't want to think about myself as having an anxiety disorder or a disorder of any kind or, you know, whatever things I deal with personally. I want to think about that empowering action that you're going to help me heal from it. You're going to help give me the skills or the care I need.

to actively work on fixing the problem, not the fact that I have some disorder that I'm broken or that I need some assistance to fix whatever is broken with myself. So using that honest, reflective language, it can either reinforce that safety,

that you feel with that person, or it can be like distancing you from people. If you're using that clinical language, like healing from trauma, healing from your disorder, using that clinical language that's really cold and impersonal, it's gonna distance you from people because people aren't gonna wanna be treated by somebody who sees you as a disorder or as an object. They want somebody who sees them as a person.

Speaker 2 (07:14.798)
Yeah, and a lot of times with this, I have said more times than I can count, you know, right? Like you're talking to your ideal client because this is, this is our first not, this is their first snapshot of kind of getting the vibes of how you address things. And chances are when you're sitting down in front of someone, you're not saying, okay, let's treat your trauma disorder. Let's.

treat your chronic illness. It's okay, let's let's get to the bottom of this. Let's figure out what we can do to get you feeling better, to get you back on your feet, to do xyz. And the way you're talking and having that, you know, connection with your client, that almost bedside manner of, you know, therapy and chiropractic offices and doctors offices and all of that, it matters and it can be

it should be expressed through your writing, which can be hard. That can be really hard to kind of, you know, because you're trying to be like, okay, look, these are all the things I can do for you. So it can feel, especially when you're used to academic writing and you're just wanting to get out there. Here's the things that I can do for you. Here's the things that we can treat. That's great. But now that marketing piece comes in of, okay, think about how, how

Think the psychology of how people want to be kind of talked to about this subject and we need to tweak it. People don't just want to say, okay, I treat trauma disorders. They want to hear that personalized, how you're going to talk to them in their meetings with you in their appointments.

Yeah, and a lot of people don't want just to be treated. They want to learn. They want to learn why they feel the way they feel. They want to learn why their body's not doing what they want. They want to learn about what foods they need to eat or what types of exercises they need to do to help their body recover. They want to be empowered to take care of themselves so they don't have to rely on you for the rest of their lives. So that's a huge part of that language.

Speaker 2 (09:24.494)
So the other part is staying grounded like in your mission. you have, know, what drives you to have your practice and check in with your messaging and make sure you're reflecting that deeper purpose, your purpose for why you're doing it. I know in our last episode, we talked a lot about your story of how, you know, the beginning part of the story, how did you start on the journey to becoming the helping professional that you are? And keep checking in about that deeper purpose and making sure

All of your website reflects it. Your homepage, your about page, your service pages, all of that. One thing that you can ask yourself is, does this represent how I clients to feel when they visit my website? When you look at it from an outside point of view, do you feel comforted? Do you feel heard? Do you feel like this person, you know, this website speaks to my pain points and that's who I want to talk to.

And if you're like, I really don't know, ask, ask whether you're working with, you know, a marketing company, ask your friends to look at it, ask other coworker, you know, not coworkers, ask, you know, other helping professionals to look at it and get, see what vibes you can even give it to chat. JBT and say like, Hey, what kind of messaging are you getting from this? Like evaluate this page and tell me what.

You can ask it, does this feel humanistic? Does this feel robotic? Does this feel out of touch? Does this feel cold? Does this feel impersonal? And it will give you an assessment about what it feels like your page is telling it. So that's a great option, Winnie.

Yeah, I think this is a great idea. I know we have a couple different examples of what mission aligned messaging can look like compared to just standard marketing messaging. The first one we have is for like functional medicine doctors. So before you might have put offering personalized lab testing and treatment protocols for chronic illness, which technically SEO wise,

Speaker 2 (11:33.154)
That's got some keywords in it. SEO wise, that's a decent sentence. Marketing for your ideal clients. What I would suggest is expanding it to offering personalized lab testing and treatment protocols for chronic illness while truly listening to your story and helping you feel seen, not just diagnosed. So you have your keywords in there. You have what you offer in there, which is important, but then you also have the, that they're going to be listened to. And I know when

people are searching for helping professionals, feeling heard is a huge part of that. Also letting them know that they'll be seen. And then it's not all just about the diagnosis. It's not just, okay, you have a diagnosis, bye. It's also, you're gonna get help. You're gonna get support. You're gonna get that relief you're looking for.

And then like for speech language pathologists, you could say something like providing evidence-based speech and language therapy for children and adults. Again, that could be a great heading. I mean, that could be, you know, that has those keywords in it. But does that really speak to your ideal client? Does that really say anything about the heart of what you do? So you could add some keywords in there and then add a little onto the end that says something more along the

of providing evidence-based speech and language therapy for children and adults because communication is about connection, not just correction. So again, you've got that piece where you've got those keywords in there, but you're also explaining that communication is about connecting with people. It's not just about telling someone that they're speaking incorrectly, they're doing something wrong. It's about building that connection with that human being.

Yeah. And for like health coaches, an example would be helping you reach your fitness and nutrition goals. So you've got fitness and nutrition in there. But after you do that, after you make it more values driven marketing, what I would suggest is making it something more along the lines of helping you reach your fitness and nutrition goals with personalized support, because lasting change starts with a partnership built on trust. it is talking about how you can help them.

Speaker 2 (13:40.448)
It is marketing yourself as a partner, you know, that you're someone that they can partner with to build that trust. But it's, you know, it's not just, okay, you're going to reach your fitness and nutrition goals. It's, it's going to be a personalized approach to you. You're making it very personalized to them. You're letting them know what that they, what they can accomplish by working with you.

Yeah, for occupational therapists, again, some keywords we're looking at are sensory processing, motor skills, daily living tasks. So you could kind of make a sentence that said we provide OT services for sensory processing, motor skills and daily living tasks, empowering children to build independence and confidence in everyday life. Again, that's that empowering language. People want to know what they're going to gain from this, what they're going to learn from it, what their children are going to learn from it, what their children are going to gain from it.

So that's again using those keywords but also keeping that language in there that's telling the ideal client you're looking for that they're going to be helping their children build that independence and build that confidence and it's going to be a long lasting proposition.

Yeah, and for like holistic mental health practitioners, you might've had before we specialize in integrative approaches to anxiety, trauma, and mood disorders. A way to kind of reframe that is true healing means honoring your whole self, mind, body, and spirit, which is why we specialize in integrative approaches for anxiety, trauma, and mood disorders. So again, you got all those great keywords in there, but you're

putting first what matters most and that they are honoring their whole self and then that they're taking care of their whole health.

Speaker 1 (15:24.91)
And lastly, have one for acupuncturists. Acupuncture and Eastern medicine for pain, fertility and stress. Those are great keywords, but if you focus on acupuncture and Chinese medicine or Eastern medicine for pain, fertility and stress, delivered with gentle personalized care to restore balance and support your body's natural healing, that goes more into depth into what you're actually trying to accomplish, what you're actually trying to do. Because I mean,

The first one didn't really tell you anything, just said this is what it's for. But the second one kind of goes into is supporting your body's natural healing, restoring balance. So that adds more value proposition to that marketing again.

Absolutely. And these examples, mean, we gave examples for quite a few different helping professionals, but this is the same. You can take what these examples and apply it to whatever your specialty is. Absolutely. Just kind of expand on it. Having that personal touch to it really helps.

What we're really focusing on now with AI is that empowering speech, that empowering language, empowering the client, empowering your ideal client to understand that what they're going to be given, what they're going to get, what they're going to be taught, what they're going to be empowered to do with your service. That's what people are looking for. So that's user intent. So that's really important. And that's why we're stressing that empowering part of that.

value proposition in the marketing.

Speaker 2 (16:57.23)
especially with that acupuncturist example you just gave, like that empowerment of, okay, you got the keywords in there, acupuncture, Chinese medicine, pain, fertility, stress, great, but then you get that empowerment from, they're gonna restore balance, they're supporting their body's natural healing. That's that empowerment speech kind of coming in, which one, is great for AI, is great for Google, we love that, but also just reading it, it feels...

Warmer it feels you know just reading that I have like more of a connection with that statement than just like okay here's here's the services and here's what they can help with. Using your values and keeping those in mind as you're writing can be really important. For example, Mary do you remember what our values are?

Connection, loyalty, and trust.

So, know, every time I'm writing something for the website, every time we're doing something, we're thinking about that connection piece, we're thinking about the value, we're thinking about the trust. So think about what your business's values are. What is your practice's values and how are you gonna relay that to your ideal or potential clients? And making sure you're keeping all of those things in mind as you're writing.

Different ways you can do that, know, those examples above, you can also share team bios that reflect their personality and their commitment. Going back to that last episode where we started kind of diving into how to tell your story, why you're passionate. All of that helps with that value driven marketing. And whether that's, you know, everybody has, you know, all your team members have a spot on the About Us page.

Speaker 2 (18:46.242)
having blog posts about them and sharing it, sharing it on your social media, your Google business profile, your LinkedIn, whatever it is that you're kind of on, share that information, get that out there. Because it's not just about the business as a whole realistically, it's also about each of your team members and what they're bringing and how your potential clients are gonna connect with those individuals.

Yeah. And I know one way we do that at Simplified is we focus a lot on the fact that all of our team members have degrees in mental health or experience working in the mental health field. For us, that's a value proposition. That's something we use in marketing because it aligns with our values of, you know, helping serve helping professionals. It aligns with making connections with people, you know, and it helps us build trust with our clients because they know what

that we have experience in that field and that we understand what they're trying to get across to their ideal client needs to be. And we understand the terminology and the words and the different modalities used. So that's an example of how we use our value statement as quote unquote marketing, but in a non-salesy, non-invasive type of way.

Yeah. Another way I think we do that is through our own blogging strategy. Absolutely. I see, you know, we're called simplified SEO consulting. We're really trying to simplify SEO for people. And we try to do that through our blogging strategy. We're trying to explain, you know, we have blogs about, about the author sections, about XYZ, because we're not that trying to build that trust, trying to be transparent, trying to,

really connect with people by giving them resources, by sharing our information and having each of our team members do it as well. So that way everybody can kind of see everybody's individual specialties and the areas that they really thrive in and having them right on those subjects. Because I think another way that we do that is through blogging.

Speaker 1 (20:57.934)
I think that by developing those blogs and that social content that educates, that offers that insight, that offers those tips and those ideas and that content without actually trying to sell anything, without saying, buy my new book, buy my new program, without actually going into that language, just with sharing your knowledge, sharing your concepts, sharing your ideas, sharing your thoughts.

that helps build trust with people who then, you know, that helps build that, that brand, you know, that brand for your marketing, for your visualization of who you want to be and who your ideal, who you want your ideal client to view you as. So I think that that's one really good way to do things is to develop that content without selling, to be, you know, open to writing content.

not building, know, not hiding everything in secrecy and shrouding what you do in mystery and mysticism. And yeah, and keeping it all who do voodoo ish. you know, some people do that and, you know, and that's okay. That's their choice. But from a marketing perspective, I don't think that that's that's what you need to do. I think doing those blogs and that social media and being

connected and offering those tips and that brand recognition is hugely important. And I think that the last thing that you can really do as a practitioner, whether you're in the health field, the mental health field, whatever, is make sure that your in-tech process really reflects that transparency and those choices that people can make. So make it simple, make it visually.

easy to understand. you have a form on your website, embed that, make it easy to fill out, know, make it easy to understand, make sure you're not using alienating language, make sure you're not making it inaccessible to people who might struggle with writing. Just, you know, think about those things and offer people choices. The more available choices they have, the more likely they're going to be to really think about working with you.

Speaker 1 (23:19.158)
Nobody feels like they don't have a choice. Nobody likes feeling like that. So if you have options or different services, different fees, different sliding scale, things like that, that's really gonna, that's gonna be a good thing to advertise because people are gonna be like, okay, I have some options to work with that work within my budget. And it helps really build that value of your marketing.

Absolutely and realistically following all these things we've talked about for value but values based marketing is going to help long term This is not just like something that helps in the short term because what it's gonna do is help you get clients that are aligned with your values and Are more likely to stick with you long term? So you're not just getting someone who's kind of in the door. Maybe isn't a great fit is there for a minute and gone this

values-based marketing, this authentic marketing is going to get you clients that you're the right fit for and who are the right fit for you. It's going to get them to stay longer and realistically more likely for you to get referrals also. you're then you're getting people from SEO, you're getting people from your referrals and they're the right fits. Ethical marketing builds that trust and contributes to that positive

brand recognition that you were talking about. And that's not just a short-term thing that's setting you up for long-term success and sustainable growth based on your connection and your authenticity, not convincing people to join your services.

Right. mean, it's that, you know, it's again, it's like not trying to scare people into thinking they have to have services or they're, you know, something bad's going to happen. Not trying to trick people into something that they don't understand completely. It's, you know, not coercing people to do things that aren't really necessary tests that aren't necessary programs that aren't necessary.

Speaker 1 (25:24.938)
it's being ethical in how you approach your business model and the people that you're serving. And I think that that's, you know, that really does help support that long-term sustainable growth because you build a reputation and that reputation is going to follow you wherever you go. And that you're going to, then you are going to get those referrals. Like Winnie said, you're going to have, you know, people who talk to their friends about this great holistic healer that they found that has helped, you know,

talk them through issues with pain and has helped through acupuncture and all of these other things. You're going to start getting those referrals and it's not just going to be about being found through AI and on Google. It's going to be about those referrals and that brand recognition and visibility.

Absolutely. So I know we kind of talked about a lot with the values based marketing and there's kind of a lot to think about, especially when you combine it with last week's episode of, you know, putting your story out there. So we want to leave you today with a checklist of does your marketing reflect your values? So this can just be a tool to help you walk through step by step, making sure everything's connecting the way you want it to.

to make sure your voice is coming across. So one is a tone check. Does your website or social media sound like you? Is it coming across the way that you want your ideal clients to hear you and the way that when they show up in your office, are they gonna say, yeah, this is the person I read about on their website, I saw on the social media. Is it warm, supportive and human? Or is it overly clinical, stiff and salesy? Think about how

someone's going to be surprised when they show up and be like, wow, this is a lot warmer than what I read online. Or is this? Yes, I'm connecting with this person the same way I connected with their writing.

Speaker 1 (27:25.966)
Right, and number two is a language review. Are you using terms that reflect empathy and respect? Are you using terms that reflect that you're going to be empathetic, that you're going to be respectful to your client, that you have respect for their journey, that you have respect for what they're going through? And are you avoiding fear-based or fix-it-fast promises, promises that you can't deliver on? Are you making sure that you're representing yourself ethically and accurately?

Number three is that client centered focus. Do you speak to your ideal clients experience using language like you and your or your services framed around outcomes that matter to them and not just what the process is, but what are they going to get out of it? That empowerment of what they're going to gain from starting services with you.

Number four is that values of visibility we talked about. Are your core values mentioned clearly? Do people understand what you hold close to your heart as your core values like inclusivity, empowerment, collaboration? Are your images and testimonials aligned with that mission? Are the images you share on your website, are they inclusive? Are they varied? Are the testimonials people sharing representing that empowerment and that collaboration?

Are your called actions gentle and inviting rather than pressure driven? you know, gentle and inviting, like, let's talk, reach out. Here's your next steps. Let me lay this out for you. You know, let's talk. Make sure, you know, it's inviting rather than the pressure driven ones like act now limited time call today, that sort of thing.

Right. And then the last one is consistency across platforms. Because sometimes you get into situations where you have one person doing your social media, one person doing your marketing, one person doing your blogging. So you really, really want that team working together. So you want to make sure that your tone stays aligned across your website, your blog, your emails, and your social media. That's hugely important because

Speaker 1 (29:34.008)
Your social media person could have one concept of what your values are. Your website person could have one concept of what they think your values are. And then your blog writer could have one concept of what they think your values are. And they could all be different. So you really want to bring that team together and make sure that your tone is staying aligned across all platforms and representing you equally and the same across all of those platforms.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this checklist and I'm going to make a document and I'll put it in the description of the blog post so that it's available for you guys to look at. Because I think these are great questions to ask yourself if you're wondering, am I really marketing myself ethically? Am I doing all I can to try to connect with my ideal client in a respectful, ethical way without being salesy, without turning people off? So I will do that.

And I think that's about the end of what we are going to talk about today, Winnie. Do you have anything to add before we say goodbye?

I don't think so, except for thanks for listening.

Yeah, thanks for listening guys and we'll see you on episode 10 next week. Bye.

Speaker 1 (31:05.858)
you've been listening to From Keywords to Connections, a podcast from Simplified SEO, produced by Rashonal Designs

Your online journey starts here.