You are an expert. You have experience, education, knowledge, skills, and passion in your field. When you market your expertise to others, it is important to promote your expertise to your target market. While you are probably confident in your skillset, it can be uncomfortable to promote your business without feeling like you are bragging. It gets easier. In the meantime, focus on your unique niche, which will keep your marketing messages clear and concise.
Testimonials are an effective advertising tool for many professions, but RSWs should neither solicit nor accept them from past or current private clients. Accepting a testimonial from a client adds a business relationship to the counselor-client relationship, which is inappropriate. There are a number of grave ethical issues to consider with respect to exploiting trust and dependency of clients who may be vulnerable to undue influence. You may use testimonials if they come from workshop participants, colleagues or other people in your network.
For many years, large corporations like Michelin and Kraft have been creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content in the form of traveler guides, recipe books, or magazines. This is called “content marketing” and it has become a reliable tool for educating and connecting with target markets, communities, and clients. You can share valuable, free information on your website, through on email newsletter, on social media platforms, or even by writing a regular column for your local newspaper. Once you have established yourself as a reliable expert, your target market will be able to find you easily. You might even be approached to create content for other organizations. E-mail or mail spam has become a daily reality. Once you begin promoting your business, you need to be careful not to become a spammer yourself. Canada’s new Anti-Spam law has now made it illegal to send unwanted communications with commercial electronic messages.