As a therapist, you already have enough on your plate, so adding marketing and social media content to the mix can feel paralyzingly overwhelming. There are multiple social media platforms out there, multiple review web sites (where a disgruntled client can leave a negative review), there are so many ideas floating around. All the while, you're trying to grow your practice, not shrink it.
Practical Marketing Tips for Therapists
In this post, I share practical insights and marketing tips for therapists that you can apply right now.
Who do you listen to?
What does it take to make progress online, to find more clients or referrals?
How does social media account marketing benefit my practice?
Why is this even important and does it even apply to my therapy practice?
Is there someone who specializes in marketing strategies for therapists and private practices?
Do I need a web site?
Do I need to set up paid ads?
Learn how marketing can help your practice thrive, not just for now but for years to come!
Keep reading for some information based on my experience working with therapists to enhance their marketing since 2018. Scroll down further for my marketing tips and how to build your community. I'll also talk about some general issues and how to navigate them.
How should we approach the content?
There isn't a one-size-fits-all approach or marketing plan for private practices because each therapist's skills are unique. It takes time, it takes effort, a bit of thought, and an openness to sharing to develop an online strategy. After all, that's why people often tend to choose one therapist over another. It has to do with your rapport, your professionalism, your skillset, your location, whether you accept insurance or not, everything plays its part. Marketing Tip: You can make sure to share bits of that in your content so people can get to know who you are and what your therapy business offers.
Private Practice Marketing: what is it and why do you need it?
If you've been in business for a very long time, you might be able to rely solely on word-of-mouth networking, but as the times change everything shifts to the online space. Clients are getting younger, more people are seeking therapy. You might even specialize in child or teen therapy.
How do you reach more clients? How do you get people to call or book an appointment? How you choose to market your private practice depends on things such as your location or your specialties?
One of my clients is a mental health private practice with three locations in Southern California. They really wanted to enhance their online marketing strategies to find new patients, especially after Covid hit and they couldn't have in-person sessions. The therapy practice had a professional web site but needed to create some profiles on Twitter and Facebook and get some posts started. Together, we were able to create online profiles to begin marketing online. I optimized their profiles based on my 7+ years of digital marketing experience, making sure each section is filled out in its entirety and utilizing search engine optimization whenever possible.
My client and I have been working together for over two years and the results have been absolutely incredible. It has been a joy to guide them and watch them grow. We've seen referrals come in from Google, Google My Business, organic search traffic to their therapy website or blog post, and brand awareness via social media postings. 2020 was their most profitable year; not only that, but they were able to completely redo their web page and hired three new therapists.
SEO and Local Awareness
Over the past two years, the focus has been on building out their professional website SEO to get better search results locally. It's all about increasing awareness and growing trust with locals. What good is an expensive professional web page without any traffic, calls, new referral, or lead? Marketing Tip: Market yourself through newsletters, blog posts, digital marketing, and overall online strategies. There are many ways to grow your practice.
Marketing Tip: Market the practice online, talk about the specialties, your mental health services, or each therapist. Much like Google or a search engine, social media is searchable, which makes it a great way to reach and attract clients. Users are typing things in all the time. And yes, videos have SEO value too. If you have a video, post it to your website.
Interested in Blogging or Social Media Services for Mental Health Therapists?
If you are interested in Blogging or Social Media Services for Mental Health Therapists, the first step is to fill out this brief questionnaire to see if we're a good fit and if I can help you with what you need. I have 8 years of social media expertise working with local businesses. Once I receive that, we schedule a 15-minute call to speak "face to face" via Zoom or online meeting. Again, if you are interested in my content or marketing services, fill out this questionnaire and I'll email you back!
Not sure what to focus on or how to attract clients? I'm available for coaching and management, depending on your needs. Coaching allows you or your team to learn about social media marketing strategy for therapists, whereas management is where I provide done-for-you services to save you time. Contact me!
Growing Marketing Your Private Practice
You can read every article online, even buy courses, but none of those are customized to your business. Articles may give great advice but it's generic for the most part. One size does not fit all when it comes to marketing strategy for therapy services. Networking events may offer some referrals, but how can you market yourself online? How can you best attract people to book an appointment?
Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing
Content marketing is a huge part of marketing for therapists to reach people outside of your personal network. You have to connect with the audience and captivate their attention. It's community-building and elevating relationships on a virtual capacity. Marketing Tip: Providing valuable, relevant, frequent social media marketing posts is part of having an online presence. Whether it's a Facebook business page, LinkedIn, Twitter account, Instagram, or a different platform, you never know when a social media post will provide prospective clients or a referral. They might click on one thing then end up ready to schedule an appointment. Marketing Tip: Post frequently. It doesn't have to be every day but you don't want to only post 4 times a year. Try for once a week, then ramp it up to 2-3 times per week once you get a feel for it.
People might find you through one of those posts, you really never know. Content marketing for therapists basically means that you are marketing your services and what you do is a therapist through the content that you produce. Marketing Tip: The content itself, whether a Facebook post or a LinkedIn Story, is marketing material. We are creating marketing content geared to a specific audience.
Want to work with me? If you are interested in my content or marketing services, fill out this quick questionnaire and I'll email you back!
Related reading: Is Pinterest Social Media? + a List of Pinterest Categories
Create a Website
You need your social media marketing efforts to direct people somewhere. Sites are so important! You can even set up a simple web design to have your own web page presence. There are free and affordable options, especially if you're just starting out. In order to be found by potential clients, you have to make sure clients find you. Marketing Tip: If you have the budget, invest in a good website. Hire a designer on UpWork, Fiverr, or someone with examples to show.
Marketing Tip: Include your office address and phone number and any relevant links for your visitors. Optimize your website with useful resources and actionable tips. Communicate how they can get in touch.
You could post resources that your ideal client might appreciate. You can create video content if you don't want to write. Video performs very well both on websites and on your social media accounts!
Identify Your Ideal Client
You'll hear this a lot in the marketing world but we tend to do a lot of research before even posting. It's important to understand who is your client.
Where are they located?
How old are they?
What are their hobbies?
Are they married or single?
Private practice marketing and social media marketing for therapists are going to range if you are based in New York City versus if you're based in a small town in Ohio. Who are you trying to get into the office? Who do you want to find? As a therapist, you know better than anyone clients that you work with, the services that you provide, and the time required to provide a professional experience. When I craft content for my therapist clients, I create content that will resonate with their ideal client or potential client.
Related reading: How I Help People as a Blog Coach & Consultant
Highlight Your Specialties
Do you specialize in sex addiction therapy, family therapy, teens? The content we would create, including the wording and the image, would keep that type of person in mind. Whereas if you specialize in trauma therapy, we would craft the captions, hashtags, images to target the right potential client. It's like a fine art.
Search Engine Optimization
A big part of marketing for therapists is to make sure that people could find you on search engines, which is why search engine optimization services exist to help you get better results (calls, bookings, referrals, brand awareness). If you're an individual therapist, it's important for people to find you online, whether it's by your name directly or by some of your specialties. Search engine optimization is a long-term strategy to improve your social media presence. It's not a one-and-done thing. You can't just write a blog post or post content for your website and then call it a day.
Before I knew about SEO, I was writing blog posts on my blog nobody was seeing. Now with SEO, I get thousands of clicks per week. There is a legitimate strategy to SEO and there are tools to help, both free and paid tools.
If you have a private practice and there're multiple therapists working together, this can impact search results as well because there are more potential search terms that your ideal client is trying to Google.
Set Up Your Social Media Profiles
It's the 21st-century and people find information online. Sometimes it's Facebook, LinkedIn profile, Instagram, blog posts. The days of the Yellow Pages are over. Those days where have to flip through that big clunky book to find a business that you're searching for. Other marketing strategies and practices have changed, they change all the time. Certain marketing tactics used even one year ago are now obsolete algorithms change, people change, society changes. It's vital that people can find you online. It also helps for locals to find you, their local healthcare providers!
While it might not be feasible to consistently update all social media channels, having a complete profile still serves a purpose. You never know how someone will find you or discover your services. You can focus on one social media platform but it absolutely helps to have a profile set up on every platform.
Be Specific When it Comes to Paid Ads
You've exhausted your network, now what? How do you increase followers? Are followers important? Do you need to be doing paid ads? Paid ads can be beneficial, especially when done well. You can put $200 per month on paid advertising but if it's not set up properly or you're targeting the wrong client, they can be a waste of money. The good news: You don't have to spend hundreds but you do need to be very strategic to target the local demographic.
Google Ads, business Facebook Page, Instagram can be avenues to find possible patients and reach a bigger audience. You can target certain attributes such as sex, location, age, interests. It's important to understand who your ideal client so we target the right client. You know better than anyone who your client is and this is information you could bring to the table.
You can determine if you want to go for pay per click or pay per impression.
Social Media Services for Therapists
Want to learn more about Blogging or Social Media Services for Mental Health Therapists, other professionals, & private therapy practice? Please fill out this brief questionnaire to see if we're a good fit and if I can help you with what you need. It asks just a few questions to dive deeper into your goals and what you are searching for. Contact me if this was helpful and you know someone who might need marketing.
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