Blog Viewer

Effective strategies for marketing your counseling practice

By Anthony Centore posted 07-18-2019 10:24

  

As with most things, marketing strategies change over time—or, at least, effective marketing strategies do. Last year, I wrote about very different tips for marketing your counseling practice. Now, I present you with several important changes to effective marketing for your business:

Should I dedicate time and effort to getting and maintaining a website?     

For 15 years I’ve been telling counselors to get a website. Why? People are going online to find services. If you don’t have a website then a prospective client will probably find and choose a counselor who does. Until recently, that’s been accurate. But today we might be entering a post-website internet. Companies, from restaurants to salons, are trading their small business websites for Facebook “business pages,” which have evolved into something very useful.

Imagine you own a salon instead of a counseling practice. You need to be on the cutting edge of fashion (pun intended). A well-designed website will look dated within 24 months, isn’t very interactive, can crash, might get hacked, and needs frequent updates to pages like “Meet the Team,” which (whether it’s stylists or counselors) always seems to have a group photo where half the crew is no longer employed there. Sadly, most small business websites are poorly-designed and outdated.

A Facebook business page provides a simple but familiar user experience, as well as important company information including the business address and phone number. Prospective clients can interact (like or comment) with the company’s posts, or message the business through Facebook Messenger. Companies who use Facebook business pages well will have an attractive cover photo, profile image, and post to their feed regularly. In the same way that a company promotes their website URL, one’s Facebook business page should be displayed in email signatures, on business cards, and other places of high visibility.

Here’s one more painful truth for practices with a traditional website: while you might be able to get away without having a website, today a Facebook business page is necessary because clients expect businesses to be reachable there.

How important is social media presence?

As a child, I was taught to never judge a book by its cover. Little did we know that in the years to come, the ubiquity of self-publishing would bring more bad covers (and bad books) into existence than we could ever imagine. Today, a poorly designed cover is often a good indicator of a poorly written book. Your online social accounts are your book cover.

When I tell counselors to get on social media, they ask “How many clients will I get?” The real question should be, “How many clients will I lose if I don’t?” A social presence has a growing importance as prospective clients check social media platforms to learn about you and your business. If your social account is a wasteland, or if you’ve never bothered to claim your name on major social platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, or even LinkedIn, it will be viewed as a “low quality indicator” to clients. On the other hand, being active or even savvy on social media will have the opposite effect.

Some counselors don’t like the idea of being on social platforms, citing that it feels unprofessional. Here’s the thing: With some platforms, we don’t even have a choice. For example, Yelp and Google My Business will list your practice automatically, even if you’ve never visited the website. It’s important you pay attention to these, as unclaimed listings look terrible (think grey box with the words “no picture provided”), and this makes business owners look out of touch.

Will millennials make or break my practice?

Millennials are your client base. According to Forbes, they have a buying power of $200 billion, and it’s scary how different they are compared to previous generations. In an article by The Wall Street Journal, “Ask Not for Whom the Doorbell Tolls. They Won’t Answer It,” the author explains one shocking behavior of millennials is that they don’t answer their front doors. 

Millennials are so well connected that if someone they know is going to drop by, that person is going to text them—they certainly won’t just ring the bell or knock on the door without giving their friend a heads up beforehand. Someone who rings a doorbell is someone they don’t know (and don’t want to talk to). Even UPS now texts when they deliver packages, because their customers—millennials—demanded it.

This shows the importance of catering your marketing strategies to millennials, who are an important audience for your business and client pool for your practice. Keep in mind that these are tech-savvy individuals who want things fast and at their greatest convenience.

Should I go paper mail or digital mail?

For years I’ve explained that people open their mail over the trash. The smart advice is to go digital: It’s more affordable, and it’s guaranteed to reach a customer. That is, until about 18 months ago when Gmail began to filter newsletters, putting them into a “promotional” folder that, like spam, nobody views. Additionally, if millennials are your target client, print might be ripe for a revival. A USPS website cites:

  • 95% of adults between 18 and 29 feel positively about receiving personal mail
  • 88% of millennials see print mail as more official than digital
  • 90% of persons ages 25 to 34 find direct mail reliable, and 87% like receiving it!

 I don’t know if it’s time to invest in direct paper mail again, but it might be soon.

In summary, to effectively market a private practice in today’s world, one must: (1) understand his/her clients (2) their clinical needs to be sure and (3) the ways that they find and choose businesses.


0 comments
9 views

Permalink