Are you looking for ways to market your private practice?
If you’re in your first year of private practice you may be wondering how you are going to drive clients to your new business.
One of the biggest mistakes I see therapists making is that they don’t have a real marketing strategy. They just cast a wide net and hope they catch something. Then days go by with no clients calling or making appointments. And they start feeling like their business is a failure and want to give up!
The real key in growing your practice and finding new clients is to cast a smaller, more targeted net. But how do you do that?
Today I’m going to share with you 5 of the best tips you can start implementing today to bring more clients into your door.
1. Narrow Your Niche
In order to target your marketing approach, you need to know your niche. You’ll have a much higher success rate by casting a smaller net that is targeted specifically to the people who need the exact kind of services that you provide. They’re already looking for someone just like you, and wow, they find you and you totally understand what they’re going through. What a great fit! If you haven’t identified your niche yet, I recommend sitting down and thinking about who you want to help and creating an ideal client avatar. Spend some time bringing this avatar to life. Think about and list out common characteristics like age, hobbies, problems, fears, etc. This will be helpful when you begin marketing your private practice because you’ll be able to really put yourself in their shoes and speak directly to their needs.
If you need help creating this client avatar, check out our free worksheet here.
2. Identify Where Your Target Market Spends Their Time
And I don’t mean going out and stalking people. Let me give you an example. Let’s say your target audience is adults who are 75 years or older. You wouldn’t have much success by running facebook ads, because typically older adults aren’t on social media. You have to put yourself in your clients shoes. Where do they spend their time? And this includes both in person and online. What are their hobbies and interests? The more you can list, the better you can market directly to them.
First, and this is going to sound super obvious, you have to let your visitors know you offer these services. This could be as simple as having a banner or a button to request a telehealth appointment.
But you can’t expect people to ask for something they don’t know exists. Even though you’re familiar with it, telemedicine is still a fairly new concept in medicine, so you must present it to your online visitors as an option.
3. Target Your Marketing
You don’t need to post on every single social media platform or try every marketing approach that you read about online. Instead, focus your efforts on targeting only the places in which your target market is spending their time. It may take a bit of research and trial and error, but in the long run, it will be much more effective. Clients that you gain from this kind of strategy are more likely to stick around longer and send more referrals your way.
4. Solve A Problem
Instead of just putting yourself out there and screaming, hey pick me! Try a different approach. Focus on solving a problem for your target audience. Think about the kinds of problems they might be facing. You could create a worksheet or video that will address and offer solutions to these problems. This helps your target audience to build trust and confidence in your ability to help them with their challenges.
5. Take Advantage of Low Hanging Fruit
When you’re just starting out, it’s a good idea to start free trials with whatever directories you can find. Psychology Today is of course the most popular directories, but there are a ton more out there like OpenPath, GoodTherapy, and more. You can easily find these by doing a simple google search for ‘How to find a therapist’ and then check out and signup for a free trial with a couple of the ones you find. Treat this as a form of market research. This will allow you to analyze and compare how well each platform will work before you spend any money.
And before you choose to cancel a service make sure you do some math! I hear people complaining that they only get 1 client a month from psychology today and they’re ready to cancel because they don’t think it’s worth it! Let’s do the math. Psychology today costs $29.95 per month, which equals to around $360 per year. If you sign on just one client at $150, it will pay for your annual subscription in just 3 sessions. So even if you’re only getting 1 referral a month, it’s well worth keeping!
And remember to always optimize your profile so that your target audience can easily find you. By adding your specialties and other relevant information, you ensure that your target audience will find you when searching for a therapist in their area. You can also add a video and link back to your website to increase your credibility and trustworthiness.
There’s so much more to marketing, but these 5 tips are great to implement when you’re just starting out with your private practice. Hopefully, they will help you hit the ground running, and make getting clients a little less intimidating.
If you are using some other good marketing tips that I didn’t mention, leave those in the comments below for other therapists to use and attract more clients with.
