How to Start, Grow, and Manage a Private Therapy Practice: 6
Marketing & Growing Your Therapy Private Practice
Before you can effectively market your practice, you must create your brand identity. An identifiable brand will help you stand out, gain traction, and increase referrals.
Branding may not be as scary and difficult as you imagine. Remember how we discussed the importance of discovering your niche? All you have to do is imagine actual personas of clients you will be working with. Get specific and give them a face and a name. Now, whenever you are making a creative decision or writing copy, speak directly to them. Continually ask yourself “what would so-and-so think of this? Would this be appealing or turn them away? Is it specific enough?” And that my friends is the essence of branding 101.
Lesson two is to remain consistent and authentic. Your brand identity is carried across every medium and interaction you have. Emails, social media, and conversations with colleagues and clients must be genuine in order to build trust and a positive reputation. The look and feel of your office and website also give others a wealth of information about you and the quality of your services.
Choose a name and tagline
A good name for your practice should be memorable, relevant, and on-brand. There are two approaches to take based on your professional goals. If you aspire to eventually expand into a larger practice, you’ll want to think of a company name that highlights something unique about your organization. If you plan to remain a sole practitioner, you may simply use your own name or a location-based name for simplicity.
Here are some tips for selecting a name for your private practice:
Get creative
Highlight specific benefits your niche offers to connect with future clients
Brainstorm words, phrases, and objects that exemplify your values and specialty
Include terms such as “therapy”, “counseling”, or “psychotherapy” to help clients and search engines clearly understand your services
Research to make sure the name and/or web domain aren’t taken
A tagline is a shortened version of your mission statement or slogan. Map out the vision, values, and tone of your practice. Specify exactly what you are offering to clients and convey what your brand is about in just a few words.
Pro Tip: On a business card, your tagline can be very direct. Simply inform what you do or who you work with, such as “Depression & Relationship Issues” or “Groups & Teens”.
Set up a website
Creating a proper website is a must for private practice owners. Our society researches everything online: recipes, advice, and even people. Having a reliable website verifies your authenticity and gives you some control over what fellow clinicians and future clients find in a Google search. Practitioners will look you up after an introduction to learn basic information and get a sense of your brand. Clients referred by a trusted friend or therapist will look you up to see how they feel before making that initial call. Your website is often your first touchpoint with these new relationships: make sure it’s professional and on-brand.
Additionally, Google and other search engines index and rank you for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) based on the content and quality of your website. This helps clients that are already searching online to find you! Adding blog posts, helpful resources, and videos are a few ways to boost SEO and help you rank organically above your peers. There are many helpful resources on SEO for small businesses available (you guessed it, online!) and Word of Mouth will be posting more tips on this subject in future blogs.
Keep it simple in the beginning
Creating a website is a fun and exciting part of building your practice, but it can also be a slippery slope. There are so many options that it’s easy to succumb to the paralysis of choice overload. So, start small. As with everything else in your practice, there is time to build and grow. In the beginning, these are the most important web pages to focus on:
Home Page: This is your first impression. And attention spans are short. Include an engaging headline, a photo, copy that describes the practice and services, and a call to action.
Services: List and describe your niche, specialties, types of therapy you use, and whether you offer in-person or telehealth appointments for optimal results.
About Me Page: Introduce yourself to future clients. Keep it conversational as if you are speaking to them in person. Start with your passions, values, and philosophy, and then list your education and qualifications.
Contact Page: Give clients multiple options for getting in touch with you. Include a phone number, email address, physical address, and map. If possible, add a contact form to collect information and call them at your convenience. Always indicate that life-threatening emergencies require a call to 911.
Rates: This is information that most clients are looking for so why not make it easier on them (and you)? Be sure to include accepted insurance, sliding-scale rates, and discounts if applicable.
Here are some nice to have pages you may want to consider:
FAQs: Answer questions before clients even have to ask.
Resources: Adding links to blogs, resources, or worksheets related to your niche provides clients with helpful information and makes them more likely to return to your site.
Forms: Adding common documents to the website makes your life easier. Clients can easily find intake forms, policy documents, and release forms on their own.
Blogs/Articles: Use your expertise to write helpful content geared toward the type of clients you want to attract
How to Get Initial Clients
The secret to filling your caseload boils down to one thing: networking. This does not mean making fast and furious connections until your practice is full. Establishing and maintaining relationships with other clinicians is essential to the success of your practice. You’ll need to put in a little more effort than simply handing out business cards or increasing your number of connections on LinkedIn. Even in a digital world, face-to-face meetings tend to build stronger long-term relationships with colleagues.
Why is networking the best way to find clients?
While there are different strategies out there, focusing on B2B marketing (meeting clinicians) is more effective than B2C marketing (trying to get in front of clients). For one, you want quality referrals that have been vetted by a trusted source. If someone simply finds you on the internet, you really don’t know who is going to be wandering into your office. Second, our industry thrives on word of mouth, so no matter how good your SEO game is, most of your clients will likely be direct referrals. Therefore, the more professional relationships you make, the quicker your practice will fill.
For some reason, reaching out to other clinicians often feels intimidating. But why? Every established private practice owner has been in your shoes. Plus, therapists love to help people. This is one of the only professional groups that has dedicated their lives to supporting and guiding others. You couldn’t ask for a better community to network with. So, pick up the phone, write the email, and schedule the lunch. Outreach gets easier with practice and pays off big time.
Trusted Therapist Network makes it easy to research and connect with other mental health professionals. Here are some tips for using TTN to network and land clients:
Search for psychologists and counselors in your market that may be good contacts, such as clinicians who:
Work with the same population as you
Treat a complementary population
Match your demographic
Practice close to you
·Reach out and make introductions directly through the platform.
Gain visibility and credibility with second-degree connections in your area and beyond. Mutual connections are the gateway to meeting your most influential first-degree contacts.
Make announcements about your practice, let others know when you’re accepting new clients, and indicate what type of clients you are looking for.
Pro Tip: Make a list of 50 new connections. Once you’ve had lunch with all of them, your practice will be full.
Conclusion
Embarking on any new adventure takes a lot of courage and hard work. But with the right attitude, your drive to help others, and support from colleagues, you have everything you need to launch a successful private therapy practice. And TTN is here to be a resource every step of the way. With helpful blogs, plus the ability to connect with established therapists, TTN is a one-stop shop to help you launch and scale the private practice of your dreams.
Be sure to let us know what other topics you’re interested in learning about so we can share tips and resources to help you reach your goals.
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