MHM #01: Priority marketing tasks to grow your therapy practice in 2024

As a solo therapist or Practice in the early stages of growth, you have many hats to wear and balls to juggle.

Selecting a manageable number of marketing activities that will give you the greatest return on investment is vital to sustainability and growth.

As you’re creating plans for your Practice for the year ahead, develop a marketing schedule that’s realistic and achievable. 

Consistency trumps sporadicity. 

It’s better to post twice a week every week on social media than six posts this week and then nothing for two weeks.

It’s also essential to select marketing activities that you enjoy. If you’re very new to marketing, start with activities you feel more comfortable with, and as you build confidence, you can start adding more. 

Below are your priority marketing activities. They’re the therapy marketing basics you should consistently do to grow and maintain your Practice. 

Review your website content

Does your content accurately reflect your Practice, what you offer, and what makes you unique? 

Does your content speak directly to your ideal clients, demonstrating you understand their pain? 

Have you included a warm, professional photo of you and the other therapists? Or, even better, include a video? 

Review referral platforms

Similar to your website review, make sure the referral platforms you’re on, like Psychology Today, accurately reflect you and your Practice and resonate with your ideal clients. 

Set up / update your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile increases your visibility in Google.

Remember to verify your profile so you appear on Google Maps.

If you provide telehealth services from your home, you can set it so your exact address is private.

Write monthly blog articles

These days, Google’s algorithm will rank websites higher that include helpful, trustworthy, reliable, and people-first content.

Blog articles are a great tactic to provide value to clients and improve your Google ranking. 

When you’re writing articles, focus on writing people-first content. 

Google doesn’t care about word count, only the value you’re providing your readers.

Send monthly Newsletters

Multi-purposing content increases marketing efficiency.

Each month, use your blog article as your newsletter. It’s a great way to keep you front of mind with current, past, and prospective clients.

Just make sure you check local spam and email opt-in laws. In Australia, it’s a legal requirement for people to opt in to receive your newsletter.

Post on Social Media

A social media presence enables you to provide value and build trust with prospective clients.  

However, it can be daunting when starting out. Especially thinking you need to create video content when you’ve never made a video before.

If you’re new to marketing, then initially:

1. Create an Instagram account
2. Set up a Canva account. 
3. Use Canva’s extensive library of social media templates to create graphic posts and stories.
4. Post three times a week.

Once you get in the swing of this, start adding in video content and other social media platforms.

Remember to use hashtags on your Instagram posts – this is key to building your followers.  

Reach out to prospective referrers

In your local area, who sees your ideal clients? This could include mental health professionals or other health professionals.

Health professionals (nutritionists, naturopaths, paediatricians, family physicians, etc.) can find it helpful to have trusted therapists to refer to. 

Are there therapists near you who focus on different niches? 

For example, if you specialise in couples counselling, having trusted therapists to refer to for individual counselling helps you, and they can refer clients to you for couples counselling.

Run a Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads are a highly targeted form of advertising that allows you to reach potential clients based on their Google search queries and rapidly reach the top of Google’s first page. 

For example, if someone searches for “therapy for PTSD in Dallas” in Google, your ad will appear at the top of the search results.

This gives you maximum visibility to an audience actively seeking help in your local area. 

Google Ads can be quite complex – I’ll release some free training in the next few weeks. 

Review your enquiry management process

Your enquiry management process can make or break your Practice.

Respond to enquiries within 24 hours – ideally, the same day if possible.

Train your staff – delegating enquiry management puts your Practice’s growth in someone else’s hands. If you have admin support helping you with enquiries, make sure they’re providing exceptional customer service, and provide them with templates and scripts.

Follow up – Create a system that flags you to follow up with them after 5-7 days of not hearing back.  Following up can result in another 20-30% of enquiries converting to appointments.

Retention

Do you check in with a client after their first appointment?

It demonstrates you’re invested in their wellbeing, reinforcing their decision to choose you as their therapist.

Do you check in with past clients?

If it’s been six months since you saw a client, an email or text can be just the prompt they need to book another appointment.