MHM#24 How brands work

If you’ve spent any time with marketing people you’ve probably noticed they talk a lot about brands - growing brands, managing brands, developing a strong brand.

But what does all this brand talk actually mean?

In this article I thought I’d explain what we mean by “growing a brand”, and how it relates to growing a therapy practice. 

To grow a brand, you need your ideal client to first be aware of you and to then develop positive and accurate brand associations about you.

As a therapist, you understand that each bit of knowledge you have sits in your memory as a node within a larger network of ideas. When you encounter something for the first time, if you pay sufficient attention, this experience can create a new node to represent this new bit of knowledge. This new node doesn't exist in isolation; it gets attached to your existing memory network. This idea of the human memory is referred to as the collective associative network theories of memories (Anderson & Bower, 1979). This process of building a network also describes how a brand is created in your memory (Keller, 1993).

 For example, the first time you heard about the brand 'Uber'. You may have thought that it meant something extreme with vague German connotations. You then learnt Uber is like a taxi, which helped you put the brand Uber in the 'things I pay for that take me places' part of your brain, currently occupied by taxis, buses, trains etc.

Over time, your memory evolved with other associations as you encountered and experienced the brand - the mobile app, the black and white logo, the drivers you had, the pricing system. Associations also develop from advertising, stories in the media, conversations with other people, etc. The broader memory network of the brand starts to take form and becomes a reservoir of knowledge that you can utilise whenever you encounter the brand - such as seeing an advertisement or needing to travel to the airport. 

 "Memories are defined by the company they keep." (Romaniuk, 2018). The associations you create aren't always going to be positive - the driver was rude, the car was late, I heard Uber treats their staff really badly. Enough negative associations will result in you making a different decision. Negative associations are also very hard to erode. Each time you need to travel to the airport, Uber enters your consideration set - I could get an Uber, taxi, or drive and park at the airport. If your thoughts about Uber trigger you to remember all your bad experiences and perceptions, you may decide to order a taxi instead. If the taxi ride is a really positive experience you create positive associations about taxis and so on…

 A strong brand is a brand that has created numerous positive and accurate associations in the minds of their ideal customers. When a prospective customer encounters the brand or is considering which brand to buy, the brand they are aware of and that has the most positive associations will typically win the sale. 

How does this relate to you as a therapist and growing a private therapy practice?

For a prospective client to consider you when thinking about which therapist to book an appointment with, they need to be aware of you. The job of marketing is to create this awareness, helping you to get in front of prospective clients by becoming more visible in Google, being present on social media, building relationships with referrers, etc

Secondly, we need your prospective clients to create numerous positive associations about you, ideally more than the other therapists they're considering booking an appointment with. As I mentioned above, the stronger brand (more positive associations) will typically win the sale - or the appointment in your case. 

As a therapist, how do you create positive associations? 

• Creating a look and feel (logo, colour palette, font, images) that accurately reflects your practice, resonates with your ideal clients, and is consistently used across your website, Instagram account etc
• Website content that provides enormous value, resonates with your ideal clients and accurately describes your practice and what clients can expect.
• Instagram content that enables prospective clients to get to know you and connect with you - this is why video content is so important.
• Develop free resources that provide lots of value to your ideal clients.
• Nurturing relationships with referrers.
• The touchpoints that sit around your therapy sessions - ensuring the intake process is seamless, checking in with clients after their initial appointment, etc.

A brand task for you to do:

1. List all the associations you want your clients and referrers to have. Associations can be thoughts, feelings, beliefs.
2. Compare these associations to your website content, social media content, previous conversations/interactions with referrers, client email communication, intake process, post initial appointment process. Do you feel like they’re creating the associations you want your clients and referrers to have? If not, then here is a great opportunity to refine and improve them. 

References

Anderson, JR & Bower, GH (1979) Human Associative Memory, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillside, NJ

Keller, KL (1993) ‘Conceptualizing, measuring and managing customer-based brand enquiry’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 57, pp. 1-22

Romaniuk, J (2018) Building Distinctive Brand Assets, Oxford University Press, Victoria, Australia

Sharp, B & Romaniuk, J (2022) How Brands Grow Part 2, Oxford University Press, Victoria, Australia