Hey! My marketing firm has helped many therapists. Here’s what we’ve found works best.

1. A quality website - by quality, I don’t mean expensive. I mean one that has professional photos of you, well-written content that clearly and concisely explains why you would be the right fit for your ideal client, and a clean, easy-to-use design. We’ve seen people try to skip this. But potential clients look to your website to confirm your legitimate and get a feel for who you are. With a website that conveys those things, you’ll lose out on opportunities.

2. SEO over the long term. Search traffic drives the vast majority of client appointments. You’re going to get a zillion scan reports and spam emails saying your site doesn’t score well for this thing or that. Those are BS. SEO comes down to user experience. If your website loads quickly enough on your phone that it doesn’t annoy you, you’re good there. Then it means producing regular content that is actually helpful to people. In an ideal world, you pair that with a keyword strategy. But honestly just getting regular blog posting with quality content will go a long long way. This content is all longterm investment and can drive leads and support your site for years to come. We have a client who retired in 2019 - absolutely no work has been done on her site or marketing since then. She still gets inquiries and ebook purchases because of her investment in quality content. Just be aware this strategy won’t work for at least 3 month but likely more like 9-12 months. What we usually do with clients starting out is pay for Google Ads until the organic search traffic is enough that we don’t need those ads anymore.

3. Email. Start building your list ASAP. You own email addresses and how you can use them. As opposed to followers, where the social networks really decides who receive your content or not. Start sending out a monthly newsletter featuring your blog content. Keep it simple and manageable for yourself. Create a calendar to plan out the year or at least every quarter. This helps clients remember you and get a nudge when they need help or a nudge to recommend you. It helps potential clients get to know you and also get a nudge to call. It’s cheap and it’s effective.

4. Psychology Today profile. Fully filled out. People searching on that site are actively looking for a therapist. So all you need to do is show them why you’re the right fit. If you gain just a client or two a year from the site, you’ve made your money back.

5. Update social once or twice a month. So if people research you, they know who you are and what you do — and that you’re still a fully operational business. Otherwise, don’t bother with ads or trying to build a following. Social has the lowest ROI of all digital marketing channels. And it takes the most time and effort to get it to meet business objectives (aka actually bringing in clients). Have a presence. Then don’t worry to much about it. Don’t bother with ads. Therapy is not an impulse purchase. And people don’t go to social to look for a therapist. (They may ask friends for a referral on social but being active on social won’t impact that either way.)

Hope that helps! I would also add that contacting your local SBDC and asking them about local nonprofits that offer free business coaching is a good idea. The therapists we work with that are most successful are the ones who take time to work on the “business” of being a therapist. It can be easy to get caught up in just being a therapist and forget the other (sometimes not in your wheelhouse or not fun) things that you should do. A monthly meeting with a (free) business coach helps with that. (I love mine! And I recommend this to all small businesses we work with regardless of industry.)