When you’re a therapist, it can be hard to find new clients. Especially if you are someone who runs a private practice instead of working for a larger organization. However, Statista notes that 41.4 million adults in the US received mental health treatment in 2020. Therefore, the clients are out there. You just need to reach them.
Here are four strategies that can help with it:
Clearly Define Your Niche
Define your niche. The first step in developing a marketing strategy is to define what you offer and who you’re targeting clearly. Are you a therapist who specializes in treating anxiety? Or perhaps you work with children or couples? Whatever it may be, ensure that every aspect of your business, from your website to your brochure, reflects this singular focus.
You can also go down a little deeper and explain what approach you prefer taking with therapy. This might not be very helpful to your clients who are not well-versed in psychotherapy, but it will help your colleagues know exactly which clients they should be referring to you. This way, you get to have a better time at your job and more clients benefit from your services, improving your reputation.
If you are not already specialized, you can incorporate the question of reach into choosing your specialization. The National Institute of Mental Health notes that young adults, aged 18-25, have the highest prevalence of Any Mental Illness (AMI) at 30.6%, as well as Serious Mental Illness (SMI) at (9.7%). You can specialize in working with young adults to tap into the demographic that needs your services the most.
Make Your Office Management More Efficient
You may be a therapist, but when you run a private practice, you are also an office manager. You’re running a business, and you need to make sure your office is clean and well-kept. But the responsibilities don’t end there. You need to schedule appointments, handle the billing and filing, submit claims to insurance companies, keep detailed medical records and treatment plans, and much more.
Doing all this can take a lot of your valuable time. The time that you could have spent treating more patients. You can hire an office manager, sure. But a much cheaper option is getting a therapist practice management software. This software will do all these menial tasks for you and make your job much easier. It won’t clean your office, though. That’s something you still need to do by yourself.
Network With Your Peers
Networking with your peers can be a great way to build a client base, as well as a source of referrals. You’ll be able to share information about what kinds of clients you’d like or are looking for, and you may find out about opportunities that will be useful for both you and the other person.
Zippia notes that 79% of professionals believe networking is vital to career progression. As a therapist, it might be more true since many therapists get new clients through referrals. Try working closely with your peers on different projects. It could be a seminar or a study. The more they know you, the more comfortable they will be referring clients to you.
Optimize Your Website
Your website is the first thing people will see when they search for you. Therefore it needs to be in tip-top shape. There are a lot of things that go into making your website visible on the internet, and we will get to that. But you should know that according to Linkedin, 75% of people form their opinion of a website based on its aesthetic. Therefore it needs to be as bright and professional looking as possible.
Now let’s talk about making your website visible. It is too big of a topic to discuss in its entirety in this article. But here are some simple tips.
- You need to make sure that you are using your keywords correctly.
- Make sure you have content that people will find interesting. Don’t just include your business details and contact number. Take the time to write about your methods, provide general background information for therapy, etc.
- When you have content worth sharing, make sure it is easy to share
- Make sure your website is optimized for mobiles. Websites that are not usually rank lower in google search results.
- Get your website verified by Google.
This might sound like a lot of work if you are not tech-savvy. But the good thing is you can learn all about it from a simple google search. Even better, you can hire a trained professional to do it for you and save yourself a lot of time.
You have to invest a lot of time and effort to make a name for yourself as a therapist. But following the steps above can get the ball rolling. Remember that there is no point in working harder if you are not willing to work smarter too.