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Archive of Marketing Tips
Beginning of Year To Do's
Summer time can mean Extra Hours in your Appointment Calendar.
Summertime often means cancelled appointments or a spare hour or two in your schedule due to client vacations. Fill those extra hours with your marketing efforts. Now is a great time to:
Review your marketing plan. See where you are about half way through the year. Are you where you want to be business wise and professionally? If not, what else do you need to do?
Contact any referral sources that you may have, to thank them for their support and past referrals.
Provide updates/progress notes to referral sources (as appropriate). This can remind sources that you are available and can provide services.
Update any marketing materials with additional specialties, website address, or email address. Make sure to keep all materials current.
Marketing
Tip for June
2004 (Part 2 of
2)
Have you tried the first two ways. I did and it made a
difference. The return on follow up calls increased by 25%.
Try it! Let us know what your results. Again, I have included
the previous months suggestions for review. The goal is
to Make sure your letters get read.
Here is a recap of last issues two ideas: Consider starting
your letters with the following guidelines in mind
Here are the final two ideas:
Marketing Tip for March 2004 (Part 1 of 2)
MARKETING TIP: FOUR WAYS TO BEGIN CUSTOMER LETTERSMake sure your letters get read. Consider starting your letters with the following guidelines in mind
Next time we will cover:
Marketing Tip for November 2003
Although most therapists limit their exposure in their clinical work. Exposure is really a necessity on the Internet. When someone is searching for you on the Internet, it is important to have your name printed on as many website pages as possible. Listings in Database Directories, like our National Directory, are effective when consumers know how to find you there through company advertising and exposure.
However, your name needs to be on other pages on the Internet. Go to google.com and look up your name. How many times does it appear? We recommend 3-5 listings that should appear. You can accomplish these listings on Google (and other search engines) in a number of ways:
As you contribute, add, or host your own website, you should see your name appear more and gain additional exposure for your practice. Make sure clients can find you through the Internet to make the Internet worthwhile for you.
Summer time can mean Extra Hours in your Appointment Calendar.
Summertime often means cancelled appointments or a spare hour or two in your schedule due to client vacations. Fill those extra hours with your marketing efforts. Now is a great time to:
Review your marketing plan. See where you are about half way through the year. Are you where you want to be business wise and professionally? If not, what else do you need to do?
Contact any referral sources that you may have, to thank them for their support and past referrals.
Provide updates/progress notes to referral sources (as appropriate). This can remind sources that you are available and can provide services.
Update any marketing materials with additional specialties, website address, or email address. Make sure to keep all materials current.
Start
small. Stay focused.
Often
when we think about marketing, we think about big numbers and
big efforts. Sending out hundreds of letters or brochures or
making lots of calls. While marketing is a "numbers
game", it is also built on relationships.
So instead of thinking about telling the "masses"
about your services, focus on 5 to 10 people or businesses you
would like to tell about your services. These 5 to 10 people
could be physicians, psychiatrists, other therapists or
counselors, physical therapists, massage therapists - Anyone
who might refer potential clients to you.
1.
Make a list with names, addresses, and phone numbers
2. Contact each person on the list to introduce yourself and
your services or "re-introduce" yourself. Keep the
call brief and to the point. "I'm in private practice and
specialize in working with people who are depressed."
Arrange for a face to face meeting if possible.
3. Follow up with a thank you note and include 6 of your
business cards.
4. Update your list, with when and how you contacted the
person (for example, spoke on 3/4/03, sent note and
cards)
5. Then follow up again in 1-2 months to reacquaint yourself to
the people. Record your results on your list.
If you add 5 people every week, you'll soon have a large list
of people that can refer to you.
Marketing Tip for December 2002
Happy New
Year!
Here’s to the start of a New Year – and
a great time to review your Marketing Plan for 2002 and plan for 2003!
Here are a few tips to ensure you have a Great 2003!
Marketing Plan - If you don’t have
a Marketing Plan, now’s the time to put one together – even if your practice
is full right now. A Marketing Plan
is a statement of how you are going to promote your services to others.
Most of us have some type of Marketing Plan – even if it’s in our
heads. Consistency is one of the
hallmarks of marketing, so keeping the information in your head, usually
doesn’t work. Write it down!
Your marketing activities can include:
A Marketing Plan can be very simple –
stating the basics of who you are going to contact, what you are
going to do, when you are going to do it,
why you are contacting that person or agency and how much
you expect to spend. Then follow your plan and make adjustments as you go.
Evaluate What You Did in 2002 - If
you haven’t done so already, now is the time to take a look at what marketing
activities you did in 2002 and do a little evaluation.
What marketing activities worked and didn’t work?
Did you meet your goals for the year?
Even if you didn’t set up goals or a marketing plan for 2002, you can
still reflect on the year past.
Ask yourself these questions:
2003 Marketing Plan – Now is the
time to set your goals for your practice. Where
do you want to be at the end of 2003? Marketing
directly impacts your ability to meet your goals.
What is your Marketing Plan for 2003 (write it down).
Need Help? – Look at our other Marketing
Tips in the Archive
section of our website. Talk to
other mental health professionals who you regard as successful and ask what they
do. Get guidance from people who know marketing.
And of course, you can always give Provisions Consulting a call.
We specialize in helping mental health professionals grow their
businesses.
Here’s to a prosperous 2003!
Marketing Tip for October 2002
PRACTICE PROMOTION AND MARKETING - YOUR ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING
Many therapists and counselors think of practice promotion or marketing as MANIPULATION. Practice promotion is really about EDUCATION. When you promote your practice, you are educating the public about mental health, what you do and debunking the stigma about mental illness.
Many people have never been to therapy and have lots of questions about "what is therapy like". By talking about and providing information about what you do, you help educate people who are interested in mental health. And may be potential clients.
Marketing your practice is a way to show your confidence in yourself and what you do. It is definitely NOT a sign of failure or desperation! Your attitude conveys everything to your clients and potential clients.
Why market your Practice?
"They never discussed marketing in grad school - I have no idea what to do! What does marketing have to do with being a good therapist?"
Nothing and everything is the answer. You might be the best therapist in your town, however, if people don't know about you - you might not be sharing your talents and gifts with others. On the other hand, the therapist office next to you might be the busiest - and he/she may not be the "most qualified".
Marketing your private practice has changed with the advent of managed care, insurance, and EAPs. The ways that worked 20 years ago may not work today.
If you are not satisfied with a client base that is almost all insurance/managed care, not seeing the "type" of client that you desire, then you need to look at your marketing and promotion of your practice. You can change your practice to maximize your time, your income and your expertise.
Provisions Consulting has lots of ways to help you build your practice that fits your needs. Give us a call for a free 45 minute consultation.
Internet
Referrals – Where do they come from?
Like all referrals, Internet
referrals are often difficult to track. You
can ask clients where they heard of you, but that is often unreliable to really
track exactly “where you were found” on the Internet.
If you are marketing your
practice/services on the Internet, you are hopefully listed on many websites.
This provides you with an ‘Internet Presence’ or ‘Exposure’.
So when you ask clients “where did you find me” and the client says
“on the Internet”, you may not know exactly where they saw your information.
The client might have seen your website, your listing on Provisions
Consulting’s National “Find-A-Therapist” Directory, a listing from your
state or national association affiliation or many other websites.
Or clients may get your name and information from several websites.
Is it important to know from
where my referrals are coming? Yes
Yes, knowing where referrals
come from is important to determine what might be working or not working for you
in your marketing plan. However,
just knowing that you are getting referrals from the Internet tells you that
your Internet marketing is working. Again,
this will help you budget your marketing time and money.
However, tracking the
information your clients provide may not be totally reliable. In fact, your clients may have received your name from
someone and then “checked you out” on the Internet.
This is a multiple source referral.
The Internet can provide potential clients with additional information
about you and your services. Usually
the more information a person has about you and your services, the more
comfortable and confidant potential clients may be.
How do I know I’m getting
referrals from Provisions Consulting?
There are several ways that
Provisions Consulting provides referrals to you. We get calls and e-mails every day from people who are
looking for mental health assistance. These
calls and e-mails are answered based on their specific requests.
The most common requests are by geography and then specialty.
We first look to our
National Directory for any therapist/counselor that meets the
callers’/e-mailers’ requirements. We
provide three referrals to the caller whenever possible.
Next, we call, e-mail and/or
send a letter to you (the therapist/counselor) with information on the potential
client. This information may be
‘sketchy’ to protect the privacy of the caller.
Of course, many people look
at our National Directory on-line and call or e-mail you directly.
We can’t track these referrals, unless they tell you and you tell us.
So if you get someone who says they found you on the Provisions
Consulting’s website, please let us know.
However, we do track information on our website with statistics.
The month of May 2002, our www.provisionsconsulting.com
website had almost 2600 visitors and almost 16,000 hits.
The average length of stay is 301 seconds or just over 5 minutes each.
This type of information tells you that the website is getting
‘traffic’ to the website – people are finding and viewing the website and
your listing.
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Total Visitors |
2,571 |
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Total Page views |
6,618 |
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Total Hits |
15,720 |
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Average Visitors Per Day |
85 |
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Average Page views Per Day |
220 |
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Average Hits Per Day |
524 |
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Average Hits Per Visitor |
6 |
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Average Bytes Per Visitor |
33,614 |
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Average Length of Visit |
301sec |
PUBLISHING ON THE INTERNET
As a way to enhance your Internet presence, make sure to publish on the Interenet. Many sites allow and even encourage articles on their topic specialties, including www.provisionsconsulting.com, without requiring exclusivity.
There are many free e-zines you can find on topical areas and contribute your expertise in writing. Make sure to contribute often and wherever possible on the interent to assure maximum visibility.
Be sure to review a sites publishing policies and requirements. Also, make sure the site is valuable to its visitors and that it matches your values and criteria for having your name associated with it.
Each time you publish on the Internet and your articles appear on web pages, your name will appear in search engine listings, enhancing the opportunities for others to find you and your services.
If you would like to learn how to use our site or other publishing information contact kbryant@provisionsconsulting.com.
Marketing Tip for February 2002
TIME IS ON YOUR SIDE WHEN MARKETING ON THE INTERNET
by Sarah Kovich, MEd, LPC
Last month we talked about ways to think about how the Internet can be useful to your practice. We have people who expect to be listed or have a WebPage for a short period of time, say a year, who become disgruntled and feel they are wasting money if they do not get referrals. On the contrary, like any marketing endeavor, time is a huge key factor to Internet marketing success.
It has been our experience that your practice will need to be present on the Internet for a couple of years before it will really begin to pay off. And without an aggressive Internet marketing campaign it could take even longer. But once it begins to pay off it does so with a blast. A quote from one of our customers speaks to this fact:
“My services have been online for six years now and I receive a minimum of three referrals/inquiries a month. Currently, I am averaging one Internet patient per month which now more than pays for my Internet presence. In fact, I am recouping the initial years investment as well.”
It is hard to wait to receive referrals so make sure you do all you can in the initial years you have an Internet presence to highlight and add your name on the world wide web as many places as possible. This building effect will be cumulative and contacts and inquiries to your office should represent this accumulation of Internet presence.
We recommend:
* Paid directory listings on respectable mental health sites, usually you can expect to spend from a few cents to a few dollars per month.
* Free listings on online classified, yellow and white pages where appropriate. This should be a one time cost with most companies who will do it for you. Make sure to get a quote.
* A web page with your own address (www.yourname.com) for listing with search engines. Many companies have intro web design services starting at only a couple hundred dollars. Make sure to pick a company who can show you sites they have completed and preferably one with some experience in the mental health field. And finally,
* Make sure to enhance all the listings with articles, features or whatever else you find to get your name on one more page on the World Wide Web.
Next time I will write about publishing on the Internet. How to get your writings listed.
Best of Luck with your Internet marketing endeavors! For a quote on any of the services mentioned in this article email kbryant@provisionsconsulting.com .
Marketing Tip for December 2001
Ever Wondered How To Get Inquiries and Referrals
From The Internet?
PART
2
by Sarah Kovich
Last time we discussed Internet visibility. This time lets talk about more ways to highlight your services on the Internet. Since people "surf the net", it is imperative to make sure you can be found in numerous places. Last time we suggested ways to use a our site for this purpose. But what about other sites?
We recommend that you spend some time familiarizing yourself with the Internet. Know what is available in terms of mental health sites, directory services, and even niche market sites. A good rule of thumb is where you look for professional services, so may your future clients.
There are a number of "free listing services" on the Internet. Some national, some local. Make sure you are listed on these sites. In other words, get two for the price of one. In addition to paying for some listings you have the added advantage of the free sites. You will want a mixture of both as you always get what you pay for.
Typically the free listing sites will rely only on Internet traffic. When you pay for a listing, look for a company that can tell you how they drive traffic to their site. Usually high traffic sites have the following marketing combination:
* Have been on the Internet for a long time....five or more years
* Pay for advertising to their site in more traditional publications...magazines, newspapers,etc.
* List on all major search engines....Yahoo!, AOL. Google, etc. And continue to resubmit their site so they move up in the search rankings (most top listed search ranking sites pay for their listings to be listed in first twenty or so, therefore it is imperative to continue resubmitting a site to move up as high as possible without paying).
When all the above are present, then you have some hope of beginning to receive direct referrals. Next tip we will talk about direct vs. indirect referrals from the Internet.
Marketing Tip for November 2001
Ever Wondered
How To Get Inquiries and Referrals From The Internet?
by
Sarah Kovich
As a marketing firm with
part of our services geared toward the Internet, we are asked this question
daily. The answer is not simple, but one that takes some deal of thought and
planning. We often write here about a marketing plan, I want to suggest that
you break your plan down further to have an Internet marketing plan. Here is
the first in a series of tips to increase your Internet visibility:
1. Make sure you have many
WebPages with your name on them. Most people "surf" the net, so it
is important to "splash" your name in as many places on the
Internet as possible. Do not rely on one service or directory listing to
assess whether the Internet is a good marketing tool for your practice.
For example, you may have a
directory listing on the Provisions Consulting/AMHCA/ADEC National Directory
but not be getting any referrals. Heighten your Internet presence on
our site alone by contributing an article on your area of expertise.
Contribute a book recommendation and review which also add another
page. And even enhance your listing and add another WebPage to your Internet
space by being a featured therapist. With relatively little effort
you have taken a database listing and can now have three WebPages with your
name on them. Three times the exposure and all FREE!
(Even this page adds
another page to my WebPages since my name is under the title.)
You may wonder how this
works.....in simplistic terms the search engines send "robots" out
to search the Internet's billions of pages and classifies them. Anytime your
name appears on a page it will be classified and added to the list of places
your name appears on the Internet. It is really much more complicated than
this but this is basically how it works. Over time when someone looks up
your name, all the pages where your name appears will show up. For most,
this can take several years as the process and exposure grows. The
"robots" go out all the time and find new pages and classify them.
Make sure to give your Internet marketing time to grow.
Marketing Tip for May 2001
Marketing tip - Marketing in Your Own Office
Your waiting room or office is the first place to start marketing your services. I know that marketing ourselves and our services can be uncomfortable and maybe even be difficult for many of us. However, your office and waiting room is a safe place to start.
During an informal survey of 92 therapists offices, only 19% had business cards in their waiting rooms. An amazingly low number.
So check your waiting room, office or other common areas - place your business cards, brochures, information about yourself or other articles you have written in plain sight! People in your waiting room are great referral sources!!
Marketing Tip for April 2001
SAYING "THANK YOU": IT'S THE MAGIC TOUCH
The personal touch is an important way to keep getting new referrals for new clients. Each time you see a new client, find out where they heard of you or who referred them to you, then send a personal note of thanks. Sure you probably do that now for physicians, other therapists and maybe even attorneys who provide referrals.
Have you thought of sending a note to the local newspaper or newsletter where you advertise? What about the Internet sited where you list your practice? How about the insurance companies referral people whose panels you are on?
They would like to know that you are successful. "Thank you" can result in better location of your ad, features in publications/ on web site, and even increased referrals from managed care companies.
Marketing Tip for January/February 2001
UNDERSTAND YOUR MARKET AND YOUR REFERRAL RESOURCE :
by Kathryn Bryant
Before you start your marketing activities, make sure you understand what is needed by potential clients and potential referral resources. Let's say you want to work with geriatric patients and you are targeting a marketing campaign (letters, phone calls, web site and visits) to potential referral resources. You may approach a Physician specializing in Geriatrics, who would like a group for his/her patients. If you approach this physician with an individual therapy focus, you probably won't get many referrals from that Physician. However, by doing a little research up front and understanding what the Physician may want, you can tailor your marketing materials (letters, calls, web site, visits) BEFORE you approach each potential referral. Remember to ask the potential resource for what they want!!
Marketing Tip for November 2000
BE CONSISTENT!!
by Kathryn Bryant
Marketing and Internet Technology Consultant
One shot marketing activities don't work. You need to plan your marketing
activities AND budget in advance. For example, one ad in a local newsletter
probably won't do the trick to attract potential clients. But the same ad,
each month for 6 months or 1 year in the same newsletter will give potential
clients the opportunity to understand more about you than your name and address. They will see you as permanent, consistent, trustworthy, reliable
and available. If you only put one ad in a publication, your potential clients will miss these aspects about you and your practice. So PLAN your
marketing activities and BE CONSISTENT.
Marketing Tip for
OCTOBER 2000
LISTEN AND SELL
by Kathryn Bryant
Provisions Consulting Marketing Consultant
When trying to sell or market our services to physicians, nurses, other professionals, we often do all the talking (or at least most of it). This is a great time to LISTEN to the person, UNDERSTAND what they need, and then DESCRIBE how your services meet their needs. The most successful sales or marketing calls are when the other person does most of the talking.
Marketing Tip for
JULY/AUGUST 2000Marketing- Return on Investment.
Last month the tip was planning your marketing endeavor. We stated that one of the main reasons for planning is to
assure that you reach enough people to get the desired outcome. One of the mistakes our company often sees is practitioners trying a great idea out on a few people,
not achieving the desired results and giving up.
Often they give up because they have not "paid for" the marketing on the first try. We believe it is better to figure a total
return on your investment before you throw out your ideas. If you approach marketing from with this viewpoint you will often if not always be disappointed. Most
marketing does not pay for itself in one try. A better way to determine if your marketing is paying for itself is to calculate a return on investment. We do this the laymans way. And
we suggest you give it a try as well.
We suggest you look at two factors: tangible and intangible results. The tangible is usually easier to name. The number
of inquiries you receive, the response rate, the number of people who mention your marketing to you, or the number of times the phone rings. These are relatively easy
to "count". Remember to count all contacts, not just referrals or paying customers.
The intangibles are not as easy to measure. They are the referrals or business that comes when they can not remember
where they got your name, or the "second view" of you someone got who was considering you, or the referral that comes six months to a year down the road that you
forget to track back to a marketing effort that far in the past. The intangible return is usually a bigger return than the tangible return, but it is harder to "count". Try not to
forget to tally these intangibles. Together with the tangibles you should be able to pay for a marketing effort over time.
Remember, often people must "see you" (on your card, in an ad, over the Internet) a minimum of three times before they
will call. Keep this in mind because when you combine it with your marketing plan, the greatest return on your investment will follow. Best of Luck.
Next time we will write about how to measure your response rate effectively.
Marketing Tip for MAY/JUNE 2000
Marketing- A Numbers Game.
Last month the tip was about the importance of planning your marketing endeavors. One of the main reasons for planning is to assure that you reach enough people to get the desired outcome. One of the mistakes our company often sees is practitioners trying a great idea out on a few people, not achieving the desired results and giving up. Often the assumption being the idea was not a good one. Often nothing could be further from the truth.
Most often, in our experience, good ideas need to be cultivated and a strategic plan in place for implementation. Since marketing can offer disappointing results, a plan helps keep you on track. And when you are on a track, it may be easier to continue with the plan even through the disappointment. This is where the numbers game comes in. The more attempts you make the greater your return on investment will be.
So, remember to make a plan and then plan to stick to it to achieve the desired results or return on your investment. In our next tip we will talk more about return on your investment.
Marketing Tip for April 2000
There is nothing more important than planning when it comes to assuring success in a marketing endeavor. As a general rule, you will spend about ten times as much time in the planning and implementation stages of a project as you will in offering the project.
For example, for a one hour presentation or to get one referral you may need to spend about ten hours of preparation and implementation time. If you take a look at your last presentation, think about how much time it took to bring it to fruition - lets say we count the time to learn the material (maybe beginning as far back as graduate school), write or produce the material, a direct mail campaign and preparing the materials for the event (whether it is an intake and consent form for a patient or a full handout for a speaking engagement).
We think you can see how important it is to plan. So, you may say, how do I know how to develop a plan? There are several ways to approach a plan. Many software programs have planning software templates. You can do an informal plan based on a checklist you devise. There are many books with worksheets templates to assist you. Or you can seek out a consultant with market planning experience.
Whatever road you choose, make sure you have a tried and true tested plan so you can work towards a successful outcome. In next months tip we will discuss marketing as a numbers game.
6370 LBJ Suite 272
Dallas, Texas 75240
phone: (877)-956-6400, fax: 972-385-3907
email:skovich@provisionsconsulting.com
© 1997 Provisions Consulting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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