Don’t Market your Psychotherapy Practice
If you are a giant practice who had thousands to spend on Google Ads, SEO, and advertising then market away. But if you are an introverted solo private practioner short on time and energy, and hate marketing, keep reading:
Marketing doesn’t work for solo private practices. Yeah that was a click bait title because I am about to tell you that you still need to build relationships with referral sources. Sorry Not Sorry, had to grab your attention. But if you want to have a thriving solo practice you need to get clients somehow and Psychology Today won’t do all the work. So don’t think marketing, instead know that the goal is to develop deep relationships with trusted sources. We can do that right? One thing grad school taught us: how to build rapport and relationships (maybe not the only thing).
Here are some tips and tricks I learned along the way
Building relationships is casting a net. Do this by evaluating your current good fishing spots (people who are already referring to you) and find similar spots. For example if a gynecologist referred someone to use to manage anxiety. Reach out to other gynecologists. If an addiction therapist sent someone to you for eating disorders, reach out to other addiction therapists.
Don’t do double work, look at your current clients’ other providers. If appropriate, get Releases of Information and contact those providers and cast the net there first. Obtain helpful information for continuity of care for those clients. Get more info about the practice, see if it would be a good referral source for you to send people to. Remember, it’s a relationship not a one way street send appropriate resources and referrals to them, help them build connections.
If you are self pay, build referrals with other self pay clinicians. This isn’t knocking therapists who accept insurance, but they are two different types of clients. When I’m looking to use insurance I google and ask for blue cross federal providers. When I’m looking for a pelvic floor therapist who is trauma informed and experienced with endometriosis-I ask for that. If the Blue Cross Federal provider is full they search Blue Cross Federal Providers that they know and send that way. Do you see where I’m going here? Again, this isn’t a knock on any therapist, just how our brain searches lots of data.
Rule of 7. Focus on casting the net 7 times in the same spot before moving on. You’re not going to catch fish every time. Don’t focus on the end goal of a relationship but instead casting the net. There is no exact science on number of contacts and generating a source but for my rejection sensitive folks and imposters (you’re not but you feel like one) out there, so you need a process goal not an outcome goal. Rule of 7 is an old school marketing rule of thumb so I chose 7.
Hope these are helpful, if you are looking for more support check out the following resources:
Referral Tracker
