You’ve officially created your own private practice. Stellar accomplishment. Now, how do you get your name out there? Where do you acquire new patients? In this article, we’ll be diving into the importance of effective marketing and how you can use it to successfully spread brand awareness and market your therapy practice. Not only that, but we’ll be taking a peek into some of the specific marketing tactics and examples that you can utilize within an all-encompassing practice management software, like Vagaro.
Marketing: The Basics
At first glance, there may seem to be many moving parts to marketing, especially when done effectively. And truth be told, there is! Marketing is best compared to a machine or engine. If just one piece or component fails, the rest of the endeavor can suffer. While these may seem like high stakes, there are a few pillars of marketing that you can always keep in mind to ensure that you’re marketing effectively. They are as follows: product, pricing, place, promotion, physical evidence, people, and processes. These are otherwise known as the Seven Ps of Marketing. By acknowledging these simple principles, you can eliminate the fear of the unknown that you might face when getting started with marketing your therapy practice. Let’s take a more in-depth look into what each of these points mean!
Product: Unique characteristics or selling points and the overall quality of the service or product that you’re offering.
Price: This refers to how much your client or consumer is going to spend on your service or product.
Place: The where of your service or product and its availability. Where will patients look for your service? Where will you reach your target market?
Promotion: Any method used to promote your services. This would include anything from a radio commercial to an Instagram post.
Physical Evidence: Proof that the services you offer are, in fact, worth receiving. An example of physical evidence might be a patient testimonial or a before-and-after photo following the service(s) you provide.
People: You & anyone you employ who will come into direct or indirect contact with your target audience and patients.
Processes: Processes are your internal needs used for presenting your service or product to your clients. For example, hiring an in-house sales representative might drive your new client acquisition since they can actively reach out to untapped prospects who may have not heard of your business. On the flip side, processes might also include any possible barriers that would prevent your clients from seeing your service or product. A barrier, in this sense, might look like your retail supplier running out of supplies.
Keeping these key elements in mind before announcing or releasing any of your marketing material will prove to be of immense help as doing so will always ensure that you do not waste or misuse resources and that you’re speaking to the right audience. If you wish to simplify this list a bit, then you may cut out the people, process, and physical evidence steps. This leaves you with product, price, place, and promotion. This smaller list is actually what the aforementioned seven marketing tenets were based on and was known as the Four Ps of Marketing. Their definitions and examples remain the same and might prove to be easier to use if you’re just getting started in the industry.
Target Market vs Target Audience
Out of the previously mentioned Ps of Marketing, People is arguably the most important. Why? Simply put, ads are everywhere, and you need to make sure the right people are seeing yours. When we don’t relate to something or someone at least a little bit, we can be more likely to disregard them. That’s why it’s crucial that, when releasing marketing material, you have a who in mind that you’re wanting your ad to be centered around. And, of course, be sure that you’re sending out your marketing material in a way that will reach that particular group of people. For example, for a younger audience, using digital or social media advertising will likely prove to be more effective than running a newspaper ad geared toward that same group. By doing this, your audience is more likely to see your ad and resonate with it, causing them to interact or subconsciously note your presence. While this is the goal of marketing, it is impossible to curate a specific ad or promotion for each individual person in your audience, so let’s break that down below.
When releasing marketing material, there are two different groups of individuals that you’ll be reaching out to. The first being your target audience and the second being your target market. Each of these groups refer to people who might be interested in your service or product. However, these groups are a bit different from one another. A target market is made up of a vast body of people who may find your brand intriguing, whereas a target audience is a more specific subgroup of your target market and is who your ultimate aim is for with your marketing campaigns. For instance, if you offer marriage counseling, then your target market would be married couples, and your specific target audience may be newlyweds who have been married less than five years.
Now that you’ve identified your audience, you might then release an email marketing campaign titled: Helping You Successfully Navigate the Early Years of Marriage. This campaign will interest those in your target market since they may be looking for marriage counseling, but it will also speak to individuals in your target audience since your ad is formatted for & speaking directly to them. Email campaigns are among the easiest types of campaigns to create and send, especially when using something like Vagaro’s built-in email marketing tools. Identifying your target audience and market is something that will ultimately take some time, research, and market analysis. However, you likely already have an idea of who that is. Gathering feedback from any of your existing patients is an excellent way to get started on that research!
Types of Marketing Campaigns: Which One Do You Choose?
When thinking of which type of marketing method or campaign style to choose, keep your who at the front of your mind. As we mentioned, it’s important that you choose a style that you believe will actually reach your target market/audience. If you’re overstimulating your market or potential clients with handfuls of different campaigns, campaign-types, etc., they’re just going to ignore it all together. Today, there are three primary forms of marketing that you’ll see most commonly used. These are social media marketing, email marketing, and content marketing. Other, less common types might include video marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. We’re going to be diving into the three primary types and how you can leverage them to your advantage as a marketing tool for your practice. Furthermore, we’ll also be looking at how to use practice management software, like Vagaro, to create your online marketing content!
Social Media Marketing
One of the best perks about using your own social media to promote your practice is that it’s completely free to start out! Your existing social media platforms will likely give you a starting target market (followers, friends, family) and a place to host some of your marketing material. Most social media platforms currently offer some form of business portal or paid business feature that you can use to manage and track your paid social media promotions as well. For example, Facebook has a business page feature that allows you to create a commercial page outside of your personal profile for your practice.
We would absolutely recommend pairing your business portals with the respective built-in social media integrations that Vagaro offers for Facebook, Instagram, and Yelp. Each of these integrations allow for you to place a direct booking button into your existing social media profiles so that anyone who visits your page can easily book with you or learn more about your therapy practice. Ultimately, fostering an online community and creating an interactive online presence using your social media profiles will be instrumental in effectively speaking to the audiences you're trying to target.
If you’re unsure how to start or which platform to use when creating your social media ad, a great place to begin is your own social media. Your pages, profiles, and feeds are crammed with ads as it is. The next time you see one, ask yourself if it's effectively targeting or speaking to you. You can then use whatever research you gather from that simple question to give you insight for building a foundation for your post!
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an exceptional way to broadcast a message that might not be best communicated through a text message or social media post. When sending out an email marketing campaign, it's advised that you refrain from using things like emojis, all caps, or more than one symbol in succession. For example, things like “!!!” at the end of a sentence or statements like, “SAVE RIGHT NOW” are often no-noes. The reason being that many email providers nowadays use spam or fraud filters to prevent their users from receiving what could be harmful or fake messages. If the campaign that you send out looks like spam, it's likely going to be flagged by said filter and not received by your clients. Where do you even begin creating and sending an email to hundreds of people at once, though? Well, Vagaro’s in-house Email & Text Marketing features make it impressively easy. Vagaro’s marketing campaign builder utilizes a drag-and-drop method, allowing for ultimate customization and ease of use. You can then create a completely custom list of clients who will receive your campaign. You can even set campaigns to be mass distributed to your entire clientele, automatically, before & after appointments, or even automatically on their birthdays. Take a look at this article for a more in-depth tutorial on how you can create your first email marketing campaign in Vagaro.
The picture above is an example of what an effective marketing email may look like. It’s eye-catching while not looking like spam. The text and body of the email are easy to read, yet the colors and graphics are still vibrant. And best of all, this was made using Vagaro’s free email marketing builder.
Content Marketing
It’s very likely that you’ve been affected by some form of content marketing in your life without ever realizing it. Content marketing has the potential to feel much more organic than the other marketing types since it often involves some kind of interaction from the reader or audience. Some examples of content marketing might look like blogs, interactive social media posts, videos, and newsletters. According to Mailchimp by Intuit, businesses that utilize blogs get 67% more leads than other companies. This is absolutely due to the fact that the more people interact with your page or post, the more likely they are to convert because of that engagement. You stay fresh in their minds, and if they see things that they relate to in your content, they’re more likely to believe your brand is for them. But, being a mental health professional, this probably makes a lot of sense to you already. In short, being able to leave comments, join discussions, etc. will always prove to be more effective than a banner that they can’t interact with. Blogs are great for these exact reasons since you’re creating an opportunity for discussion and interaction while being able to plug your practice at the same time. If you’d like an idea for where to start your next blog or discussion, take a look at our article on Threads, the latest social media platform that’s taking the online world by storm!
How To Market Your Therapy Practice: What Do I Do Now?
With a greater understanding of what marketing is and how to do it successfully, you can now begin to reach wider audiences, better connect with existing & potential patients, and elevate your success in your field. Effective marketing can absolutely prove to be the make-or-break element for your practice's success. You might be capable of providing stellar care, but if no one knows your practice exists, it’s going to be much harder for it to grow. By using something like Vagaro, however, you can create your marketing material and seamlessly connect your online presence to not only manage & grow your practice.
