[HEARD] It’s never too early to start thinking about tax season. Heard is the financial back office built specifically for therapists in private practice. They combine smart software with real humans to help you manage your bookkeeping, taxes and payroll. Regardless of whether you’re a seasoned clinician or are in the first year of private practice, Heard will identify areas of growth and streamline best financial practices for your business. When you sign up with Heard, you’ll connect your bank accounts so your transactions will automatically be pulled in and categorized. My favorite thing about Heard is their allocation guide, what helps you decide how much to pay yourself each month and how much to set aside for taxes. You’ll also receive financial insights such as profit and loss statements and personalized monthly reports. You can say goodbye to pouring over spreadsheets and guessing your tax deductions or quarterly payments. Focus on your clients and Heard will take care of the rest. Heard always has transparent pricing with no hidden fees. Sign up for a free 15-minute consult call today at joinheard.com/partners/joe. Again, that’s joinheard, like I heard it, not like a herd of cattle, joinheard.com/partners/joe. [JOE SANOK] This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 831. All right, welcome everybody. We are just getting going here. Hope you are doing amazing today. So we are talking using directory sites to fill your practice. I’m so excited for this. First, just want to welcome you. Thank you for taking time out of your day, away from your clients, away from your family, or things you could be doing. Also Marta Hamilton is joining me today. Marta is someone that I’ve worked with for a while. She came to Slow Down School, she’s a wellness professional with a multidisciplinary background, including certifications as a Licensed Professional Counselor, supervisor, yoga instructor, and holistic health practitioner and entrepreneur. Her latest venture is Tele Wellness Hub, who you’ve been hearing about in every single one of the Level Up webinars because they graciously are giving away a hundred premium memberships throughout this week. We’ll talk a little bit about that at the end. It’s this amazing directory website that’s designed for modern wellness experts to authentically and easily showcase who they are. It’s really been amazing to just get to know Marta and the product and directory she’s starting. Today we’re going to be covering a lot of things. We’re not just going to be covering directories, we’re going to be looking at where you can get the most new clients for your money. We’re going to discuss Google Ads, Facebook directory sites. There’s a lot to keep track of and Marta’s going to be deciding or discussing how we decide where to spend your ad dollars, what makes a great directory profile, and also how to use CTV ads to target your exact clients. I didn’t even know what CTV ads were until I met Marta. Then she took me through it and I’m like, these are amazing. It is a little creepy how much data big advertising has on us, but we might as well use it to grow our practices. Marta, welcome to the Level Up Week webinar. So excited that you’re here with us today. [MARTA HAMILTON] Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It’s really cool to join. I’ve been part of Practice of the Practice and launching my private practice, group practice, Audience Building Academy, all of it, so it’s really neat. Never imagined I’d be on this side of things, but I’m very excited to be here. [JOE] You’ve arrived. Well, why don’t we just start with what did your private practice look like? Because I think that really informs how we think about advertising, how we think about attracting our ideal client. Just share with us your private practice when it was solo and then group and just so that people have an idea of your world. [MARTA] Absolutely. I set up my private practice and located out of Texas. That is when I initially decided to very part-time set up private practice. So I think like so many, it was initially on the weekends in the evenings using subletting someone’s space. I eventually grew to being able to be my full-time job and that’s when I moved to Florida, so had to reapply for licensure. At the time I wasn’t practicing telehealth, but really wished that I could and started looking a little bit into that. That was in 2015. I ended up moving back to Texas and at the time kept my Florida license active as well as my LPC here in Texas, decided to just first do some contract work and start my private practice again as a mom, I had twins. I really wanted the freedom. In setting up my private practice, I knew I wanted to operate from a holistic model, just from my various experiences from medical hospitals research, neuropsych testing. Working at a naturopathic doctor’s office I had a lot of great opportunities in contract work and wanted to bring them together in a way that aligned with my values. So ultimately had my private practice, people started asking me if I had telehealth options because of the busy schedules that people had, so incorporated telehealth, I got really busy, decided to open up a group practice and we offered a holistic model. So we had neuropsych testing, counseling, and an LPC supervisor as well, so had supervision, had a yoga instructor, and even the yoga instructor had a niche. She liked working with couples specifically to facilitate communication, breath work for couples. I guess that’s, ultimately I ended up closing the practice in 2020 to focus on this new venture. Still half my private practice and yes, that’s the evolution of things, if you will. [JOE] Well, and I think that’s helpful to just see that you’ve lived having to grow a practice and so it’s one thing when there’s someone that has a new directory site or new IT thing and it’s like they’re just an IT professional versus like you have done it. When you think about just advertising, what are maybe some of the different ways that people should think through the way that they spend their ad money, if they want to put money in, what are different ways they should think through that? [MARTA] Well, I’ve learned from a lot of mistakes and a lot of just truly knowing nothing. It was a foreign language to me. SEO, backlinks, domain authority. There are so many things that we don’t learn about that is just completely foreign to us that can feel like a distraction from our clinical work, but the work we really enjoy. So I think one of the things that I, first of all, truly Practice of the Practice, like you mentioned I’ve lived, it was very helpful in the sense that there was leadership and there’s community and I really, I was active in the groups, I asked questions and that really helped me. But I think when it comes to how you spend your money, I think there’s a, it helps to have a clear vision of what your niche is. I think that’s a really great start because then you can search, if you’re looking for a more local presence, you still have to create an online presence even locally. You can do the face-to-face networking, but there’s something to be said about the modern client gets on their phone and they Google counseling near me, ADHD counseling, counseling for uncoupling, whatever it may be. People are searching for that. A great way to really look at that is look at the trends in the area that you’re looking at, create a focus on is your ideal client going to be on Facebook, are they going to be on Google? Because Google Ads, Facebook ads, and now other social media ads from Instagram, they exist and it really looks at, you really have to take a look at first setting up your niche, what does your budget look like and your return on investment. Because if you can receive one client and it costs you, I don’t know, probably like an average of $6 a click perhaps, you can start taking a look at what’s effectively working. In the beginning it is a lot of experimenting and I think having some, I guess faith and confidence, if you look at it from that perspective of you can start small and experiment and see what works best for you, really keep track of data that is the best approach, especially when it is so foreign for so many of us. [JOE] Yes, I think there’s a fear oftentimes, and I would love if people feel this fear, just say yes in the chat. It’s always nice to know that I’m not the only one feeling fearful of something, like if I jump into Google ads that when I first started it was like, I’m going to accidentally spend like thousands of dollars and it’s just like all these clicks and it’s not going to be the right people. It’s not going to be the right settings. I’ll click one thing wrong and it’s going to cost me all this money. What would you say to that in regards to some of those boundaries that people should know about or should set or just like, so they don’t accidentally do that? Oh my gosh, thank God, thank you for affirming my fear that I felt early on. So what are some of those boundaries or things that people can do to make sure that they don’t accidentally spend thousands of dollars when they meant to only spend a few hundred? [MARTA] Absolutely. I mean, I’ve been in that situation myself too. There is a fear of what if there’s so many clicks or what if there’s no limit? The nice thing is that most ways to spend money with the ads, they have a limit. Now, side note, Tele Wellness Hub, I made it like a very clear-cut membership so there will never be spent more than a certain amount per month with certain levels that was part of it. Because I’ve lived it, I want transparency. When it comes to other ways to spend money, you can put limits. I would recommend putting on your calendar like a time to check in, literally block it off, just the way we would block off treatment planning, calling back people, faxing, coordinating treatment efforts, coordinating your marketing efforts will probably have a designated space, allotment of 15 minutes, just check in what’s going on with the spending? Did it say it’s at its max? Do you want to just end it right now? When it comes to those Google Ads, Facebook ads, that would be the biggest thing to give you a sense of understanding and regular checkup and also control over a situation that can feel overwhelming and fearful. [JOE] Yes. Now, so how would you categorize different types of advertising? We have like pay per click, which would be like Google and Facebook. Sometimes in Facebook it’s just boosting posts, so it’s not paying per click. What other types of advertising do you think it’s important for people to understand? [MARTA] Well, I’m really obviously biased and to CTV ads, but that is because something I didn’t understand at all. Full transparency on my end, my brother works in marketing for big global businesses and he was the one who said why don’t you look into CTV ads? Because you can get scrolled over, like you said, boost, sometimes people are just scrolling. CTV ads, I really believe is the future and innovative, and it helps us as individual private practitioners, we solo entrepreneurs and to compete with other big businesses that can have big tech in mental health that can have ads. You see their ads showing up and it’s created a space and awareness for mental health, which I appreciate but I want individual entrepreneurs and practitioners to have the ability to also be on primetime tv. So CTV ads is anything that can stream on connected TV devices, think PlayStation, Roku, Apple TV, all of those. Ads are now being placed directly into streaming services, streaming platforms and those are also typically per view, but it’s typically you have to have a lot, a big budget to be able to have those. We’ve been able to through CTV ads, the agency that we’ve been using be grandfathered in due to connections to have access to big, big business marketing through CTV for the individual providers like us. What I like about it is that you’re really truly offering something that those people would be interested in because it looks at interests. So we’re offering our services, they have a 97% completion rate on some, over 90%, mine have been around 97% on average. So they’re seeing the whole ad. And then it’s a choice, it’s an empowerment, it’s an offering for our ideal client. [NOBLE] Our friends at Noble have run their own clinics, worked with thousands of clients, and have seen firsthand the burnout and stress that can come with heavy caseloads, difficult topics, and a lack of time. With these things in mind, Noble built their app to support therapists by making between sessions support easy and offering and opportunity to build passive income. Now with new CPT codes coming in 2023, that will allow therapists to offer reimbursable remote monitoring support, Noble is revolutionizing remote patient monitoring. The team at Noble’s built a program that you can quickly implement to allow you to reimburse code 989×6 for cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT remote monitoring. This is so exciting for therapists and clinics. This new CPT code, which is coming into play in January, 2023, will allow you to make more money per hour and earn passive revenue. Noble’s system provides everything needed to reimburse objective data gathering, device integration, assessment and data stream display measurement and integrations, HIPAA compliant integrations into other EHRs, and real-time and immediate interventions for elevated symptoms. If you’d like to discuss adding their plug and play remote patient monitoring for 2023 so you can reimburse the new CPT codes, schedule a time to talk with Eric, their CEO at pop.noble.health. Again, that’s pop.noble.health. [JOE SANOK] So let’s back up a little bit around like the technology of what a CTV ad is, and then maybe we can talk about how to optimize those ads. So a CTV ad, it’s like the ads we see on Hulu, on Roku, on Apple TV. Those ads are almost placed per person, not just it just goes out, is that correct? [MARTA] Correct. They’re placed per person based on demographics for that household. The agency we use obviously, ethical and legal compliance is so important for me personally and I’m sure for all of us and we want to really, protecting people’s in private information is so important. So I do want to assure, because I really looked into this too, is that we’re using people who are completely following all legal and ethical compliance. They’re getting their data from things like Experian, they do like the credit report and things like that. You can never identify the demographics of the names and protected information of who is seeing your CTV ads. We just know characteristics of who it’s displaying to. It’s based on the household’s interests, things like purchasing a book on health and wellness, getting to different service platforms that people have used. So they have that information, they keep everything that’s protected legally and ethically protected and they place our ads in people who have the demographics that match our interests. [JOE] Give us like a case example of someone who had a particular specialty and then the type of people they selected for their CTV ads. [MARTA] So if you go on telewellnesshub.com under for wellness experts, there’s a CTV overview dropdown and it gives you, has a lot of FAQ and information, but I will show you my actual report. I can show you my ad if you want, but I know right now we’re talking about specifically the interest, so let me go to that first. When you sign up for premium membership, you’ll receive an email. It’s four steps and the fourth being like celebrate really, it’s just like sit back and relax, we’ll take care of it. You create your custom video, we give you the script for it, we put it together for you and I can show you mine. They’re always less than 30 seconds. We submit the video, but here’s target audience form. You can select up to three total. For some of us we may be interested in working with people who are inundating in romance, parenting, nutrition, healthcare, et cetera. So you will get this form and you can select your top three. I have chosen yoga and I have chosen health and wellness and I have also chosen family based on what I was looking at in my private practice and group practice. I did utilize this for my group practice as well. Geotargeting, you could select which cities or states, so if you want to be in, your license is in California, Texas, New York, Oklahoma, we’ve been seeing a lot of need for Oklahoma, so if you’re from Oklahoma, this, it’d be great to be on here, just your information. Then we place the ads. I saw a question there regarding that. That is how the agency that we utilized, our CTV expert works on making sure your ad gets seen by people who have these general interests. As you can see in order to keep it not creepy with the private information, we’re not getting into super details about the household. Then your ad, which you will help us make and I’ll show you a sample of what I did, and at the end of every month you receive a report to your email. So this is my actual January, 2022 campaign report. It varies because it depends on who’s watching TV, I guess to see your ad. We always guarantee a hundred views per month with the premium membership, it’s $99 a month. It’s very inexpensive when you think about the views. Here’s my completion rate for that month. These are the platforms that my ad was typically shown on. Here are the networks that people were watching that month and it’s hard to see, but you can zoom in on your — [JOE] I love that Bob Ross, that Bob Ross made — [MARTA] I didn’t even know that was a TV channel, so I was very excited about that. [JOE] Fox News and Bob Ross [MARTA] Gentle leaves, then there’s my ad. And the geographic heat map, which is exciting to me because I’m located in El Paso, so all of a sudden it was so cool to see, look at the people that are getting to learn about my practice in other areas to learn about what we’re doing for supervision at the time in January for other ideal clients who may want to work with me but don’t live in my city. [JOE] Let’s talk a little bit about, and I’m sure we’ll get questions on CTV ads that they’re in the Q&A section, we can dive in deeper where people want, but when it comes to directories in general, so Psychology Today, Tele Wellness Hub, what makes a bad directory profile and what makes a good directory profile? [MARTA] Well, I think all directories out there, because I’ve been on multiple, I’ve been on multiple directories, so I think regardless of which directory you’re on, what’s wonderful about its that you really, it helps create an online presence because of the domain authority. Directories are really heavily invested in SEO, so they’re trying to get seen. What happens is when you create a profile — [JOE] Let me pause you, so you just said domain authority, I know what that is, what is it? [MARTA] Okay, so domain authority, you might want to add here, okay, but domain authority, basically is your ability to really be seen or power almost, I guess like statistical power if you got it that way in being able to have strength in the worldwide web. So you want to have visibility, credibility, power in the sense that through your ability to be on trusted web, a trusted website. Google will see certain websites, have a lot of traffic, have a lot of visitors, there’s a lot of strength in that, then you will be affiliated with that directory and in that sense, you start creating a greater presence. So if someone googles your name, you can show up in multiple areas, for example. Do you feel like that was a good explanation? [JOE] Yes. I would add that a number between one and a hundred that’s your domain authority. So it’s much easier to go from 10 to 20 than it is to go from 70 to 80, so the higher the number, yes, the more domain authority. So like .gov websites will often have some of the highest domain authority. A CNN or something like that will have a higher one. So it’s established like there’s authority there. Then as websites grow there’s things like backlinks and being referenced and different things that build that. While you’re talking about domain authority and directory sites, I’m going to grab a link for people and put that in the chat so you can check your own domain authority, one that I use. Share with those, now, when it comes to the actual profile that a therapist or a practice is having what makes a good profile, what makes a bad one? [MARTA] Well, because you’re working on, again, I know I sidetrack myself, your domain authority, you want to have a good one. So have a designated picture. Our phones are so awesome now with the technology. You can go outside or go inside and get some natural lighting and take a picture that isn’t super blurry, isn’t pixelated, isn’t super cropped out where it’s like obvious that maybe you’re at like a concert or something, letting people know that it’s professional because for many people, this is their first chance, your first and only really glance to make a connection with you, it comes down to connection. People want to connect, is does this person seem likable? We talked about this on the podcast. There’s a lot of research on profiles being based on likability when it comes to professionalism. I’ve been there where I overthink like my branding colors. Like is this the, do I need to be inside outside? Do I need to stage something? No, it’s just really about authenticity and being your likable self. So I would say the greatest, that would be the biggest thing is, show an authentic smile. Let them see it not be pixelated, blurry, cropped, and fill in as much information as you can in an authentic way. [JOE] Yes, I think one thing that people that I see do wrong often they have almost too many specialties where it’s like, great, you help everyone. That means that, I don’t know if you’ll even be able to help me. [MARTA] Absolutely, and too many abbreviations you have to remember, a lot of people don’t know RYT200, CBT, EMDR, they may not realize what those things are. I think being able to just be able to share what you do, who’s, again, a niche is ideal to really feel like, oh, this person spoke to me, I feel that connection, I think is is something important to remember. [JOE] Yes. Now when you think about which ones to be on, I mean, do you recommend people go on all the directories or not? I just wanted to let everyone know that I noticed my speed of my internet just slowed down, so I just switched off a video to hopefully make things not lag. But are there certain ones that you’ve found that people are doing better on or that just each one has its own different need that it meets? How should people decide which ones their practices should be on? [MARTA] I think every single directory has a different specific niche or focus and I think that’s wonderful. I am not training in EMDR, but I know there’s a fabulous directory for those who do. But there are, and also a lot of different directories are trying to do different thing. Tele Wellness Hub is trying to be innovative and I also want to have a lot of representation and diversity in my website. Myself as a woman, first generation American, I think that’s something that’s important to me and I think different platforms are speaking about different things that are of value and important to them. So it also comes down to a personal alignment with your values and your background. Some are really made for only for online health, some are more for brick and mortar. I think being able to find those that are helpful are great. Some people might want to be starting out and want to offer sliding scale and there’s things like open path collective for that one, for example. That’s really trying to do a service for others. So I think it can be easy to get a little too carried away with too many directories sometimes. It helps create domain authority, but also, and you may have seen more, but we also want to be mindful about being able to be on the directory that you feel most fits a need for your ideal client and for your business. So I think just doing research on the directories that are out there is important too. [JOE] Yes, one thing I often think about too is if you know the lifetime value of your clients, and so if they’re coming 10 times and you charge $150 that lifetime value is $1,500 and then just running the numbers. If a site is 99 bucks a month or $29 a month to say, okay, how many clients do I actually need to get in order to pay myself for the year? I did the math on Psychology Today a number of years ago, and I think it’s, if you get a new client every three and a half years, it pays for itself. So if you’re looking at now CTV ads and other things, okay, so at 99 bucks a month or for the free profile, I mean it’s no-brainer, but even for that to say for $1,200 a year, how many people a year do I need to get to just pay myself back for that? Usually, with most directories it makes sense to be on as many as possible assuming that you’re getting at least one or two people a year from that directory. [MARTA] Yes, yes, exactly. [JOE] Now we’re going to dive into questions. If you have questions about advertising, where to spend your money, if you’re not sure you can raise your hand or put that in the chat. So I see quite a bit came in here. Let’s see. “Although clients may contact me through Psychology today, it’s often their second method of potential contact, the first method being my listing within their insurance provider’s directory. How can I draw more initial traffic to my directory profile?” Great question [MARTA] I answered directly, but I would love to hear, Joe, if you have more input here. I think really with, when it comes to directory, when there are a lot of people on it, when they search for specific zip code, I think sometimes, at least for me initially I wanted to get all the clients that I would love to work with, but I think really being able to niche down and speak to, I narrowed it down to three, three areas that I really knew that I had the training in, I had the passion and those were the clients I wanted to really work with. It spoke through the directory in the sense that people who are browsing really feel like this is someone who I can connect with, they get it, clearly this is an area that I feel like I will benefit working from them. So I think that’s my initial reaction for how to get initial contact through a directory. [JOE] Yes, I mean, to me the main goal is to get somebody, somebody to work with you. So if they have multiple touchpoints I don’t care if they get it from the insurance and then they go to Psychology Today. The bottom line is you want them to come see you. So if it starts with your website and then they investigate on Psychology Today and then two months later they for some reason see a Facebook ad and then a friend recommends like, to me it doesn’t matter. I just want to see them get in there. I personally wouldn’t put too much stock into like, I need them to go through the directory site. It’s just another way of people knowing you exist and then liking you and then trusting you. Yes, go ahead and unmute yourself Ashley. [ASHLEY] So in that respect, if you’re like tracking like KPIs, would you consider that like a good return on investment for Psychology Today, if they’re like calling you through it, even if it’s like not the initial contact? [JOE] I would, because I mean, to me it’s like layering. In any marketing people, they say people oftentimes are only listening one seventh of the time and they usually need to hear things seven times before they make a decision. That’s maybe not true with counseling cause I think people are motivated a little differently but say they do need to hear you 49 times before they make a decision, Psychology Today would be one of those decisions or one of those spots. But it may even just be the people need to hear about you four times. So I would count that. If somebody says on their intake, how did you hear about me or you know that they called through Psychology Today, I would put that in the Psych Today category. It may be that they say a friend and Psychology Today. Well, then both categories for your KPIs. Marta, how would you think through it? [MARTA] I would say the same thing. I know I’m speaking about Tele Wellness Hub, but like I mentioned, I’ve been on many directories and I was on all of those that I felt would speak, that my ideal client would be on. And I did, I tracked phone calls, especially as a group practice owner, we were looking at, okay, which profiles are getting calls and even intake, even profile views. You can see all that on Tele Wellness Hub also because I believe in metrics. So I think absolutely, even a phone call, because you never know, in my experience, sometimes people call but weren’t quite ready. They wanted to find out more and that initial Psychology Today feature months down the road, even years down the road, maybe a consistent client, so that would definitely include that [JOE] Thanks so much for letting us into your ears and into your brain. I’ll talk to y’all soon, everybody. Bye. [MARTA] Hi. Thank you everyone. [JOE] What an episode. All right. Noble’s been a sponsor all year long. They’ve been doing amazing things. This new CPT code that’s coming out in 2023, that’s going to allow you to offer reimbursable remote monitoring support, it’s crazy, it is revolutionizing remote patient monitoring. If you don’t get on this for the reimbursed code 989X6 for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, you are leaving money on the table. You are leaving extra support for your therapy clients on the table. You have got to check this out. Their system helps you be able to get objective data gathering, assessment and data stream, HIPAA compliant integrations with your EHR, and real time and immediate interventions. I mean, this is amazing. You’ve got to go schedule a time to talk with Eric, their CEO. He will walk you through this exact process of how you can get signed up. It’s not a hard sell. This is something that you need. Head over to pop, that’s PoP, for Practice of the Practice, pop.noble.health, and you can find that time to meet with Eric. Thanks so much for letting me your ears and in your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.