This is unit 2 of this marketing series and we are going to talk about different marketing strategies.
Two Ways People Decide To Work With You
- The blessing approach: Think about it as a friend who knows you and they give their blessing – they already like you and have some trust in you so they will refer you.
- The blind approach: This is just a blind search going into Google or Psychology Today and just blindly searching for ‘a therapist in your area’ or in your particular specialty.
The Process
With both of these approaches we know that people move through a very clear process of know, like and trust.
- Know: if someone doesn’t know you exist, the very first thing we want them to do is to know you exist.
- Like: then after they know you we want them to like you, this could be through a blog post or through the design on your website. This could also be through creating content that people connect with.
- Trust: they now move into the trust phase. Often people want to move someone from ‘I don’t even know you exist’ to ‘I trust you’ really quickly especially in a therapeutic relationship. That can be a really big jump for some people so we want to produce content, images and things that continue to show who we are as a clinician and a practice.
When we take them through that know, like and trust process, we really want to focus on how to move them from where they are to whatever the next step is, not jumping all the way to trust. If they don’t know that you exist move them into the fact that they know you exist. If they know you exist how do we move them to start to like you a little bit. And if they like you and feel like they connect with you how, do we build some trust.
In each level you should think of it as a funnel, there are going to be people who know you exist but they don’t like you or your content and that’s okay. Then there’s people that like your content but may not yet trust you, and that group gets smaller and smaller at each level.
Marketing Strategies For The Blind And Blessing Approach
Blind Approach:
- Social media
- Website
- Blogging
- Getting referrals from other websites
Blessing Approach:
- Focus on building referrals
- In-person networking
- Connecting with people locally that are going to refer people to your practice
It’s two very different strategies but when we break it down by: ‘which one am I doing well’, ‘which one do I need to improve on’ or ‘where are the gaps’, then we know what actions we need to take and it becomes very apparent what our next steps are.
Your Homework
You need to really evaluate your numbers by using your Google Analytics:
- How many people are coming to your website?
- When people come to your website what are the first two or three pages that they’re likely to go to?
- Do those people actually make the phone calls?
- Do they click on the schedule link, do they pick up the phone?
- Where do we see the drop off at each of those spots?
Once you have done this you can look for those opportunities so that someone can know, like and trust you. So evaluate your homepage and your website to start to look at those numbers. so that in future units we can understand where those gaps are and how we can fill them in.
Joseph R. Sanok, MA, LLP, LPC, NCC
Joe Sanok is an ambitious results expert. He is a private practice business consultant and counselor that helps small businesses and counselors in private practice to increase revenue and have more fun! He helps owners with website design, vision, growth, and using their time to create income through being a private practice consultant. Joe was frustrated with his lack of business and marketing skills when he left graduate school. He loved helping people through counseling, but felt that often people couldn’t find him. Over the past few years he has grown his skills, income, and ability to lead others, while still maintaining an active private practice in Traverse City, MI.
