Private Practice Marketing – 5 Strategies for Savvy Private Practitioners

October 22, 2016

Are you struggling to get more, ideal clients for your private practice?

Tired of wasting time and money on strategies that aren’t working (or worse – that you aren’t sure if they’re working or not?)

While many private practitioners feel helpless when it comes to marketing, you don’t have to be one of them!

With a small (or even non-existent!) you can use simple, effective and often free strategies to help grow your private practice.

No matter which specific private practice marketing strategies you use, keep the following in mind:

Strategy #1: Get Your Marketing Message Right

Before you get too frazzled or intimidated about marketing, it’s important to realize that marketing is all about communication.

Your job is to figure out who your ideal client is and then talk to them in a way that they’ll respond to.

If you’re trying to sell something (in this case, your therapy services, you need to do three things:

Attract the attention of your ideal client(s)
Highlight the benefits of working with you
Give them a “call to action” or reason to contact you

Pro-Tip: In order to build trust and interest in your private practice, don’t use a lot of professional language and jargon in your marketing. Speak the way your clients speak and they’ll feel like you understand them.

Strategy #2: Don’t Market Your Services to Everyone

When I was first getting started in private practice, I marketed my private speech therapy services to everyone.

I thought that if I saw everyone from birth to death, no matter what their speech / language needs were, I wouldn’t have to turn anyone away and I would have plenty of clients.

WRONG.

By trying to be a “Jill of All Trades” might seem like a good idea – but if your private practice marketing materials convey that you do too many things, rather than being impressed, prospective clients will think, “What does she specialize in?”

While you don’t have to have an obscure niche to thrive in private practice, marketing to and treating everything and everyone that crosses your path isn’t the right approach either!

Strategy #3: Diversify Your Marketing Efforts

You may not have stopped to think about it, but if you’re relying on just a few sources for private practice referrals, it’s no wonder you’re not getting enough.

When I was first getting started in private practice, I had a few former colleagues who tended to send me clients. I didn’t have a website, I wasn’t listed in any online directories, I wasn’t marketing to physicians and specialists, I wasn’t putting up flyers in community locations, etc.

In short, I was relying too heaving on a limited number of sources. No wonder I wasn’t getting enough consistent referrals!

If you’re stressed and confused about the low level of consistent referrals you’re getting, it’s time to be honest about whether or not you’re being diverse enough about your marketing efforts.

You’re going to need to focus on three areas:

Becoming Findable
Building Awareness
Establishing Relationships

Until you follow specific marketing strategies that focus on each of those areas, you’ll never get the consistent referrals you’re after.

Pssss…. specifics about “where and how” to diversify your marketing efforts are covered at length in the:

Strategy #4: Be Persistent

They say it takes people seven times of being exposed to a product or service before purchasing.

Think about it: let’s say you’re in the market for a new car.

Chances are you’re not going to just run out and by the first car that a friend recommends to you. You’re going to go to the car manufacturer’s website, read a few articles on Consumer Reports, read reviews from strangers, ask friends / family for their experiences, visit the dealership, test drive the car, read more reviews, etc.

The same is true for private practitioners!

Your prospective clients will likely visit your website, ask around to see if anyone has heard of you, talk to you on the phone, read online reviews, look at your Facebook page, contact you again, etc. before committing to hiring you.

Don’t expect that you can run a Facebook ad for 3 days and close it down if you haven’t gotten referrals. Don’t expect that you can talk to a prospective client once and they will hire you by the end of the phone call. Don’t be surprised that prospective clients do quite a bit of research (and take a lot of time!) before making a decision to hire you.

So even if you think your marketing efforts are taking a long time to pay off, that’s how human nature works. Prospective clients don’t want to make “the wrong decision” and will sometimes take longer than you would like to hire you.

Strategy #5: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel!

There is no need to waste time, spinning your wheels trying to figure out what might work.

There are tried and true private practice marketing strategies that are being used by successful private practitioners in small towns and big cities every… single… day.

Start paying attention to what other businesses (especially private practices) are doing. Chances are, they are embracing creativity and refining their marketing messages to truly attract their ideal private clients.

Successful private practice marketing isn’t random –> it’s usually part of a well-oiled marketing system that builds consistency of referrals (and income!) over time.

If you’re interested in learning what kinds of marketing strategies successful private practitioners are using every day, join the Private Practice Marketing Mini Course!

Jena H. Casbon, MS CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and private practice consultant. She started her own speech therapy private practice in 2006. She is the founder of The Independent Clinician and author of The Guide to Private Patients, The Guide to Creating a Web Presence for Your Private Practice and Grow Your Private Practice. Since 2008, she has helped thousands of clinicians get the flexibility, income and freedom they desire from starting their own private speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy practices.