Why Marketing Techniques for Other Industries Don’t Apply to Therapists

Introduction

This is an excerpt from Delightful Sites — a weekly email series helping therapists, coaches, and entrepreneurs build sustainable, values-aligned businesses, through the power of website marketing. 💐

Confession: I once dropped $2.5k on a business coaching program that, sadly, turned out to be a waste of time & money.

Okay, it wasn’t a total waste, because I did learn some things. But what I learned was what NOT to do with my private practice marketing. 🙅🏻‍♀️

It was a rather expensive lesson for me, to say the least. I’m sharing what I learned here because I don’t want you to waste a moment of your time on this stuff, like I did.

***

📧 The business coaching program was focused on email marketing for practitioners & service providers (which was relevant to me, as I was starting a newsletter for my private practice). One of my colleagues in the coaching world had raved about this program, hence why I signed up. 

The program was run by a business coach with plenty of business expertise, but no background in the mental health or clinical field. Though she stated that the email marketing techniques she was teaching could apply to any industry, any niche, any type of provider — it became clear to me that that wasn’t true. 

(In hindsight, that probably should’ve been obvious to me from the start. But hindsight is 20/20, and sometimes we learn lessons the hard way.)

The techniques taught in this business coaching program simply did not make sense for me to implement in my therapy practice. Nor is it advice that I would give to any other therapist trying to market their practice. 

#1

The business coach advised that we use urgency as a marketing technique. Which would amount to emails like:

🚨 Sale ending in 48 hours!

⏲️ Only 1 week left to book your call (here’s what you’ll miss out on if you don’t take the leap!)

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this technique, as long as it’s not used in a pushy or aggressive way. It can work well for industries & offers in which there is a true deadline on a sale or a launch period. 

But it doesn’t feel good to use a countdown timer as a way to urge folks to seek therapy. 

I wouldn’t want prospective clients to feel rushed or pressured into therapy. I want clients to reach out to me because they feel genuinely curious & ready to explore the work. I think most therapists are on the same page about this.

#2

The business coach advised using testimonials & case studies from prior clients in order to market to future clients. We were encouraged to share details about transformations that clients had experienced while working with us, and to craft it into a story for email marketing. 

(For instance: When Client A started working with me, they were struggling with A B C. We worked on X Y Z goals, and now they’re thriving. Here’s a screenshot of what they texted me last week about how well they’re doing.) 

Again, this technique can work well for other industries. But it doesn’t land well for the therapy profession, where the work we do is so intimate, relational, and… well, sacred. 

🤫 Plus, we work under a vow of confidentiality, wherein details about client work should never be shared outside the session (except for specific circumstances). This commitment to confidentiality doesn’t exist in the same way in other industries. 

Turning the deep work of a client’s therapeutic journey into a case study that other people would read… feels like a crossing of boundaries, even if the details of the client’s identity are kept secret. 

There’s nothing wrong with making general statements about the general outcomes that clients might receive from therapy (in fact, that’s a part of marketing our services) — but that’s totally different from a detailed case study. 

***

All in all, the business coaching program taught me how important it is for me, as a therapist, to receive business guidance from fellow therapists, who understand this industry – and all its messiness & quirks – from the inside out. 

💗 That’s why I enjoy working with fellow therapists in my website business — because we understand each other & the work in a way that folks outside the industry do not. 

Plus, there are way too many marketing companies trying to sell us stuff that doesn’t really apply to our profession. 

Just like we talk about our clients needing specialized care & support, I think we do as well when it comes to growing our businesses. 

To marketing in a way that actually works for us,

Liz

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