Advising Counsellors how to get more client enquiries means they can help more people who are in need.
You need more than professional competence to assist counsellors to market their counselling practice. You first need to earn and win the confidence of the Counsellor to represent what they do and to present that in an appropriate way. The one thing that can never be compromised is client confidentiality. In many other marketing assignments, the value of happy clients, prepared to endorse the product or service is a key component of any plan. This option is not available but ways to exist to communicate effectiveness with compromising integrity.
We think that our own innate personality types make us good people to with with Counsellors. Traits like sensitivity, empathy and emotional intelligence help us connect with a Counsellor’s work and let us represent them and their expertise in an appropriate and effective way. If someone who is need of help is able to find, or be introduced to a Counsellor because of the marketing advice provided by us, that is ‘off the scale’ satisfaction as far as we are concerned.
Who is looking for a counsellor?
The individual themselves, a partner/friend/family member or a healthcare professional might all need to be looking for a counsellor at the same time. It’s helpful to keep these different audience types in mind when planning any communications.
What are people looking for help with?
It is helpful to be as specific as you can when writing about mental health, particularly website pages. Take an example of depression that is caused by factors relating to pregnancy. It might be there is one page on a site that covers:
- Difficulties conceiving
- Antenatal depression
- Pregnancy choices
- Miscarriage / loss of a bay
- Post-natal depression
Of course the reality is that each is different and distinct. For this reason and because internet searches are getting longer and more specific consider a separate page for each. Another example is counselling adolescents (11-18 years of age). Self-harm, bullying, abuse and lack of confidence might all be presentation symptoms and each should be separated out on a website to make them easier to find.
A Quick Win – Improve existing website listings
Does your practice have listings on one or many ‘Find a Counsellor’ websites? It’s time to stop neglecting these. Instead, take a look again and follow our simple steps to make sure your listing is optimised and sending strong signals out to Google about where you are and what you do.
What should be on a checklist for effective counsellor marketing?
We have written a blog about 10 top tips to help market a private counselling practice. These are some of the techniques that we are implementing and are working for counsellors who are receiving a greater number of enquiries.
A testimonial for our marketing advice to a counsellor in private practice
“Over a period of time, his honesty, integrity, and passion for helping people shone through. I decided to engage Sixth Sense to provide more visibility for my business. I am now getting found on social media and my diary is full! I can thoroughly recommend Sixth Sense for their unassuming, yet hard-working desire to do the best for all of their clients”.
Debs Wallace, Counsellor in Private Practice.
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