Marketing Mistakes to Avoid When Building a Healing Practiceby Juliet Austin, MA
Marketing Coach, Consultant and Copywriter
This article describes five mistakes commonly made by those in the healing arts that hinder the process of developing a full practice.
1. Neglecting to Seek Support and Guidance
Many healing professionals fail to understand that most people who have achieved success have received a great deal of guidance and support along the way. In most situations, anything you can do by yourself, you can do a lot better with the help of others. Start researching the backgrounds of successful people. You might be surprised to discover the amount of support and inspiration they have received from mentors and guides.
While it is helpful to have support from anyone willing to give it, the guidance you receive from those that have already achieved success themselves will likely be the most beneficial to you. Seek out such individuals, find out how they achieved success and then copy their methods.
Finally, don't forget to seek professional services when needed. Instead of seeing a bookkeeper, accountant, marketing consultant, etc. as just another expense, view the money you spend on hiring these people as an investment in your practice.
2. Using "Hit and Miss" Marketing Tactics
Most healing professionals plan the strategies they use when it comes to working with their clients. However, they often neglect to place the same emphasis on planning when it comes to marketing their practice. Many market haphazardly, never fully understanding what they are doing or why.
While statistics on the success of new businesses are extremely low (can be as low as 20%), the figure increases substantially (50-76%) for those who have a marketing plan. You can't get somewhere if you don't know where you are going and how you plan on getting there.
While developing a marketing plan can seem intimidating, it doesn't have to be. Contrary to many people's beliefs, you don't need to have a complicated plan in order for it to be effective. A simple plan that you know you will use will be sufficient.
You should have an evolving marketing plan for at least one year at a time and break it down into 3 and 6 month segments.
3. Believing Word-of Mouth Marketing Has a Life of Its Own
There are a variety of misconceptions about what attracting clients by word-of-mouth means. For the most part, it's a mistake to assume that this process happens quickly and easily. Most people who have built their practice in a short period of time via word-of-mouth likely already had a large network of people that they knew, and/or spent a great deal of time and energy building one. It takes a lot of people knowing about your services to fill a practice.
There are many things that you can do to facilitate the process of people telling others about your services. For example, providing excellent service will encourage your clients to tell others about their positive experiences with you. Other methods include asking people directly for referrals and reminding them about your services on a regular basis.
4. Giving Up Too Soon
Healing professionals sometimes try particular marketing strategies that do not bring them the results they expected. They are discouraged and have erroneously assumed that there was something wrong with the methods they chose, or that the methods won't work for them in their particular practice.
If you are not getting the results that you want, you need to figure out what you are doing wrong. While it is very likely that the strategies you are using may be flawed in some way, it is also quite possible that your execution of the strategies may be faulty and/or that you are neglecting to repeat them sufficiently.
It typically takes a great deal of persistence and patience before your marketing efforts will start paying off. You must be willing to commit for the long haul if you are serious about building a successful practice.
5. Failing to Track The Results of Your Marketing Methods
There is no point spending time, energy and money marketing your services if you do not keep track of your results. Tracking the results of the methods you use will allow you to know which methods to modify, which to eliminate, and which ones to spend your money on in the future.
Whether you use a computer database for tracking, or find other means of doing so, you will need to develop systems in order to monitor your results effectively.
When marketing your website on the Internet, make sure you have a good statistics package to measure the traffic going to your site and what people do once they arrive there. Usually you will get a basic package with your hosting service. More advanced ones often have to be purchased separately.
All beginning marketers, and even experienced ones, make mistakes. This is part of the learning process. However, you want to reduce the number of mistakes you make as much as possible when your livelihood is on the line.
Learning how to avoid making the errors discussed in this article will not only save you a lot of time and money, it will also prevent you from experiencing a great deal of disappointment and frustration. In the end, you will build your practice faster and attract more clients, which will ultimately lead to a thriving healing arts practice.
Juliet Austin, MA is a Marketing Coach and Copywriter who assists helping and healing professionals (coaches, therapists, counselors, massage therapists, chiropractors, etc.) in attracting as many clients as they can handle. She assists healers in overcoming resistances to marketing, implementing no or low-cost marketing strategies, creating compelling promotional materials, and in writing client-attracting website copy. Juliet thrives on helping her clients be more successful than their wildest dreams.
Get Juliet's FREE, 22 page, report, "67 Surefire Ways to Attract Clients" at www.julietaustin.com You can also check out Juliet's "Build Your Profitable Private Practice Exclusive Members Program" and get a one-month trial for only $4.95. For more info go to: buildyourprivatepractice.com