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In Practice: Juliet's Marketing Wisdom:
Classic Marketing Mistakes
Made By Healing Professionals:
Part 1
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by Juliet Austin |
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Healing professionals often find marketing their practices extremely challenging, making numerous mistakes as they attempt to build their client base. Not only are these mistakes common, but practitioners are frequently unaware of the types of mistakes they are making, as well as what these errors are costing them. This is the first of a two-part article that identifies some of the most prevalent marketing blunders made by those practicing in the healing arts.
1. Not Addressing Your Biases, Misconceptions and Hang-ups About Marketing
If you are like many healing professionals you likely have some--if not a lot—of uncomfortable feelings about marketing your practice. This is not only common, but completely understandable.
To begin with, marketing is not something you were trained to do, so how can you expect to know how to do it effectively? As with any skill, you need education and practice to become good at it.
In addition, you probably did not enter your field because you wanted to become a business person. More likely, it was because you felt inspired to help others. One of the biggest challenges healing professionals face when marketing their practice is reconciling their desire to help others with the need to earn a living. The two are often mistakenly seen as being incompatible.
To make matters worse, you are flooded with negative, manipulative and misleading marketing messages on a constant basis which can lead you to erroneously believe that there is something about marketing that is inherently inappropriate, or even unethical.
All of these beliefs couldn’t be further from the truth. Before you can implement marketing strategies effectively, you must identify and correct any faulty assumptions you have about marketing your services and find a way to overcome them. You can’t market your practice successfully if you have unhelpful beliefs and attitudes getting in the way.
2. Not Understanding That Marketing is a Science
As a healing arts practitioner, you probably value highly the training and experience you have in the profession or field in which you practice. However, chances are you don’t value nearly enough the training and experience required to become a skilled marketer.
Due to a lack of understanding about the science of marketing, most of what healing professionals believe about marketing is based on myth, rather than on fact. Just because you believe something works, doesn’t mean it does. The reverse is also true: just because you believe something is ineffective, doesn’t mean it is. The problem could be in many areas, including your execution of the method.
While marketing is an art in that you have to be very creative to do it effectively, at it’s core, marketing is a science that has specific principles, rules and quantifiable results that have been tested and proven over and over again. You should know what these are if you want to be successful in your private practice and not waste your time, energy and precious dollars in the process.
3. Assuming That Because You are Good at What You Do, Clients Will Come Banging at Your Door
While it’s important to be good at what you do, it is possible to be excellent at what you do and still not have any clients. Likewise, you can be mediocre at practicing your healing art and have an unrelenting demand for your services.
How can this be? It is because being good at what you do is not related to being a good marketer. Of course you have to be at least reasonably skilled to consistently get clients, and the better you are at delivering your services, the more people will tell others about you. However, you can be the best in your field but if no one knows about your services it won’t do you one bit of good.
Becoming a good marketer takes knowledge, time and experience. It’s largely about the clarity of the message you put out, how many people know about your services, and how you execute and follow-up with your plan.
4.Trying to Be All Things To All People
Healing professionals often attempt to cover all bases by trying to appeal to all types of people with all sorts of problems. Often this stems from a fear that if you don’t attract everyone you won’t fill your practice.
While there are successful generalists out there, in the current competitive market it is wise to target your marketing efforts to a specific population(s) you want to work with.
Why is this the case? In the first place, people like to hire those who they view as being experts because there is an expectation that they will then get the best service possible. Think of what you do when hiring someone. For example, if you had chronic back pain and had a choice between hiring an alternative health practitioner who was a generalist or someone who specialized in that area, who are you more likely to hire?
Second, you will have a better idea of where to market if you know who you are marking to. For example, if you treat pregnant women, you can target your marketing to those specific groups instead of focusing on the general population which won’t be as effective.
Third, targeting a specific market makes it easier for people to find you and understand how you might help them. In the long run, you will become better known for what you do, attract more suitable clients, and provide a higher quality service. In the end, this is better for your clients in addition to being better for your pocketbook.
5. Having Marketing Materials That Simply Don’t Work
If you are like many in the healing arts, you probably have developed your marketing materials (brochure, website, etc) by yourself, perhaps with some help from a graphic designer. You might assume that because your materials look nice, you are a good writer, and that your friends like them that they are going to attract the clients that you want. This is a big mistake.
The reality is that the vast majority of graphic designers don’t have a clue about what works from a marketing perspective. Your materials can look beautiful and still not draw in clients.
Furthermore, being a good writer has nothing to do with writing effective copy (text) for your materials. In fact, like marketing, copywriting is a well-researched science. Good copy will not only greatly increase the chances that a potential client will read your materials, but will also more often compel them to take action on your offer. Even changing one word in a headline can significantly increase your response rate.
Marketing materials are expensive, so it’s a good idea to understand how to develop them so you can get the best possible results. Hiring someone experienced to assist you can help ensure your investment is not wasted. Of course, you can always learn how to do it yourself, but most likely you will want to conserve your time, energy and funds for becoming the best at what you do.
To learn more classic marketing mistakes made by healing professionals, tune in to next month’s issue of The Meta Arts Magazine for part 2 of this article.
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Juliet Austin, MA
Marketing Coach, Consultant & Copywriter
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Juliet Austin has a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology and worked as an educator, researcher and counselor for over 20 years.
In the late 90's Juliet completed a career change into the field of marketing when she Graduated from CoachU, The Institute of Life Coach Training and became a member of the School of Coaching at Coachville. Juliet also completed numerous courses and classes on marketing, Internet marketing and website copywriting and promotion.
She is a member of several professional organizations including The International Association of Coaches, The Canadian Counselling Association, Healers in Business and The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.
As a Marketing Coach, Consultant and Copywriter, Juliet assists healing professionals and socially responsible business owners who are struggling to attract clients or sell their products. She helps her clients in overcoming resistances to marketing, develop and implement no or low-cost marketing strategies for both on and off the Internet, write compelling website copy and promote their websites.
Juliet writes for several publications both on and off the Internet. Her articles have appeared in publications in Canada, the US and in Australia. In addition, she is also co-author with Sue Bond of the ebook: How To Become A Coach: A Guide for Therapists and Counselors.
Juliet also leads workshops and teleclasses on various marketing topics for those involved in the spiritual, metaphysical and healing arts.
Assisting healing professionals in marketing a practice has become a creative and intellectual form of self-expression for Juliet. Being an ideas person who thrives on change and variety, she is constantly developing new projects. Her ongoing quest for knowledge as well as the passion she has for marketing and her work with her clients ensures that she stays current with cutting-edge on and off-line marketing methods.
Juliet is the author of the Free Report, " 67 Surefire Ways To Attract Clients" which you can get at:
www.julietaustin.com
For more information about Juliet's services, visit her website at:
www.julietaustin.com
or one of her blogs at:
www.marketingaprivate
practice.com
and:
www.websitedesignand
promotion.com
Juliet can also be reached at:
604.730.1838
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