In today’s modern world, having a strong online presence is essential for every service provider, including therapists. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, using effective digital marketing techniques is even more important as people will look to the internet to source all of their services, this makes it the ideal time to get onto prospects’ radars. In this blog post, we explain the importance of digital marketing and share some top marketing tips for therapists.
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Why is digital marketing important?
Digital marketing is important as it is a cost-effective and measurable way to ensure information about your therapy services can reach a wide audience. You can also solidify your brand through digital marketing, helping your future clients understand who you are and what you do in more detail. If you are an independent therapist, whilst you may not have the budget to rival large businesses, effective digital marketing can be completed on a small budget and help you connect with your target audience.
Top digital marketing tips
1. Utilise every opportunity for SEO
You may be familiar with the importance of SEO for your website landing pages, but do you truly utilise every opportunity for SEO? For example, blog posts, social media captions and your ‘Contact Us’ form should be equally optimised. When search engine bots crawl your website, they will be judging your website as a whole, not just your main service pages. Ensure you take every opportunity to optimise your website, without repeating content or stuffing keywords.
2. Plan your client journey
Once a client finds your website, what do they need to know? When designing your website ensure you build your website around your client’s journey. For example, you may wish for your website to flow naturally from your ‘About Us’ page to a list of your services, to a contact form. It is important you consider everything from a client’s perspective, think about what questions they may have at different stages in their journey and how you can answer them naturally.
3. Build your brand identity
When you produce content for your website, don’t just repeatedly sell your services. While it is important to explain to a potential client how you could benefit them, this shouldn’t be the only thing you offer. For example, don’t be afraid to share your opinion on therapist news or industry developments in your blog. Analysing new therapy techniques can help you appear as an expert and help build the trust between yourself and potential clients.
4. Create a coherent visual message
Every element of your digital marketing from your social media posts to your website should send a clear, coherent message visually. For example, you should use the same colour scheme throughout all of your digital marketing and include your business logo where possible. Utilising the same branding aesthetic will help improve your name recognition, as clients will be able to strongly associate your name with a particular visual style.
5. Keep your primary content evergreen
Many therapists include seasonal information in their website copy or information that is likely to change, such as pricing, with the intention to regularly update their website. Often, however, a therapist can become overwhelmed with work and not have the time to regularly update their content. For this reason, it is essential you only include information on your website that is accurate for the long-term and advertise seasonal or short-term information via your social media pages or blog.
6. Digital marketing is a two-way street
Social media is an important part of digital marketing. However, it is not enough to produce content for your social media pages and hope for the best, you must treat social media as a two-way conversation. Try to be as responsive as possible on social media, applying to all comments and messages you may receive online. Many people think social media is the quickest and most convenient way to gain information about a particular service so you should actively monitor your social media accounts.
7. React and adapt
One of the main benefits of digital marketing for therapists is that the data from digital marketing is easy to access and analyse. Even if you have created a strict digital marketing plan, you must still react and adapt to the information you have learnt from your online data. For example, if your audience particularly reacts to a new form of content on your social media pages, start to include this type of content more regularly into your social media schedule. Similarly, if you notice a high drop-off rate from one of your webpages, take a look at this page and think about how you could improve it.
For more information about therapy website design, contact HealthHosts today!