How Good Branding Will Fill Your Private Practice
We believe that good branding will fill your private practice with your ideal client. And we want to help you get there.
In this blog, we’ll cover:
How to brand as a private practice therapist
The difference between a brand and a business
Why branding is important for private practice therapists
How branding helps with marketing in private practice
What is the difference between a business and a brand?
As a therapist, this one took me a while to fully grasp. To start, let’s break down what a business is.
A business is what you do (i.e., selling water under the business name of Smart Water). A business is all the official stuff behind the product.
A brand is THE SPIRT OF the product. It’s the vision, the voice, the personality of the business (i.e., healthy and sexy Jennifer Aniston drinking Smart Water).
For private practice therapists, the business is mostly one-on-one individual therapy sessions. It’s what you offer in exchange for money (i.e., a 50-minute therapy session for $150).
Your brand is HOW you deliver your therapy sessions.
Your brand is what makes someone actually choose to work with you.
As a therapist, your brand is KEY to having a full and successful private practice. Your brand is the voice behind the offer; it’s a feeling you want your clients to have and where your power lies.
People begin to know, like, and trust a brand (e.g., choosing Smart Water at a gas station because they know, like, and trust it).
How do I brand myself as a private practice therapist?
First, to better understand branding as a private practice therapist, use our brand therapy guide. This guide helps you clarify your brand values, mission, and vision. It helps you reflect on what makes you you!
From there, continue to ask yourself what makes you unique. What makes you different compared to other therapists in the space? Is there a problem in the mental health industry that you are working to solve? How does your solution to the problem help clients grow and evolve?
Your brand should embody a feeling. It’s a vibe and it’s the voice behind the vibe.
As a therapist, your brand is YOU.
Ask yourself, what about you makes you uniquely positioned to solve your ideal client’s needs? And what is it about your unique point of view that allows you to meet your clients’ challenges?
Get in touch with your ideal client’s desires, and then break down how you can help them get there.
Why branding is important for private practice therapists
As a therapist in private practice, you are offering up time with YOU. The service you are providing is your space; it’s your voice; it’s your nurturing presence (your brand!). You aren’t offering evidence-based, scripted therapy sessions that are void of personality and connection. Your healing magic rests in the uniqueness of you and how you show up with clients.
The best way to show clients who you are is through your brand.
The whole reason someone chooses you as a therapist is because of your brand. They have no idea what a session will look like, feel like, or be like before their therapy session. Many people might come to you for therapy, having zero idea what a therapy session actually feels like. Knowing your brand helps you to walk them through that process.
How branding helps with marketing In Private Practice
Prior to working with Lindsey on branding and web design, my practice was filled with a mix of teens, adults struggling with substance abuse, and millennials working through trauma and dating. Some people found me through Google, others through Facebook groups and Psychology Today.
My practice was sort of a mess.
I was a generalist, and because of that, I was burning myself out. My clients weren’t staying with me long-term, so I constantly reworked my marketing efforts and attempts to network. I thought going on Instagram would fill my practice. Hacking SEO! Being the queen of networking! But nothing clicked until I started working with Lindsey.
Through our branding work together, I realized that I wanted to work with people seeking a holistic approach to mental health, and my website and branding needed to reflect that. I wanted to show up as an integrated practitioner but also as someone that likes to have fun in sessions. I wanted to work with people that wanted to go deep, work hard, and make lasting changes in their lives.
And now, a year and a half later, my practice is filled with a waitlist of people that fit that exact description.
I spend ZERO time on marketing.
I am not exaggerating. Because I have a solid brand and website, I spend ZERO time each week on marketing.
I hear so many therapists say, “I hate marketing,” “I don’t want to be salesey,” or “I’m just not good at marketing.” Well, of course, you’re not! You have a master’s degree in connecting one-on-one with people, not speaking to the masses!
Here’s the good news, you don’t have to be good at marketing to build a brand.
Guess what? You already have all the skills you need to build a successful brand. You know how to connect with people. You know how to be vulnerable. You know the value of authenticity. Let your website mirror that.
Your only job is to let your uniqueness shine through on your website. Let your audience know who you are and what it’s like to work with you.
How a website highlights your brand
With PREMADE templates, we take the guesswork out of building your website and help your brand come alive with a fun, beautifully designed, easy-to-use template. Your website is a place for your personality to be on full display. It welcomes who you are and who you are becoming.
Your website is a home for your brand.
Through strategic storytelling that attracts your ideal client, your website visitors get to know you. You get to control the environment, unlike social media, which is dependent on an algorithm.
Your website is like your home. When you invite a guest over for dinner, you control the lighting, the smells, and the vibe you are going for. You invite people into your world. Same goes for your website.
Your product (individual therapy sessions) becomes the solution to your visitor's problem. Why? Because you get it! Because you have walked in their shoes! Because you take your client on a full journey of you. Let your branding showcase that!
Your website also allows you to guide people on a tour of “you” without needing to be there physically. They can visit every room of your home. They can contact you to schedule a session, they can access your free resources, sign up for your mailing list, and see your talks and online media. They get to understand what you do and why it matters.
Through strategic branding, your website helps you fill your practice with your dream clients.
This means less time spent on marketing, coordinating, scheduling, etc. And it allows you to continue to evolve as an entrepreneur.
Next Steps:
Use our brand therapy guide to start your branding journey. From there, make sure your story and uniqueness are highlighted on your website. Ask a friend to do a site inventory and give some feedback about what vibe you are giving off. See if it represents you accurately.
Action creates clarity which allows you to continue to evolve and refine your brand and business. Just start somewhere; perfection is the enemy of progress!
JULIE GOLDBERG is the founder of Third Nature Therapy, a virtual therapy group offering holistic mental health care for people seeking a different perspective on wellbeing. As a co-founder of PREMADE and mental health practitioner herself, she offers straightforward and easy to implement methods for running a successful private practice.