marketing a hypnotherapy business Archives - Hypnotherapy Marketing Expert

49 Hypnosis Marketing Strategies You Can Implement Today

Posted on December 9, 2016October 11, 2019 by Martina McKeough

Firstly welcome to the last blog post of the year. I hope you have all had a lucrative 2019 and are now getting ready to multiply those practice profits in the New Year. December is the perfect time of the year to be planning your hypnosis marketing strategies for 2020. As your clients thoughts turn to overeating, drinking and being merry you are likely to have a couple of quiet weeks where you plot and plan that income boost that always appears in the New Year.

Now as many therapists are aware in order to be a wealthy therapist you need to be killing it when it comes to your competition. That means you need to work smarter and harder than your competitors whether they are based internationally or locally. Here are 49 Hypnosis marketing strategies that you can start to work on today to boost your income and build that amazing business of yours. There is no need to work on everything at once as it just is not possible but pick a few from the list and make a start on marketing your products and services.

In order to help you we have a number of additional tools which can help you to build your business faster. An Online Hypnotherapy Marketing Ebook with more details on some of these strategies. Our Turn your Website into a Client Magnet that shows you just what you need to do to attract paying customers into your practice. I also have a new course on Google Adwords which I will be releasing in the New Year to help you get to Number One on Google and slay your competitors.

So until 2017 I wish you all a fantastic Xmas and New Year.

49 Hypnosis Marketing Strategies to Start Using Today

Create Gift Vouchers – What can you get the person who has everything? Why a hypnosis gift voucher. It can be for relaxation sessions, law of attraction work or even just to target the curious. Market them on your website, create a beautiful online voucher and you are ready to go.
Target Your Doctors Surgery – Talk to the practice managers, leave leaflets in the surgery or offer specific services to each GP. This is the perfect target market for anxiety clients.
Head to the Gym – No not to work out but to put up your leaflets. Get there before January and help all those clients who want to lose weight as part of their New Year resolutions.
Free Noticeboards – Stick those leaflets up anywhere you see a free noticeboard. Bus stops, coffee shops, supermarkets and so on. Even better if the leaflet is somewhere where people have to queue!
Set up an Account on Pinterest – Get pinning those inspirational images that make your business seem irresistible.
Driving Schools – Where there is a nervous driver there is a hypnotherapist who can help. Contact those instructors and offer to help.
Corporate – Find the movers and shakers in companies local to you and start to offer them your services. Create promotion packs to sell stress management, stop smoking or sales performance sessions.
Video – Start creating videos and marketing them on YouTube or any of the other video sharing sites. Show proof of your skills, clients beaming with happiness as their problems fade away and watch the hits on your website increase.
Awareness Days – Find out the awareness days for 2017 and create special promotions around them. Such as depression awareness, Stoptober and Dry January.
Team Up – Find some local massage therapists, personal trainers, physios and team up with them to create a package of services or to cross refer.
Hand Out Leaflets – Outside stations, busy fairs or events or even in a shopping centre promoting your services. Just make sure you get permission from the relevant authorities first.
Create an Online Course – Although you will always need the personal touch with some clients others will respond with some simple self help online. Give them the tools to empower them and they will thrive.
Get a Website Review -Find someone who really knows about hypnosis marketing strategies and get them to review your website. With some simple changes it is often possible to double, triple or quadruple your revenue by rectifying your copy and website structure. My online course “How to Turn Your Website Into a Client Magnet“ enables you to review your website yourself and make changes so that you can multiply your income.
Contact Those Dentists – Nervous dental patients or clients with bruxism as perfect candidates for some hypnosis to alleviate stress and anxiety.
Create and Instagram Account – Advertise your business, like others and generally get involved in your community.
Yoga Classes – Hypnobirthing and Yoga Classes go hand in hand. Offer taster sessions with the local yoga teacher at the end of a class and start attracting new clients.
Start a Blog – Blogging is a great supplement to your website and if done well can go viral or create a community of followers in your niches.
Design a Logo – Create an identity for your business and use it on your website, marketing materials and emails to stand out from the crowd.
Get on Facebook – Get involved locally or in a group important for your niche. Heah even better start a group of your own and control the content!
Market Research – Find out what your customers really want. Get out on the street or go online and ask questions to find out what is selling then tailor your products and services to meet demand.
Get Testimonials – Put them on your websites, on videos and in your marketing materials. People love proof that hypnosis works!
Record some Self Help Audios – Start recording self hypnosis audios and market them online and to your clients. Just make sure that they are the very best quality you can make.
Upsell your Products and Services – Package your sessions to that you are selling programs. Upsell email support or your self help audios to bring in extra revenue. Even buy wholesale products and have them in your therapy room for your customers to purchase.
Find your USP – Your Unique Selling Point is what makes you different to your competition. Work out what it is and start to use it in your hypnosis marketing strategies.
Build a Therapy Centre – Rent a premises and start selling the other rooms to therapists for a fee. The other therapists will cover your room costs and you should profit on top!
Use Paid Advertising – Google Adwords and Facebook advertising when done well gets you in front of your target audience. Use it wisely and see customer numbers jumping. I have created an online course to help you master Google Adwords for Therapists and another for Facebook Advertising.
Connect With Other Therapists – Counsellors, CBT therapists and psychotherapists are perfect people to network with and create cross referrals.
Start a Podcast – Offer people tips and strategies for self help on a regular podcast and build a network of followers.
Citations – Build citations in local directories and link them back to your website. Just make sure they are relevant or local.
Networking – Join some local networking groups and connect with others. Spend very little initially until you find the ones that work for you.
SEO – Learn about Search Engine Optimisation and start to put your knowledge into practice. Good SEO can boost your organic rankings and get you found in Google and Bing.
Forums – Get involved in niche forums and offer your advice. Put your links in your profile and wait to be contacted.
Get out on the Street – Why not demo your hypnosis skills in front of the general public. Amaze those passers by and wait for the stream of people who want to book an appointment with you.
Wedding Planners or Dressmakers – Who doesn’t know a bride who didn’t want to lose weight for the big day? Create a weight loss package and market it to bridge and even the bridegroom.
Health Food Stores – Get to know the owners. Put up leaflets and offer taster sessions and talks.
Email Lists – Start collecting emails from your customers and potential clients and remarket to them.
Local Newletters – Find out who runs your local newsletter and either write an article or take out a small regular advert.
Press Releases – Got a new product or amazing service that you need the world to know about. Create a press release and advertise just what you can do.
Twitter – Get on Twitter and engage in the community or with people in your specialist niches.
Create a Workshop– Start by creating a workshop or a mini course for people to attend. Seeing twenty people at once will always be more lucrative that seeing one person at a time.
Get on the Radio – Ok so you may have a problem getting on the National stations but there are hundreds of local and community stations that would love your input.
Create an ebook and Sell it – Have a great solution to a problem? Then get writing and marketing your ebook. Self publishing on Kindle makes it easy for you to be a published author. My eBook on Hypnotherapy Marketing goes into considerable detail on how to market your business effectively.
Broadcast Live – Periscope, Meerkat and even Facebook allow you to broadcast live and post directly online. Create a session with the wow factor and put it out there for the world to see.
Snapchat – Learn how to use Snapchat and build a following.
Volunteer – Get a gig volunteering at your local hospital using your hypnosis skills. Once you have people convinced of its effectiveness you can market your sessions to those who can afford to pay.
Local Help Groups – Get involved with local help groups and offer taster sessions or talks.
Google+ – Get on Google + and Google My Business to appear on those maps!
Create a Membership Website – Offer clients continual value so that they sign up for your services month after month or year after year.
Local Newspapers – Get in touch with your local newspaper journalists and offer them a story. How you cured a local person of a fear of Santa Claus. How you created stress reduction sessions for families who were worried about Brexit. Make it topical and local.

Enjoy putting in place those hypnosis marketing strategies hopefully they should keep you busy until my next post in the New Year!

How Pandas, Penguins and Possums Are Impacting your Hypnosis Marketing!

Posted on November 15, 2016March 20, 2017 by Martina McKeough

hypnosis marketing google panda Ok you probably think that I have lost the plot by talking about animals and marketing but I can assure you that these creatures are highly important to your hypnosis marketing and to Google. So what the hell am I on about? Lets start from the top. When you enter a search query into the Google search bar to ask to get information the results that get returned to you are based around a sophisticated algorithm. Just some of the factors that determine which websites you get to see include:

Mobile Friendliness
Location and Proximity to you
Backlinks
Synonyms
Site and page quality
Web history
Keywords
Content
SSL Certificates and on and on the list goes.

In fact there are around 200 different ways in which google decides what they want to show you not including the information they show you in their ads. Having a basic understanding of the algorithm is essential as without this knowledge it can be hard to create a website that gets found. Most therapists just create a website they like the look of with a web designer but this is a perfect way to disappear and never be found by the general public. My online course How to Turn Your Therapy Website Into a Client Magnet gives you many of the basics so that you can start to optimise your website to get found.

The Google Zoo

So what has this got to do with animals? Well Google has a mission to give searchers the most useful information they can and that means that they are always tweaking and adjusting search results so that their users get the best experience. They also work on ways to close loopholes that allow spammy or low quality websites into the search results. In recent times these updates have been given code names and you guessed it Panda, Penguin and Possum are the names given to some of the major changes that have happened in the past few years.

Having a basic understanding of these changes is essential because if your website is on the wrong side of the changes then your business could vanish overnight from the search engines. A perfect example of this was the company Interflora in 2013 who paid for newspaper advertorials to link to their company so they could get a boost in the search engines. Google found out and the next thing Interflora disappeared from the search results. Imagine how many millions they lost whilst they frantically tried to recover their website.

Just as with Interflora the same things are happening to your websites and in many cases you are probably unaware that your hypnosis marketing efforts are being destroyed because of things you or your website developer has done to your site. So here are some of the basics that you need to consider before creating content or links to your website.

Panda

The Panda updates revolve around demoting websites which are of poor quality. This could mean websites that contain lots of spam or sites that simply have very little unique information to offer. It also penalises websites that contain duplicate content. That means if you have two websites you cannot repeat any of the information from one and place it on another.

Penguin

The Penguin updates tend to concern themselves with links created by spammers to give their websites a boost. Now if you have outsourced your SEO work to someone else how do you know what they are doing is actually helping or hindering your website. I have come across many companies who have paid for SEO services and the person doing the work has built a lot of rubbish links to their sites that could get them penalised. Also never be tempted to buy backlinks from one of the companies that I regularly see advertising on the web. This is a perfect way to destroy your website.

Possum

Possum is an update which has happened in only the last month and impacted how local search results were shown. Previously a business really needed a central location in a town or city for it to appear highly in Google maps or the organic search results. Since Possum you can rank for an area if you are outside the town centre provided your website shows that you are offering services to people in that location. This update is ongoing as we speak so the full impact is still not known.

It is worth noting that many of these code word updates have a number of revisions. Which means you will see a Panda 1, 2, 3 and 4 as Google becomes more sophisticated. There are also other codewords including Hummingbird which is the code word for the Google algorithm itself and Pigeon for local SEO results.

Keep Yourself Informed

Having a basic understanding of search engine optimisation and how Google decides to show your website is vital if you have a website. Without this knowledge you could find your business impacted overnight simply because you got some of the basics wrong. Whilst you may not be an Interflora it could be enough to significantly harm your income.

Oh and for those of you who still have not got a Mobile website I suggest you do so asap. Rumours are that at some point in the near future Google may simply stop showing non mobile friendly websites in the search results at all. Over 50% of searches are currently done on mobile devices so it is obvious why they are thinking of making this change. Don’t bury your head in the sand, ignore hypnosis marketing and hope the problem will go away. My online course has information on where to create a new website for under $200 which is a small price to pay to avoid vanishing from your potential customers.

9 Shocking Habits Therapists that Need to Stop Now!!!

Posted on October 27, 2016March 20, 2017 by Martina McKeough

Just in time for Halloween my fright night horrors that I come across when dealing with therapists and their websites.

For many years the general public have considered hypnotherapy to be a non serious profession. Yeah it is ok to use on TV when you are making fun of people but as a serious therapy the vast majority would rather get their teeth pulled out at the dentist than see a hypnotherapist to resolve their problems. Some of us are slowly trying reverse this perception by upping standards in the courses and education as well as by educating people in the media, online or even face to face. BUT there are a small number of hypnotherapists who just don’t get it and are jumping on the hypnotherapy bandwagon and trying to do things on the cheap and it still shocks me that the modern profession has training schools that send their students out to meet the general public with this attitude. Here are just some of the unbelievable things I have encountered lately whilst working with therapy marketing students.

Professionalism – I won’t name and shame but I recently booked in a newly qualified hypnotherapist for a series of marketing sessions. This was to take place via Facetime or Skype. On the morning of the session I started the session to see that they were sat ready to start the session in their car! If that wasn’t bad enough the car was located in a fast food outlets car park. What the hell!!

How on earth am I or for that matter the general public going to take a therapist seriously who thinks it is ok to conduct coaching sessions in the car park of a fast food chain? What message does that send to me? It says I can’t be bothered taking time out of my day to work on my business seriously and I am cramming you in before doing something else. If you truly serious about your profession then sessions need to be conducted in a space that is suitable for the person you are going to meet. No therapy, marketing, coaching or business meeting is suitable for discussions in a car. This goes for your clients as well. Unbelievable as this may sound one of my clients also wanted to conduct a Skype session from her car as well. It is time for this madness to stop.

Courses – Time and time again I hear on from my students that they chose a course because it was cheap. Another student of mine when questioned on their qualifications was not able to tell me if they could even get into a reputable UK professional body. They had no clue because they had gone on a churn and burn course online. No medical doctor looks for the cheapest course they can find. They look at the best possible medical schools they can get into for the best possible training as they are saving lives. In a way we are also doing the same. If we can get someone to lose weight, stop smoking, tolerate chemo or stop an addiction we can do the same. So why oh why does our industry attract people who think they have the ability to do this after a few online lessons and a tiny fee? Research your courses, talk to the professional bodies and then pick the absolute best there is!

Websites – One of my personal hatreds is seeing a website that has been thrown up by a therapist in the hope that it will do. No it won’t do as it looks awful and your clients will think the same. If your pictures are out of proportion, if you have big gaps in your template, if your fonts vary significantly or you have areas where links are broken then they need to be fixed now. Who wants to look at a website that is a mess? A website does not have to cost the earth if you know what you are doing. If you don’t then get help. My Turn Your Therapy Website into a Client Magnet online course shows you exactly what you need on your website in order for it to be a success. This is essential information and most hypnotherapists don’t know this important information.

Another of my students started our sessions together and showed me a website that a developer had created for them for hundreds of pounds. The website consisted of one page! Talk about throwing your money down the drain. To top it all the website was on a developers system so it can’t be altered easily. In this case the website was scrapped and we will have to start again. If you don’t want to make these costly mistakes get help before you start.

Spelling and Grammar – Whilst we are on the topics of websites how many of you have really proof read your sites? You can get away with the odd typo of course but every now and again I come across a website that is littered with problems. I saw one of the worst possible yesterday where nearly every sentence had an issue. What would a potential client do if they came across the same? Well I can tell you that my first instinct would be that if a hypnotherapist can’t do basic spelling then I don’t want to see them. How could they possibly solve my problem if they couldn’t even get some basics right? Get an educated proof reader to look through your work and run everything through a spell checker online. It won’t catch everything but it will certainly iron out most of the problems.

Dress – Appearance is everything in this profession as if we are dressed right then we will inspire confidence in our clients. Now that does not mean a formal suit in every case (even though in certain clinics or locations this would be expected) but certainly smart clothing. Yet many therapists dress inappropriately. Flip flops, jeans, dirty or scruffy clothes, slippers and so on. If this is you it is time to smarten up now. Just because you are self employed does not mean you can get away with this.

Location – Many years ago I went for a therapy session at a woman’s house in North London. When I was there I couldn’t pay any attention to what she was saying because I was staring at her carpet which needed a hoover badly. I never returned for another session. I have left clinics because of problems with toilets, moths, cats and general cleanliness. Luckily I am now in the position to have my own clinic attached to my home which is spotlessly clean, spacious and quiet. You need to make sure that you have the same. If you work from home then the space has to be absolutely appropriate for the therapy to take place. So no animals, dirty washing, interruptions or general mess. If you can’t provide this in your home then find a suitable professionally run clinic and believe me they are not always easy to find.

Copyright Issues and Plagarism – I have just finished off a conversation with a potential marketing client who was looking for help to grown their hypnotherapy business in the UK. As with all these calls the first thing I do is check if the person has a website and then I went to have a look. Imagine my shock when I saw that their logo was also identical to mine, same keyword and similar colour and style. Now I didn’t get angry at the person on the phone. They were naive sure but they had not thought to check if the work they had been given was really original. In fact I have experienced this before when a website designer had copied the wording on every single page of my website (yeah I caught him as well)! Be aware that you can’t go stealing other peoples names, content or designs otherwise you will be getting legal letters before you know it.

Lying – If you are creating a website only put in your real experience and qualifications. I have just come across another student who claimed they were a master practitioner, one of the elite in the profession and so on. This person had not seen one client. Lying about your qualifications and experience is a good way to end up in court when your clients find out that you haven’t a clue! Google in the UK certainly is coming down heavily on holistic therapists at the moment and is banning websites from paid advertising that don’t have significant disclaimers on every page where they make a claim. The Advertising Standards Agency is also waiting to pounce on those who are misleading the general public and making outrageous claims. There are ways to write content without admitting you are a novice and without lying about your experience. Use them and stay on the right side of the law.

Giving up the Day Job Without Real Consideration – A marketing client just spoke to me about how they had sunk £2000 into their website and still were not appearing in the search engines. They admitted they were not particularly literate with computers and were no sales person and the money was running out. What were they going to do? The simple answer was pay someone to teach you or go back to work. So yeah hypnosis, reiki, counselling is your passion but if you have no business skills then do not be naive. You have to get clients through the door and throwing money at an expensive website is not going to help! Many of my students can be up and running by spending less than a couple of hundred pounds at most. Talk about throwing money down the drain. Spend your money wisely on someone who can actually help rather than second guessing how you are going to make a living in this industry.

Stop your website and business featuring in my tales or horror next Halloween and get professional help to get things right. Simply contact me to get more information on how you can build an awesome business that attracts customers the right way.

Citation Building for Therapists – The Complete Guide

Posted on April 6, 2016March 20, 2017 by Martina McKeough

Marketing a therapy business well should involve creating a great local presence for your services. One of the best ways of doing this is building citations to your business. So what exactly is a citation? In short it is a mention of your name, address and phone number on another website page. The citation does not have to link back to your website. In some cases you will find that people use the term NAP to refer to this name, address and phone number. Citation building for therapists is a crucial marketing strategy that should not be ignored.

Building a local list of citations is hugely important for a local business as it is a key ranking factor in Google and Bing. Both these search engines use citations in their ranking algorithm and the more you have the more likely you are to rank over your competitors. Most people believe that a citation needs to be built in a directory but they can also be created in forums, blog posts, press releases and social media links. A citation is telling the search engines that your business is genuine and in the local region. The more citations you have from good quality webpages the more trust you build around your business. Location specific citations from local newspapers, your chamber of commerce or local directory links can make a big difference to your website rankings in Google and Bing.

Claiming your Therapy Business Listing

I will supply a list of some of the most best citation sites on the web at the end of this post but once you have found the site what do you do next?

Before most sites allow you to create a listing you may be asked if your business has already been added to their website. This is important for a number of reasons. Firstly it prevents duplicate listings of your business and secondly it allows you to check if other businesses are registered at the same address. Many therapists may work out of therapy centres where there are a number of people working so you would expect to see many other businesses registered at your address. If however you have taken over a premises and an old competitor is registered it is worth flagging this to prevent them benefiting from your advertising.
If you don’t have a duplicate business listed you will be asked to fill out details about your company. Obviously the name, address and phone number but in many cases you might also be asked for pictures, website details, social media links, hours of operation, products sold and so on. Fill out as many of the details as you can.
Some websites try and persuade you to pay money in order to get a listing on their website. Where possible simply opt for the free option. The purpose of your adding your details is for the citation alone. In many cases paying to be added to a directory is a pointless exercise unless they appear extremely highly in the search engines for your keyword.
Be aware that some people will add a different email for their citation links than their usual business email. This is because adding your details to these forms of sites tends to generate spam marketing.
After adding your details you will usually be asked to verify a link to finalise the process. Google + Local however sends you a postcard which may not appear until weeks later. Some other websites will ask for your phone number and then call you with a pin number to confirm that you really are at that phone number.
In many cases your listing may appear live after only a few minutes but in some cases the citation websites will have a review process of up to six months! Obviously if you paid them for the listing this would be up and running in a day or so.

Consistency and Citations for Therapy Marketing

One of the most important points to remember when building citations is to keep consistency. That means using exactly the same name, address and phone number on each link that you are building. Even more importantly the ones you choose should be in exactly the same format as your Google + Local page and Website address. Having different phone numbers or variations of your trading name can confuse search engine algorithms and raise red flags. You do not want any doubt to be created around your business listing so make sure that everything is written exactly the same. Moz local is a system that can be used to track your citations online and ensure that you do not have duplicates, listings that are incomplete or have inconsistencies.

Build a Booming Therapy Business with Citations

A great way of finding out what citations to use is by searching for what your competitors are doing. If you are hiding away on page three or four of the search engines then it is worth looking at the citations that your competitors are using in order to trank. Although at the end of this post I have included a great list to start you off there may be many local listings that you may miss without looking to see what your fellow therapists are using. I know that this method helped me to find a number of local newspaper listings that I would never have even known about when I moved into my new location six months ago.

The Top Twenty List of Citations You Need to Use in Your Marketing

192.com
Yelp.com
Brownbook.net
Facebook.com
Local.Yahoo.com
Thomsonlocal.com
Citylocal.co.uk
Cylex-uk.co.uk
Freeindex.co.uk
Hotfrog.co.uk
Locallife.co.uk
MisterWhat.co.uk
Scoot.co.uk
TouchLocal.com
Yalwa.co.uk
118.com
directory.thesun.co.uk
directory.independent.co.uk
Approvedbusiness.co.uk
Opendi.co.uk

The list I have given is based around the UK however I know that I have a number of blog readers from the US and in Australia. You can find the best lists for your regions here:

US Citations

Australia Citations

Not Getting Professional Help Is Costing You Money

Obviously citation building for therapists is just one small step in getting your business found online and getting customers in through your door. If you were unaware of its importance and had not begun the process of building your citations you could have potentially lost thousands of pounds in revenue in the past year. Thousands of pounds that you could have reinvested in your business, used to pay for a holiday or simply saved for a rainy day. My therapy marketing coaching sessions help my clients to get ahead of the competition and stop burning money following strategies that are not working for their business. Even better the cost of my business training is easily offset by just a couple of new clients. For more details simply contact for more information.

How Much are You Really Earning in Your Therapy Practice?

Posted on June 1, 2015March 20, 2017 by Martina McKeough

Ever taken the time and really thought about what you are really earning from your therapy work? Yes I know you will be charging your customers a price per hour but have you really taken a look at all the hidden costs that are there when you are running a business? Nothing in life is free and neither is Hypnotherapy Marketing. No matter how hard you try there are will always be costs associated with your business that need to be taken into account when you decide what you are going to charge your customers.

When you are advertising for clients you really need to think about how much money they are making for you and your business. Most therapists do not do this and instead charge a fixed price per hour which means a weight loss client is worth the same as a fear or phobia client. The reality is that a client with a simple fear or phobia can often be helped in one or two sessions whilst a weight loss client may need support over 5, 8 or even ten sessions. Now try and tell me that each of those clients is worth the same to you. Of course they are not. Someone who is going to fill your diary for eight to ten sessions is worth far more than a person who comes to see you once or twice. Therefore specifically advertising for the clients who make you more money is just common business sense.

But what about your other costs for your hypnotherapy marketing as well as your fixed costs have you ever stopped to calculate exactly what each client will earn you in real terms? When you really get down to the accounting nitty gritty you are going to be in for a very big shock especially if you have decided to charge very little per hour. This is because you will have a considerable amount of costs to cover in many cases that you have not factored in to you price per hour.

Hypnotherapy Business Accounting

So lets look at some of the charges that you will need to consider if you are seeing a client. Firstly unless you are working from home you will need a room to practice in and these of course can be expensive. You may be paying a monthly fee for a room or alternatively you may be charged by the hour. Either way room charges are going to cost approximately 10 to 20% of your client fees. Next think about how you are going to get to this room. In many cases it will not be within walking distance which means that you need to drive there or arrive on public transport which of course costs you money. If you are driving and the location does not have free parking expect to pay for that as well. Oh and don’t forget about tax. In the UK it is a general rule of thumb to set aside 30% of your earnings against tax and that is before you move into the higher income tax bracket!

Now lets think about all the other costs that go into running your business. Of course you need to advertise to get clients in the door (that is unless you have an all referrals practice). This means flyers, business cards, online advertising, newspaper ads, posters, and so on. Then think about the cost of calling these clients. I can spend a considerable time on the phone to each of my clients which means hefty telephone bills. I pay for insurance and professional membership fees. Stationary costs will also bump up my bills. Now think about the cost of building and running your website, that is unlikely to be free either. When you think of it there are many little costs that all add up. I suggest that you resolve to add up your previous years business costs and then work out how much that cost you per week. Then divide that number by the number of clients you see per week and you will have a good idea of how much these costs are per client.

To help you work out your real cost per client I have created a simple client profitability calculator so you can begin to understand how much you are really earning per hour. Simply click on the link and it will take you to a quick and dirty calculator where you can work out exactly what you are going to really earn from each of your clients. Be prepared for a shock when you see the real numbers.

I know that when I teach my marketing clients this exercise they immediately decide to up their fees and when you see the numbers you will understand why. I remember training one therapist who was only going to charge £40 per hour for his services in a very affluent area of London. He need to rent a room in the area and drive to the location and get parking. When you run the numbers through the calculator he would have been lucky to earn £10 to £15 pounds for seeing each client!

Factor in The Cost of Time

I have not added time into my calculator but that is important to add into the equation as well. When you travel to a location it takes time to get there and to come back. My Central London practice takes me nearly an hour to get to and another hour to get back. Remember you are not getting paid for those dead hours so the cost of time needs to be added to your price. As I am in Harley Street I can get away with a high price per hour but in other areas you are not going to be so lucky. If you have to travel long distances to see your clients really work out whether it is really worth the effort.

So if you are reading this and are serious about building a great business and taking your hypnotherapy marketing to the next level sit down and calculate all your costs. You will thank me in the end. What you charge per hour and the profitability per client is an essential piece of information that you need for your business. Once you have that number you can stop burying your head in the sand and really start to work smarter to earn the income you deserve. Need extra help with your marketing and hypnotherapy business plan? Then why not look at some of my marketing and mentoring packages designed to help you grow a booming business.

Boost Your Hypnosis Marketing by Learning from the Best

Posted on April 20, 2015March 20, 2017 by Martina McKeough

How many times as a therapist have you actually gone online and started researching marketing methods for your business? How often do you sign up to some of the leading marketers emails and newsletters to get help with your business? From what I have seen this is something that very few therapists actually do. Given the opportunity most hypnotherapists would happily sign up to numerous CPD courses on hypnosis rather than spending time learning how marketing works. This attitude is killing your business. In order to boost your hypnosis marketing you need to be looking at what the best in marketing business are doing.

As I have said many times before without clients you are nothing. It means no revenue and no mortgage being paid. In order to get the clients you need to do hypnosis marketing. It is not a nice to have but an essential. Now as well as learning how to market from people such as myself there are plenty of people online who have taken their marketing to another level. They may work in completely different industries but the great thing with marketing is that the techniques used can be applied to all kinds of businesses and areas. Keep your eye on what the best marketers are doing and you can use their tried and tested methods to boost your business.

I know that to make sure I achieve my business goals I am always looking at what other people are doing. In-between seeing clients and running my online business I can spend a considerable amount of time browsing online and seeing what is new. I no longer bother to see what my local competitors are doing instead I look and see what the best people in the world are doing. These are the people who have taken their businesses to the next level.

So who are these movers and shakers?

Well the list is changing all the time but some great people to follow are:

Marie Forleo – This woman is amazing. She started off as a life coach and now she runs a multi- million dollar company. Sign up for her updates and news and you will get access to her great videos on all kinds of issues that you may experience with a business. Her website is glossy, her videos funny and informative and you can get much of this for free. What’s not to like?

Mari Smith – Want to learn more about how to make Facebook work for you? This woman has all kinds of information on the social media site. Analysis of updates as well as showing you how you can make money on this social media platform.

Neil Patel – Founder of quicksprout.com and guru on all kinds of marketing. His blogs get hoards of visitors because they are useful and informative. He talks on everything from infographics to SEO.

Derek Halpern – Founder of Social Triggers and a individual who is particularly interested in the psychology of marketing. When I started to watch his videos he looked like a college graduate and an amateur but with great information. By showing people such as myself how to market he has made a fortune. His videos are now more polished and professional. Just shows you what money can do for you.

Matt Cutts – Never heard of him? Well you should as he is in charge of Google’s webmaster videos. If there is a big change coming on the Google search engine he will be the first person to tell you about it. Keep an eye on what he has to say as it could impact your web position.

Rand Fishkin – The founder of moz.com. He is an expert in SEO, marketing methods and provides great information on building great businesses.

I could go on. Look around the internet and there are plenty of people who are willing to show you how to run a better business. You don’t have to purchase everything they publish but I have no doubt that in some cases it would be well worth your money to do so. None of these people talk about hypnosis marketing specifically but I can tell you that when it comes to selling everything is simple. You have a product or service and you need to persuade your customer to buy it. Get that right and you have the perfect business.

Why Saying No Is Essential To Your Hypnosis Marketing Success!

Posted on April 10, 2015March 20, 2017 by Martina McKeough

As a hypnotherapist one of the most important weapons you have in your arsenal is the phrase “no”. Now I know that as a hypnotherapist looking for clients you are probably used to saying “yes” but how many times have you agreed something and then immediately felt that you should have said or done something completely different? I know that one of the most important ways in which I have been able to move my business forward is by using that no word to increase my hypnotherapy marketing success. Let me demonstrate how important it is to learn to flex that “no” muscle.

Clients – Getting in clients is essential to your business but you need to be able to learn how to manage them to market successfully. I know that when I first started out in business I said yes to any client who called and who I knew I was qualified to treat. Sometimes I would drive to see one client in one location and then immediately get in the car to another location after that session to see someone else. Not only was I clocking up the miles but I using up loads of my time as well. This clearly made no sense whatsoever. So I learned to say “no”!

I resolved that to make my life easier I would see clients in a different location on each day of the week. So if a client wanted to see me about a problem I would tell them the day and the location where I was available and then they could either make the session or not. Yes I did lose a few clients but a much smaller number that you would expect. The economics also now began to stack up. I would book multiple sessions at a clinic and save money on room hours. I saved money on parking and petrol and most of all I saved my time. Instead of spending hours each day commuting from one location to another I now saw all my clients in one place.

I also learned to say “no” to seeing some clients completely. People who lack commitment to getting better are not going to help your business. If they are not invested in your treatments then you are unlikely to have a successful outcome with them. I simply suggested to these clients that they find another therapist or wait until they were ready to get help for their problem. As I was seeing clients who really wanted to get help my success rates went up and so did my referrals. If I had treated the clients who did not want to help themselves they would not have necessarily had successful outcomes and my business would have been bad mouthed.

Time – As I mentioned above I saved plenty of time by not travelling from one client to the next but I also managed my time by not agreeing to hours that some clients wanted me to work. How many times have you had a client call and tell you that they don’t get home from work until late in the evening so they are looking for a late night time slot like 9pm? I get this all the time. They wouldn’t be able to see their doctor or dentist at this time but they are quite happy for you to work late. How many of your clients think it is ok to call you late in the evening to discuss their problems:? Again I used to get this problem all the time.

Now I am very clear with my clients. I work set hours and in my case that does not extend to very late in the evening or weekends. Why? Well firstly I need some down time myself. When I finish with clients in the evening that is it. My phone is switched off and my focus is on relaxing. By allowing your working day to extend to your down time is a recipe for stress and anxiety. Secondly without my down time whether that is during the week or at weekends I wouldn’t have time to move my business forward. In order to earn more you need to develop ways of increasing your income and you are not able to work on those and see clients at the same time. By saying “no” I am investing in my future. That means a short term monetary gain is not helpful when you are looking at creating a business that will sustain you in the long term.

By the way there is a way to make unsocial hours work for your business and that is by charging considerably more. If people want the convenience of seeing a therapist late in the evening or at the weekends then you should charge considerably more. That might be a great way for you to create your own niche. Earning more for less hours at more unsociable times of the day. Just make sure you say “no” when people offer to pay you the same.

Free Help – I hate to say it but many therapists are cheap. You might think this is an outrageous comment but I am happy to say it because I know that in many cases it is true. As my reputation as a marketing expert grows I am bombarded with emails, Facebook and LinkedIn requests from people who want me to help their business. Great you would think but the reality is that these people do not want to pay. They want to “pick my brains” or “meet for a coffee” or “get some really basic advice” but they do not want to pay for it!

Well sorry but that is not going to happen and I flex my polite “no” muscle and explain my charges. Imagine if you asked your plumber to come out to do the same. I can imagine the answer you would get. The reality is the information I give people on hypnotherapy marketing makes people money. Not a small amount but thousands and thousands of pounds and I expect to earn some money for giving people the ability to make a great living.

I bet you have clients who do the same. How many times have you had a person ring you and you know that they have no intention of actually buying your time or products? Your time is money so when you come across a time waster it is time to get them off your phone asap so that you can concentrate on the clients who you can help. What about the clients who always turn up late to your sessions and expect you to run over? Again I flex that “no” muscle. Or the clients who want to ring you inbetween their sessions constantly for hours at a time? Set your boundaries from the outset and let them know that is included and not included in your price.

Telemarketers – You may not agree with everything I say but if you take one piece of advice from me today say “no” to every sales person who calls you on the phone and asks you to buy their products. That means “no” to:

The Yellow Pages
People who pretend they are from Facebook and Google
Sales people who want to you pay for adverts in doctors surgeries, gyms or magazines

In fact say “no” to anyone who wants your money who you have never met. Why? Because for all their promises of extra clients and hypnotherapy marketing success I will tell you that you may as well take your money and set light to it outside and watch it go up in flames. There are a number of strategic investments that you can make to attract clients but these people who prey on the naive and vulnerable are not it!

I am sure when you think about it there are plenty of areas where you can use that “no” phrase and actually increase your productivity and earnings. My list is not exhaustive but just a small example of how your life and business can be improved by learning to set boundaries, charging the full price for your valuable services and understanding that your time equals money.

Building a Hypnotherapy Practice – You Have to Speculate to Accumulate

Posted on March 21, 2015March 20, 2017 by Martina McKeough

So how exactly do you run your hypnotherapy business? If you are a self employed therapist I bet you do the following. Get clients in through your door and charge them a fee per session. Out of that session fee you will pay your costs such as room hire, tax. phone bills and other miscellaneous expenses. The money you have left over is what you consider to be your wage. Once every couple of years you may pay a bit extra money to upgrade your website and that about sums it up. At no point have you thought about how you are going to get your business to grow in the future and how you are going to make that happen.

When you are building a hypnotherapy practice you can either:

1) Plod on doing the same thing year after year. Get in perhaps a greater number of clients or charge extra but ultimately have a ceiling on the amount that you can earn.

2) Speculate to accumulate. In other words reinvest some of those earning in your business to grow it into something much bigger than one to one therapy.

My hypnotherapy eBook talks about tips and strategies to get you to a six figure income. I know for many hypnotherapists this seems like “pie in the sky” talk yet this figure is very achievable for most therapists with the right business skills. The problem that I see in not only our industry but with therapists in general is that most have not got a clue what they need to do in order to even get a few customers in through their doors never mind to take their business to the six figure level.

Building a Hypnotherapy Business

Instead of thinking about your business on a customer by customer basis you need to think in the long term. How am I going to build a business that will earn me great money in years to come? How can I get money in through my doors in an automated way so that that I can be earning money whilst I am asleep? Frankly you need to bust through the ceiling that you have created for yourself. Working one to one with clients is great when you are starting out but you need to take your business a step further.

Think about it if you were a shareholder in a company you would want to see that company growing year on year. They need to be earning more money and giving you a great dividend. The business world understands this because their investors will sell their shares if they find that the company they decided to invest in is standing still.

I see many therapists as companies who are stagnating. They have great potential but then they have no idea of where to go next. They carry on doing the same old stuff year after year and their income stalls. Well I can tell you I didn’t start my own business to earn a boring old basic income. I took the risk of leaving a well paid job so that I could not only be my own boss but so that I could demonstrate how I could build a great business myself. I see myself as an entrepreneur and not as someone who is earning just enough to stay afloat.

Reinvesting in your Business

Building a hypnotherapy practice and creating a business that is next level means you need to reinvest. That means that some of that money you are earning has to be spent on other ventures that will bring you more money in the long term. It means reinvesting in your skills. If you don’t know how to build a greater income then you need to learn from somebody else. Investing in marketing advice and mentoring could mean the difference between surviving and thriving. Oh and you need to invest in better websites, equipment, automated software and so on. Now you don’t obviously have to do all of this at once but I believe that a percentage of your income needs to be set aside for you to do this.

I know that ever since I started by business I have used part of my “salary” to create new avenues of income. Once I built those products I began to sell them to others and that extra money is now steadily adding additional income into my monthly account without me even thinking about it. That means that as well as earning income from my clients I am earning from other sources as well. Now there is no ceiling to what I can earn. You can do the same with the right help.

If you need help building a hypnotherapy practice then how about getting some assistance? I work with all kinds of therapists and small business owners with my marketing and mentoring sessions. I believe that the cost of my business coaching will almost be immediately offset by the extra customers you will get into your business. Remember it only takes one client paying for a number of sessions to pay for my marketing sessions for six months and I personally guarantee that you will be getting in many more than that providing you follow my advice. Give me a call today on 020 8351 2744 and see how you can change the income potential for your business.

How Much Time Do You Spend On Your Hypnosis Marketing?

Posted on March 14, 2015March 20, 2017 by Martina McKeough

How many hours a week do you actually spend attracting new clients in to your business? One hour a week, five or ten? I know that there are a considerable number of therapists out there who do a very small amount each week and I can tell you that it is not going to be enough to get you the business that you deserve. A networking session and an hour or so writing a blog or handing out some leaflets now and again will be lucky to get you anywhere. Hypnosis marketing actually needs consistent daily work especially in your start up days to get you regular clients calling you for appointments.

So lets say that you have just qualified as a hypnotherapist and you are lucky to see a client a day in the initial stages. This means that you have a significant amount of time during the day which you have left hanging around doing nothing. That means that you have eight to ten hours to fill working on your hypnosis marketing. Now to some people that might sound excessive but frankly this career is now your full time job. It means that you need to spend at least as much time on it as you would have in your old profession if not far more because now you are not automatically going to get a wage at the end of each month.

Think about the average entrepreneur and how they work on their businesses in the early days. Many of these people will be up working at 7am in the morning and finishing late into the night. They will have sacrificed their social lives to get their business up and running and earning them great money. Now think of what the average hypnotherapist does when they finish their courses. They might get a website up and running and attend a few small networking gatherings but in many cases I do not see the same drive in our profession as I do in many others.

Now of course if you don’t need to earn money then it really does not matter. You can frankly sit in bed all morning, drink coffee with your friends and go to the gym. But if you actually have to earn a living from this profession then you had better start to get fired up about marketing and getting cash flowing in to your business or you may as well go back to the day job.

Building a Hypnotherapy Business Takes Time

In order to build a great business you need to be working on your marketing tasks daily. If you don’t understand what marketing you need to do then you need to get some business and coaching advice and fast. You need that knowledge because otherwise you will end up banging your head against a brick wall and getting nowhere.

At my marketing classes for hypnotherapists I make it clear that the information that I give them is just their starting point. One blog is not enough, writing one advert is insufficient. You need to be constantly producing new material, updating websites, blogs, profiles. press releases to get found. I can guarantee you that even after I explain this to my students there will always be someone a week or two later who had selective hearing and comes back to and says they have done it all and the phone is not ringing.

I can tell you now that there is never a point when you have finished all the marketing that you can do. At this moment in time I have a list of about thirty tasks that I need to accomplish on my latest round of marketing. As I progress down this list I will find that there are more and more elements which will be added to it making it a never ending project. I have never sat down for one moment and thought that’s it I have done enough!

Earn More Money You are a Business!

You see I am at the point now where I am busy just about every day. I can see up to eight clients a day on some days and frankly that is pushing me right to the limits. Now for some people they will be satisfied with this but I most certainly am not. You see if I continued like this there would be a ceiling on my earnings. I can’t fit any more clients in to each day which means that the only way I could make more money would be charging them more or seeing people in groups.

Ok so lets say I charge more or see groups there would still be a ceiling on my income. That is the last thing that any business owner should not be aiming for. Year on year your business should be growing and that means that you have to think of new innovative ways to push your income levels higher. How about selling real and virtual products for example. Creating passive income streams to bring you in money whilst you are asleep. Or perhaps hiring associates or affiliates to sell your products.

You see hypnosis marketing never ends. There is never a point where you have done enough and there is never a point where you should have run out of ideas. If you feel that you are stuck and have no idea how to get those initial clients or how to take your business to a level where you earn additional income then you are a prime candidate for my marketing and mentoring sessions. Over a period of six months to a year I work with you to build great foundations for your business so that once you have a great base level of income you can start to take things to another level. Yes you will have to work hard but the rewards are potentially unlimited when you really commit to running a business instead of thinking as a vocational career choice.

Testing Testing – Is Your Hypnosis Marketing Up to Scratch?

Posted on March 8, 2015March 20, 2017 by Martina McKeough

When was the last time you had a look at your website? Not a quick glance but a long hard look at what elements are working well and what elements need some changes. We often need to take a step back to really take in an overview of our creations or if possible get somebody else to look at our websites with fresh eyes. Why? Because when your website isn’t working well this is the first thing that your clients will pick up on and it could send them running to someone else. Your website is often the first way that people learn about you and if yours is not up to scratch you are to blame for negative hypnosis marketing.

So what are the things that we need to look out for in our websites? Here are just a few elements that it is worth your while checking:

1) Spelling – If I were to log in to a website and see that there was awful grammar and dreadful spelling it would send me running for the hills. This is such a simple thing to rectify. Run your pages through a spellchecker. Pay someone to proof read your content. Get it right first time.

2) Broken Links – How many of you have links to internal and external pages that simply are not working? Take the time to go through each of your links to make sure that everything is up to scratch. If they lead to nowhere get them fixed.

3) Contact Me – Regularly test your contact form on your site. I lost a few days worth of clients not long ago because my server was full. If I had sent out a test email to myself I would have picked it up straight away.

4) Products – If you sell products are your customers able to buy them? On more than one occasion I have lost sales because of problems with my downloads. You can easily make some test purchases to make sure that everything is working ok.

5) Responsiveness – How responsive is your website? In other words if I were to look at your website on a tablet, phone or computer would it look the same or would elements in the website be missing, squashed or out of alignment? When you are doing your hypnosis marketing you need to step into the shoes of your customers. If they are seeing a mess of a website because they are using a different system to you then it needs to be fixed. If you website is not mobile responsive expect to be penalised in the search engines.

6) Simplicity – As the saying goes “keep it simple stupid”! Are you actually getting your message across to your customers or have you written content that is too wordy, complex or unintelligible for your readers? Does your website have flashing images or annoying music when you log in? If it does then it is time to drop it. Have you put a god awful video of yourself on the front page which looks shabby and unprofessional? If you can’t read like a newsreader and don’t look professional and engaging then leave the video out. It will only have your customers running for the hills.

7) Long Load Times – How quickly does your website appear when somebody clicks on it. Generally the faster the better. Google penalises sites that do not load quickly.

All of these issues are easy and simple to fix and will make a big difference to your hypnosis marketing. Remember websites should be reviewed and updated regularly with fresh content. Google loves new material placed on your website and so do your customers as well. Take the time today to review your site and think about what you can do to make it more user friendly for your clients. If you are not confident doing it yourself I conduct website review sessions with my clients. Not only will I look at some of the elements above I will tell you how to write more successful copy that converts browsers into buyers.