Category: Uncategorized

Want Me to Prove I am a Hypnotherapy Marketing Expert?

Posted on by Martina McKeough

Hypnotherapy MarketingI know that am a hypnotherapy marketing expert but of course how on earth do you know whether I am as good as I say I am. You see I know that when I read websites with people trying to sell me things I tend to be sceptical. I sometimes read reviews but I know that even they can be doctored so in many cases I remain unconvinced and I don’t buy. What I really need is a demonstration that the person can really help me and that is something hard for them to do on a website or a video.

The great thing about my business is that I can offer your proof that my marketing works and today is a perfect example of how I got a great publicity boost for my business today and you can do the same for yours as well. Only a few days ago I was contacted by a journalist from the Daily Mirror. Now if you don’t live in the UK the Daily Mirror is an institution. It is the third most read newspaper in the country and has a daily readership of nearly one million. In fact once upon a time Piers Morgan used to be the editor of the paper. Anyway the journalist concerned had just finished an interview with an actress in the UK called Faye Ripley who has a terrible fear of insects. The interview which was to appear in the gossip section of the magazine was all about her phobia and the journalist wanted some comments from a hypnotherapist on how this phobia could be cured using hypnosis. As this was all at short notice I got a call on Tuesday to do the interview and two days later my name is in the paper.

To read the full article in the Daily Mirror click here.

Now the amazing thing about this great piece of publicity is that the journalist came to see me and not the other way round. Contrary to popular belief you don’t always need to be the person chasing journalists to get yourself in the paper with clever angles and marketing. In many cases most of my best publicity has come from a journalist reaching out to me. I have been approached to appear in magazines and newspapers, appeared on the radio and even consulted with the BBC and ITV. Now this is not a fluke. Journalists come back to me time and time again for one simple reason, they can find me easily in the search engines.

You see most journalists do not have a big list of go to people to contact when they are on a story. This is because for the most part these journalists will only need the help of someone like me once in a blue moon. Therefore if I aimed all my hypnotherapy marketing at a handful of journalists in many cases I wouldn’t get very far. Instead most of the journalists need a quote or an interview with a hypnotherapist very quickly and they go on to Google and contact the name that comes up first and in many cases that will be me.

Getting found in the search engines can be extremely important for your business not just because of getting into the media but because it also means that potential clients can find you as well. Admit it most of us including journalists are lazy. They want to do a quick search on hypnosis and find the person they need straight away. They haven’t got weeks to spend researching it instead they want an instant answer. If you aren’t one of the tops spots on the search engine they are using then forget it someone else will get the publicity or the sale. I just happen to be very good at getting found on search engines which means that I get a steady stream of new customers and media work coming my way.

The best thing about my hypnotherapy marketing is that I can teach anyone to get the same results. Providing that person is willing to put in the hard work and follow my advice journalists could be ringing you as well. With my marketing and mentoring packages I work with therapists like you to increase customers, build revenue and increase profits. Today I hope that I have demonstrated to you that my methods work, just read my article today or head down to your local newsagent and buy the paper.

Hypnosis Marketing – Your Website is Crucial!

Posted on by Martina McKeough

Hypnosis MarketingHave you ever had a situation where your practice is so busy you don’t have time to even think? Well this morning I had one of the those moments when I literally as physically unable to cope with the sheer number of calls coming in to the my practice. I know my hypnosis marketing works because I was getting call after call of potential clients ringing me up to book or ask questions about my sessions. I had deliberately booked this morning off to deal with admin and paperwork before a busy afternoon and evening with clients and the phone did not stop ringing. It was pandemonium but in a good way because it means that the business that I have created is a success and yours can be as well.

I should point out that I was struggling to cope this morning even though I have hired virtual assistants to answer all my calls. My phone was forwarded to my assistants whilst I rang back potential clients who had tried to call me the evening before. As I was making my call backs I was getting more and more messages from my assistants telling me about new calls coming in. For the next three to four hours I didn’t stop. The result plenty of new bookings and revenue coming into my business for weeks and months to come .  Now this morning did not happen by a fluke or by magic but because I have worked hard at creating a marketing strategy that gets me found by the people who need help.

Marketing takes sustained effort over a period of weeks and months and not just a small effort once in a blue moon. To be really successful at what you do you need to have a strategy and then you need to work systematically through each of the elements in your strategy to bring in new business. Place the elements of your strategy in order of importance and when one area has been worked through start to focus on the next. Keep on adding to your list and never stop marketing because when it comes to marketing there should never be a point where you have nothing to do.

I like to believe that hypnosis marketing should consist of both long and short term goals as well as marketing which can be done in short bursts during quiet points in your day. Bit by bit you are building strong foundations for your business. Create solid foundations and you have a great base for your business which can then be grown without fear of it collapsing around you. The big question is of course where to start?

One of the most important elements of your business foundations is having a great website that can be found. I know that my websites constantly drive traffic and customers to be my door even though many of the people who come across these websites have never met me before. This is because each of my websites has been deliberately designed to reach my targeted market. In other words the people arriving at my website get the information they need quickly and easily about how their problem can be solved. They are told exactly what it may take to get them to their goals so that the only thing they have left to do is pick up the phone.

Having a great website makes all the difference to a business. Make a great one and you will get plenty of calls and orders but get it wrong and you will drive your customers away. Many therapists sadly get it wrong and miss out on great opportunities to sell themselves and their treatments. It is not uncommon when I do website reviews to see fundamental and basic errors which prevent my clients from getting found. Get that wrong and you may as well be invisible.

Once you have the basic foundations of your business set up then it is time to work on the additional elements which will really take your revenue to the next level. For example:

  • Videos
  • Blogging
  • SEO
  • Self Help Programs
  • Referral Programs
  • Product Development
  • Advertising
  • PR
  • Media Work
  • Corporate Clients
  • Group Sessions

Website Reviews

The list is endless as there are so many ways in which you can extend your hypnosis marketing to increase your profits. However without having great foundations you will have a problem from the start. Without the right website structure you will find that when visitors come across your website they will stay for just a second or two and then head off elsewhere. This is why I offer a website review package to help therapists create a great looking site which can bring in business time and time again.

So what is included when I conduct a website review? Well firstly I am happy to review an existing website or talk your through how to create the perfect site from scratch. I may not do any design work but I do work with you to create the perfect framework for you to grow your business. I analyse each existing web page and make recommendations about how those pages can be changed to bring you in more customers. I will tell you if additional pages need to be added or if you need to change your current platform. I generally conduct the review with you over a live Skype or Facetime sesson and then following the session I will send you a report with the recommended changes on it.To get full details of how I can help you with hypnosis marketing or website reviews you can email me via my contact page or alternatively give me a call on 020 8351 2744.

 

Marketing Your Hypnotherapy Practice – Domain Names

Posted on by Martina McKeough

Marketing your hypnotherapy practice - domain namesWhether you are starting your therapy career or are looking to update and rebrand yourself you need a website. If you need a website you need a name for that website and therefore you need to purchase a domain name. Before you do you need to understand the possibilities that are available to to and how your choices may impact your search engine rankings under different circumstances. This is just a short guide to show you that marketing your hypnotherapy practice can be impacted by something as simple as a name.

Generally when I see the names that therapists have picked for their websites they have either chosen an exact match domain or a domain which contains their name.

Exact Match Domains – An exact match domain is based matching keywords that a potential client would place in a search engine. A typical example would be names such as hypnotherapylondon, hypnotherapistinnewyork or hypnosisscotland. The domains in these instances reflect the locations where the therapists are based and would like to get clients. By choosing keywords that are frequently placed in a search engine there is an increased likelihood of getting found. For example the phrase hypnotherapy London has an average of 1,300 searches per month. With an exact match domain name that is well optimised you have a high chance of getting a large number of customers coming across your site.

Of course marketing your hypnotherapy practice is not that simple because:

1) Many of these exact match domains have already been purchased.

2) Google is placing less emphasis on exact match domains in its algorithm.

A few years ago having an exact match domain almost guaranteed you traffic but now Google is looking for other indicators of a great website so their relevance is reducing. Reducing is not however the same as extinct. Remember having an exact match can still give your website a boost especially when it comes to advertising. Having an exact match domain for example can increase your click through rates especially when it comes to paid advertising. That is because your customers see a name which exactly matches their needs and is therefore more likely to take action and click.

Your Name Domains – Many therapists like to use their name in the domain title. So in my case I could have chosen martinamckeoughhypnosis.co.uk. Having a name domain is great especially if you are building a brand. In other words people will search for you because of your reputation and you will of course appear highly in the rankings for those searches. The problem is that most therapists don’t have a brand. That means that your name is currently meaningless to the people who are searching for hypnotherapy. They get a long list on Google of people who call themselves hypnotherapists and the first thing they do is:

1) Choose the names that appear at the top of the search.

2) Choose domains which most closely match what they are looking for.

3) Choose a name domain.

So in other words you are likely to come third on the hit list of potential therapists who get the business unless you also appear at the top of the page. Remember you need to think from the point of view of your client and not your own personal wishes when it comes to marketing. That said there is no harm in purchasing your own domain name and running two sites providing they both contain original content. The exact match domain can be used when you are starting out and as your reputation grows your name domain will grow in searches as well.

.Com or .Co.uk? – Choosing what to place at the end of your domain name is also important. Should you use a generic .com name or instead choose a country code of where you live or even one of the new domain extensions such as .London? The general rule of thumb is where are you intending to do business. If you are based in a town in the UK and only want to see people in the surrounding area then a .co.uk will do just fine. If however you are looking to sell downloads, online courses or run Skype Sessions then your audience is wider. Then you need to think about a .com. In other words you need to think about your business strategy when making those decisions.

Buying all the domain extensions available for your company could also be important from a branding perspective. Imagine if you built up a hugely successful company under the .co.uk extension which hundreds of people were searching for each day. What if someone else came along and bought the .com extension and then started advertising a very similar product? Suddenly your traffic is diluted by this other company and your sales fall dramatically as they start to get your business. Even if you don’t want to buy every available domain extension buying the country code and the .com should be considered. It is worth noting that many domain extensions such as .biz and .info are not great to use from an SEO perspective. If these are the only domain extensions left then choose another name.

Length of the Name –  Don’t get carried away with choosing names for a domain which are too lengthy and wordy. Choosing a name like hypnotherapyinlondonandthesoutheast.co.uk will not be particularly helpful in getting you found in the search engines. In fact Domain Monster has a great guide on domain names. They agree that a short snappy and to the point name will always beat a long one.

Hyphens – It can be tempting when an exact match domain is already taken for your keywords to try and choose the same words but place hyphens inbetween each of the words. An example of this would be http://www.hypnotherapy-in-Edinburgh.co.uk instead of using a domain name where all the words run together. Where possible avoid this behaviour as they can be considered spammy. Read this guide by Moz on their thoughts on domain names.

Choosing a domain name does not need to be a difficult job when you are marketing your hypnotherapy practice but it does require some thought. Thinking about just some of these basics can help to position your business so that customers can find your more easily or are more likely to click on your website rather than others. Get it right and you will reap the rewards especially when your site is then well optimised for SEO.

 

 

 

Therapy Marketing – Time Equals Money!

Posted on by Martina McKeough

Hypnotherapy Marketing - Time is MoneyAre you one of the many therapists who undervalues their skills and times? Are you getting paid what you are really worth? Are you billing for all your time or are you giving away hours of it without being compensated? Now I am not talking in this instance about therapists who give away some of their time for charitable purposes or even to gain experience. I am talking about therapists who without realising it are being run ragged by some of their customers and clients and are not getting paid a penny for it. If this is you then my therapy marketing sessions concentrate on how to change this behaviour so that you either have more free time or additional income to compensate.

You see if you were a lawyer you would fill out time sheets showing how many billable hours are charged to your various accounts. Every moment in your day would be accounted for and an appropriate invoice would be raised for the customers who used up those hours and minutes. This is how a legal firm makes money and they do it efficiently. They don’t allow their legal teams to spend hours talking to their clients on the phone without charging for it. Their lawyers are not sitting around waiting for clients to show and not billing for that time yet therapists do. Why???

I believe that many therapists bracket themselves as caring people and as such they open themselves up to being taken advantage of. Yes you can be caring but you still need to earn money. The bills and mortgage still need to be paid. Therefore you need to bill for your time and set professional boundaries because you are worth it. That means when it comes to therapy marketing for new business you have do it efficiently and easily otherwise you will find yourself bank account dropping and your energy being sapped.

Perhaps you recognise the following as some of your customers.

1) The client who rings for information but who has no intention of buying – I regularly get clients who call me to discuss hypnosis but who have no interest in buying my time. Perhaps they suffer from anxiety and want reassurance from a professional that they are going to be ok. I have had people ringing me because they want to learn more about hypnosis for their own interests or for course work. I have even had clients who have rung and asked me for a letter so that they can prove to a court that they are intending to do something about a problem without committing to spending a dime!

2) Clients who ask you to call back but are never there – Have you ever had a client who asks you to ring them at a certain time but isn’t there when you call? It is infuriating especially when you have set aside a portion of your evening to give them that call. They then apologise, rebook another time and do the same again. 

3) The client who rings you and 10 other Therapists for comparison – They really do want to book a session but they just don’t know who with. They therefore decide to interview every therapist over the phone for hours. In many ways part of their therapy session is being conducted in advance as they question you on how you would handle this or that. They may even call back a number of times to ask for even more details. In some instances you may have spent hours talking to them with nothing to show for it.

4) Contact form enquiries – Particularly the ones who don’t put their phone number but want you to write an essay in a return email about how you will fix their problem. You therefore spend ages constructing a well put together reply and then you never hear from them again.

5) The dreaded no show  – Perhaps the most wasteful use of your time is clients who book a session and then never bother to show up. You have perhaps traveled to a destination to meet them which has taken considerable time, hired a room and then found that you are sat there with nobody to see.

There are ways of dealing with all these potential clients simply and easily so that you have more free time or can get on with the process of building your income with other clients. In my therapy marketing mentoring sessions I give you resources to deal with all of these situations and more. I make sure that all of my therapists understand how to create their own boundaries and terms of engagement. Remember you are the person who has the skills that those clients need so never be afraid to ask for payment for your time and effort.

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Marketing a Hypnotherapy Business – How you sell your sessions matters!

Posted on by Martina McKeough

marketing a hypnotherapy businessAre you one of the many therapists out there who is marketing a hypnotherapy business and sabotaging your efforts because you don’t understand how to get your clients to return after the first session? Have you lost stopped yourself from making more money simply because of the content on your website and the way you booked your client over the phone? Many hypnotherapists fail in their marketing and revenue building because they don’t understand how to sell their sessions to their prospective customers.

Any prospective clients wants to know just a few key things before they choose to part with their money.

1) They have a problem and they want to know how you can fix it.

2) They like to see evidence that you have dealt with this problem before and successfully treated other clients for the issue.

3) How much do you cost and how long will it take?

Give you customers an answer to these key points and you are more likely to convert that phone call or website visit into a sale. The problem is that many people who are marketing a hypnotherapy business forget to give the customer what they want. They have built a website with content that they like but forget that this often nothing to do with what their customer wants.

So lets imagine there is prospective customer out there who wants a therapist to help them Stop Smoking. When they come across your website they want to see a page with information about Stop Smoking sessions on it. They want to see great testimonials from other clients who have come to see you for the problem and have successfully quit. They want to know how quickly you can make them stop and ideally they want to see the price. Now I give my clients mostly what they want. The only thing I don’t give them on my website is price as that opens me up to price comparison with others. That means that when that client comes across my site they nearly all the information they need. I make it easy for them to pick up the phone and do the last part of the process, the booking.

Now lets compare that to a website where the therapist has put up a quick website with minimal pages on it. It might have their name and contact details on it and a brief description of the therapies or treatments that they do but it goes into no details. There are no testimonials on the site and generally the website looks like it has been put together by an amateur who can’t be bothered. Well who is more likely to get the sale? If you do not understand how to put together a website then get some hypnosis marketing help. A website is crucial it is your showroom and it is worth investing time and money if need be getting it right.

Marketing Hypnosis on the Phone

Now of course your hypnotherapy marketing does not stop when you have created your great website. It is also crucial that when the prospective client rings to book in a session you sell to them in the right way. I intend to write a bigger blog post on this in the future. But the one thing I always do is set realistic expectations for my client in that first call. Many clients ring with little understanding of hypnosis and how it works. They have seen stage hypnosis and because of that they believe that I just snap my fingers but them into some form of coma state and that at the end of the session they will walk out my door as a changed person. If you just book a client in without setting up expectations you are in trouble.

You see a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If you do not explain how hypnosis sessions will work your client will walk out of that first session disappointed and vowing never to come back. They won’t understand why they weren’t asleep, they won’t understand why they could hear you during the session and they will believe that you did the session wrong. They will have lost confidence in you and all your marketing efforts will have gone down the drain as you will have seen your client for one session.

Whenever I book clients in over the phone I always set up a realistic timetable and in many cases I book my clients in for a program of sessions not one session wonders as I like to call them. If someone has five stone to lose and has complex issues from their past then I make it clear that expecting me to resolve a life time of problems in one hour is totally unrealistic. I tell them that I only see clients with that amount to lose for a program of sessions. I explain that this program takes place over a period of two to three months and then I explain roughly how those sessions usually work. I also explain to them what hypnosis is and isn’t so that when they come in for that first session they have an active understanding of what is to come. They will for the most part leave that first session and be looking forward to our work together over the following weeks.

That difference in approach can help to transform your business very quickly and simply. It means that I am selling multiple sessions at a time and my diary fills quickly with less hypnotherapy marketing effort. Do it the hard way and you will be scratching a living seeing the odd customer here and there with little to show for it.

If you are looking for help marketing a hypnotherapy business then I have a number of programs which may be suitable to help you move your business to the next level. All the details about my hypnotherapy marketing programs can be found here. As I am also an accredited supervisor for the General Hypnotherapy Register you could also combine this with your supervision requirements and kill two birds with one stone. Simply email me or call 020 8351 2744 for more details.

 

 

Hypnotherapy Marketing – Attitude is Everything

Posted on by Martina McKeough

Hypnotherapy MarketingSo you have qualified as a therapist and you are looking to set up your practice. What approach are you going to take when you market yourself and your business? Are you as serious about you new career as you need to be? The reality is that some people believe that once they have their website up and running and handed out a few leaflets their hypnotherapy marketing is done. Big mistake! Running a business takes hard work, sustained effort and in the case of therapy building your marketing knowledge to attract those new clients.

Now some of you will only ever want to work part time or use hypnosis as a hobby but there are others who want this to be their new career. A career that pays the bills and gives a sufficient income to lead a great lifestyle. In order to build a business like this you are going to need to be working hard. Not part time hard but long 10 hour plus days in order to do all the things that you need to be to make your business a success. If you were thinking about long mornings having coffee with friends and dabbling in a little bit of social media in the afternoon then you are in for a big shock. No entrepreneur ever build a great business by working part time.

To build your business you need to get serious. Every minute when you are not seeing clients should be spent on your hypnotherapy marketing and so that means having a plan of action. Just some of the simple things that you can do include:

1) Setting out your core business hours – Resolve to be at your desk every morning by 9am at the latest and not leave it until 7pm in the evening. Yes of course you can have short breaks but no day time TV or chatting on Facebook (unless it is related to your business). These are your core hours and you may even find that on some nights you are working later. Remember people like Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson didn’t build brilliant businesses by just working a few hours a day. When you have things up and running then you can take some more time out.

2) Get your website right – Yes you want referrals but when you are starting out the majority of your new clients are going to find you from your website. Get this right and you have a great way of attracting clients right from the start. Remember even if someone has built and designed your website for you it does not mean that they are experts in marketing. Get your website reviewed by a marketing professional as they can tell you what to do to get in more clients. Even better get them to help you with your website structure before you build the site.

3) Set yourself goals – As therapists we set goals for our clients all the time but we may forget to set them for ourselves. Write down one large goal and two or three smaller goals that are easily achievable. Every day work on ticking off those goals and when one is finished then add another. So small goals might be writing on social media every day or blogging regularly. Larger goals might involve learning to sell downloadable content or writing a training course. Regular goals with target times for completion can help to propel your business forward each month.

4) Keep on learning – Remember that the world of hypnotherapy marketing is changing all the time and that means that you need to keep on top of the latest innovations in the industry. Resolve to spend at least part of your week researching what is new in your field. Look at other therapists websites and see what ideas they are using to attract customers. Subscribe to marketing blogs or journals and read about what methods attract most customers. I know that for the past two years I have hardly read a normal book as most of my spare time is spent reading about what others do. You can also enrol in some courses to improve some of your skills. Check out your local enterprise centre or start an e course online.

Take your business seriously and you will reap rewards. Hypnotherapy marketing is an essential if you are to have a successful practice so resolve to spend time learning how to do it well. Get it right and you client numbers and profits will soar. Get it wrong and your business will never get off the ground.

Digital VAT Impact Therapists

Posted on by Martina McKeough

Digital Vat TherapistsGenerally most of us marketers happily work towards selling our products and services without too much bother at all. For example I have a number of Hypnotherapy products that I am currently working on. Over a period of time I map out what needs to be done to make that product saleable and then over a period of weeks and months I action each part of the plan until the product is complete. Once I am able to sell that product I place it on my website shops and then market it to potential customers. Simple! Or so it seemed until the EU became involved. Now you need to be aware of the Digital VAT impact for therapists about to become law.

For those of you who are unaware from the 1st January this year selling digital goods into other EU countries just got complicated. The EU in its infinite wisdom created a set of laws that would make it harder for some of the big retailers like Amazon to sell products without paying their taxes. Genius apart from one small problem the people making the new laws forgot about small businesses.

Currently there are hundreds of thousands of businesses dotted around the EU that sell digital products. These products can range from online courses, to audios to knitting patterns. Many of these small business earn a small wage from their products and are therefore exempt from paying VAT. In the UK that means that a businesses has a turnover of less that 81,000 pounds per year. With the new digital selling rules starting on January 1st 2015 small businesses suddenly have responsibility for dealing with VAT in other countries as well. In other words if you sell an audio to a client in Denmark you will now need to account for VAT at the Danish rate and not the UK rate.

Now this sudden news that digital products are not subject to this new ruling has gone down like a lead balloon as you can imagine. The burden that these new rules place on small digital sellers is huge but at the moment the politicians and law makers are scratching their heads because they simply had not thought of how their new rules might impact a small business only a large seller. So at the moment how digital sellers should deal with the problem is unclear. That means that if you are currently selling digital products and are selling into the EU you are faced with a number of choices over the next week.

1) Register for VAT in all the countries that you currently deal with and experience an admin nightmare.

2) Register for the VATMoss system and try and work out how you can make your shopping carts deal with the information that the EU needs collected as part of its new rules.

3) Take your products off the market or make them unavailable to anyone outside the UK.

4) Bury your head in the sand and hope it all goes away.

Now hopefully this problem will be sorted out in the next couple of months but for the short term if you are marketing digital products into the EU get up to speed very quickly. To follow the discussions, debates and lobbying on this hot topic ask to join the following Digital VAT Facebook group. This will keep you up to date with any new information about the issue and keep you on the right side of the law!