Tag: marketing a hypnotherapy business

Hypnotherapy Marketing – What Should You Charge?

Posted on by Martina McKeough

THypnotherapy feesoday I participated in a fascinating debate on a LinkedIn group where a person had posted a question on exactly how much a hypnotherapist should charge. What followed were a series of posts on the amount people charged clients, what was too much and what was too little. What really got me interested however was that a number of people wrote that they saw themselves as healers first and then hypnotherapists and therefore they never expected to earn much from the profession. Wow I thought this is a problem. How can we be expected for people to take us seriously when we can’t even see ourselves as offering a service that is worth real money. This is a perfect example of negative hypnotherapy marketing.

I was very clear with the group. I do not or have never seen myself as a healer. In fact for those of you writing websites please never post that word on your pages. What does the image of a healer conjure up to you in this day and age? My guess is some new age hippy type who believes that they can make someone well without there being any scientific evidence to demonstrate their abilities. Healers are seen as quacks and also people who could potentially prey on the vulnerable in exchange for dubious services. Alternatively healers are seen as people who have some god given gift to help others. In particular they go around offering to help others for little or no money. Frankly neither of these descriptions comes even close to what I do.

In my hypnotherapy marketing I am very clear. I am a professional therapist who is a member of a serious professional body and who has got significant training and expertise in the area in which I work. I run a very serious business and because of that I deserve to be paid accordingly. My charges may vary depending on the area where you come to see me or the program which you are on but ultimately do not expect cheap. Why am I not cheap? Because I need to pay my bills and live a good lifestyle.  Think like a healer or a person who does not deserve to earn very much and that is exactly what will happen.

Your earnings as a hypnotherapist need to be sufficient for you to pay the bills. That means your income at the very least needs to keep you solvent. Personally I prefer my income to do more than just pay my outgoings each month. I like to go on nice holidays and eat in nice restaurants and I work hard to make sure that I earn enough so I can enjoy the finer things in life. Not every therapist however has the business savvy to make sure that they can do the same.

Get Your Priorities Right

As well as working with therapists I have helped plenty of small business owners over the years. One individual springs to mind who ran play classes for small children. Generally her business model was that she would hire out a school or a church hall and a number of times a week parents could bring their children to the classes for a couple of hours. It would allow the parents to know that the children were being looked after for a couple of hours whilst they got on with other chores. Meanwhile the children would have a great time playing with their friends and enjoying the activities provided for them.

Such a simple business model yet the person concerned was living hand to mouth. In fact when I met her she could not afford to put on the heating in her flat. Why? Because instead of charging the parents for a terms worth of classes she would only charge them if they turned up. This therefore created the problem that she never knew how much money she would be earning each week. If the parents fancied doing something else she would have the hall and overheads to pay for and no money to pay for it. In order to create a stable income for her it was really simple, charge the parents per term. She would have a guaranteed income and then she would not need to worry about her basic income.

Now What About You?

Why do I tell this story? Because I know that plenty of therapists out there do the same thing. They have a room which they need to pay for either in a set time slot or on an ad-hoc basis. They book their client in for a session and the client does not bother to show up. Not only have you then lost the time for the session but you have also paid for room hire, travel costs and lost the travel time to and from the clinic. You have lost money by trying to help people. Now if you had taken a deposit or the payment up front it would be a very different story. I rarely get no shows now because people have paid their hard earned cash upfront.

Or what about the therapists who book their clients on a program and charge session by session. They hand their clients booklets, audios and information packs in the first session and never see their clients again. They have taken all your valuable information and resources and walked out the door with and you will never get paid the full cost of the service.

Have you ever given discounts? Felt sorry for a client and worried that they would not have access to therapy if you didn’t lower your price. Then you found out that this client was living in a large house, paid for Sky TV every month and eating in the best restaurants in town. You have reduced your income because your client has decided they want to prioritise their spending in areas other than their health.

Earn The Income You Deserve

Unless you are one of the few very business savvy therapists in this industry you need to up your prices today. Whatever you are charging is probably too little and if you are a woman this is almost definitely the case. Read my blog on hypnotherapists and gender pay differentials. In this same LinkedIn group there were many people saying that they had hardly upped their charges in years. There is a fear in the industry that we will push our clients away if we charge too much. Yet year on year I have consistently increased my prices and each year my income has risen substantially. I should point out that I started my business during the worst recession out there and still made money.

People will always pay for quality and successful results. Look at your website, the rooms you use with your clients and your advertising. Do they scream success at you? If not then up your game because you will never clients paying more unless they believe they are getting value for their hard earned money. Do not believe as many hypnotherapists do that the profession is lowly paid and therefore you will never become rich from your business. That simply is not true. I see plumbers, builders, electricians all making money from their careers and they are self employed as well. The difference is that they run their businesses to make money whilst most therapists don’t.

Believe it or not you can have your cake and eat it. With my hypnotherapy marketing courses and business mentoring I can help you to have a vocation that you love and to earn great money from it as well. Learn how to market like a pro and watch your income soar.

 

Happy Chinese New Year – Seasonal Hypnosis Marketing Works!

Posted on by Martina McKeough

Seasonal Hypnosis MarketingSo for those of you that celebrate it Happy Chinese New Year – The Year of the Goat. A time for sweeping out the old and bringing in the new and of course with that brings those new years resolutions for the second time this year. Yep it means that not only are you able to capture new customers who want to change their life in January but in February as well. Capitalise on an event such as the Chinese New Year and you now have another way of getting those valuable customers in through your door. This post is about seasonal hypnosis marketing and how it can work for you.

You see throughout the year there are set times when people look are looking to purchase products and services. We see them everyday in the shops but many hypnotherapists are not capitalising on capturing those customers in the same way that retailers are and that needs to change if you want a steady stream of visitors coming to your website. Retailers know that by planning seasonal campaigns they can have a great way of boosting their profits and that means you can apply the same tactics to your hypnosis marketing to increase your revenue.

So what exactly am I talking about. Well lets think of some of the services that you could be starting to offering as part of your marketing.  Here are some really basic campaigns to get you started. How about:

Winter – Helping people with SAD syndrome and depression.

Valentines Day – Helping people who are depressed because of break ups.

Summer – In the spring start advertising to help people get the perfect beach body.

Xmas – Audios on how to deal with Xmas stress.

AprilMay – Helping students to calm their exam nerves.

There are literally hundreds of different ways in which you can promote your products to your customers if you take the time to think about it. You just need to plan your marketing year in advance and choose the campaigns that will work for your business and specialisms.

National Awareness Days

As well as just general promotions there are days throughout the year known as national awareness days or weeks when certain issues are promoted to the general public. Get to know the big ones for your interests and you will be able to attract people looking for very specialised problem solving. Most hypnotherapists should be aware of No Smoking Day but what about some of the following where hypnosis can be used to help with the problem:

  • Tinnitus Awareness Week
  • Stress Awareness Month
  • Pain Awareness Month
  • Alcohol Awareness Week
  • IBS Awareness month

Now these are just a few of the weeks or months where you can advertise your specialist skills and there will be many more.

This is a simple hypnosis marketing tactic but it can help to reap great rewards just by targeting specific groups of customers who want to be helped at certain times of the year. Start to think about what you want to be offering your potential clients for 2015 and structure some simple marketing campaigns around it. At the end of the year look at which were successful and stick with those year on year to increase your profits.

 

 

Marketing a Hypnotherapy Practice Without Mentioning your Guru!

Posted on by Martina McKeough

https://www.hypnotherapymarketingexpert.comI am always fascinated by other peoples websites and how they use them to sell their products and services and drive customers to their sites. I especially interested in their home pages as that sets the tone for the rest of their website. Now I seek out these websites because I want to see what my competition is doing. If I see them doing something innovative or interesting then I may follow their lead on my own sites. I love to learn from others. What I usually come across however is people making a fundamental mistake of marketing and that is not putting themselves in their customers shoes. Today I will share that mistake with you and show you how marketing a hypnotherapy practice can be done without mentioning your guru!

So what is this mistake? Wasting valuable front page website space writing paragraphs on who they trained with and the lofty institutes which gave them their qualifications. More often that not there will be links to their training schools or gurus and even pictures of them on their front page. Now whilst that is great advertising for your mentors and trainers it is absolutely useless for you.

Firstly marketing a hypnotherapy practice by referring to a person only known in the hypnosis world is totally pointless. In the UK there are really one two hypnotists that anyone knows and they are Paul McKenna and Derren Brown. Everyone else is totally meaningless to your clients and they couldn’t care less. Unless you have trained with someone who is a celebrity therapist really don’t bother wasting your time. Instead spend your time writing about what really counts and that is who you are, where you are and how you can help your clients feel better.

Remember you need to put yourself in your customers shoes and give them what they want. They have no interest in who you trained with just whether you are going to solve their problem. I should add that therapists that write wordy, flowery, incomprehensible and meaningless home pages are equally at fault. Using phrases that nobody understands isn’t really going to help you get the sale. As the saying goes “Keep it simple stupid”!

Secondly every time you put a link on your website you are giving publicity to someone else and that is worth something. Really think about whether you feel that the person you are mentioning deserves this free publicity.  Also consider whether by mentioning this training institute or trainer you are giving your potential client the opportunity to leave your site and look at theirs. This means that they will potentially be given access to a database of other practitioners whose websites might look better than yours and you lose the business. When it takes time and effort to get traffic to your website letting your customers look elsewhere is foolhardy to say the least.

When you are marketing a hypnotherapy practice you need to do everything you can to keep that person looking at your site and then contacting you for an appointment and that means keeping your bounce rate low. If you have never heard this term it is used to describe people coming across your website and only quickly viewing one page and then moving on elsewhere. By having links to other organisations on your front page you are giving people an opportunity to head elsewhere immediately. You need to try and keep those visitors on your site for as long as possible and be giving them valuable information not just one the front page but on your other pages as well. The more they hang around the more they are getting to know and trust you which means more sales.

Marketing a hypnotherapy practice on a website is relatively simple when you know how but many people throw a website together without ever giving any real thought to the words and information they are using. The fact is that every single sentence, paragraph and link you place on your site needs to considered carefully. When you understand how to structure a website then it will attract more business. Make fundamental errors and you have lost your customers from the start. Want a website review to help you convert searchers into buyers? Contact me for more details on how to turn your site into a client magnet instead of a dud.

Hypnotherapy Marketing – Don’t Put all Your Eggs in One Basket

Posted on by Martina McKeough

hypnotherapy marketing - don't put all your eggs in one basketI was inspired to write this post because of discussions that were taking place in a hypnotherapy forum that I am a member of on LinkedIn. Someone had posed a question about the Hypnotherapy Directory and whether it was a worthwhile source of referrals for the money. For those of you not in the UK the directory is a paid directory where you can add details about your hypnotherapy business and it appears relatively highly in the search engine rankings. Now this post is not about the directory itself but some of the answers that I saw in reply to this question. A number of therapists had answered yes that it was a good source of referrals and that many got most if not all of their business from it. This created a big red flag in my mind because if there is one rule of Hypnotherapy Marketing it is not to put all your eggs in one basket.

You see the people who are getting these referrals have not stopped for one minute to think what may happen to their business if things were to change. So lets imagine that Google decides to change its algorithm tomorrow and downgrades all directories so that they no longer appear on the first page of Google. Suddenly all these therapists who have used these referrals as their main source of income are going to find themselves on the breadline as the calls will just suddenly stop. Or perhaps five new therapists move into their local area and start advertising in this directory and suddenly their leads are massively diluted. Again their business tanks in a matter of months.

Using just one source of referrals for your Hypnotherapy Marketing is business suicide because the nature of the world is that things change. Things are constantly evolving which means that what may work for you today but not be so helpful tomorrow. This means that in order to survive you need to diversify and where possible be in charge of your destiny rather than leaving it to others to decide.

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Don’t just take my word for it there are plenty of businesses that have gone under because they have experienced issues with their main source of referrals. There are tales of Ebay businesses who got some negative feedback and suddenly found that they were banned from the site and suddenly their business went bust. Others relied too heavily on Google Adwords and when they broke the rules they found that they were no longer allowed on the site. Oh and of course there are the infamous stories of people ranking well on Google but because they had bad backlinks suddenly found themselves plummeting down the rankings when the search engine changed their algorithm.

In order to be great at hypnotherapy marketing you need to make sure that you have a diversified pot of referral sources. That means that if one area goes bad you only lose a small percentage of your leads. You need to build strong and sturdy foundations and if possible conduct a risk assessment of your business. Now in the world of trading and business development where I used to work we would look at our portfolio of trades and every day someone would be looking at what would happen in the worst case scenario. You need to do the same with your business because that will help to ensure your survival. Think about where you are getting your customers from and what would happen if that source of income suddenly disappeared.

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Marketing a Hypnotherapy Business

Don’t take the lazy way out, you need to become a proactive marketer to really make your business succeed. In order to really take your business to the next level you need to build a business which is pulling in clients from every source available to you. So that means:

  • Organic Rankings
  • Paid Advertising
  • Blogging
  • Referral Programs
  • Directories
  • PR and Media
  • Networking
  • Social Media
  • Friends and Family
  • Local Events

The list is endless but if you are not doing all or at least half of the above then you are never really going to build a business that gives you the income that you deserve.

I know that as a therapist it can be difficult initially to understand or even take an interest in marketing but sadly the whole structure of a therapy business means that you need to attract people in through your door. With hypnotherapy marketing it is made even more difficult because the people that you are attracting tend to only stay with you for six to eight sessions at the very most. That means that your turnover of customers is huge and that puts more pressure on you to constantly get more people in to your business every day to replace the people who have finished successful therapy. This business model is very different to that of a hairdresser or beauty therapist because in those businesses you will always get a certain percentage of your clients coming back to you time and time again.

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Therapy Marketing & Coronavirus Update

Although I wrote the wrote this post way back in 2015 I thought it was so important to update it in light of Coronavirus and what is doing to therapy marketing. This post is more relevant than ever because although it is five years since I spoke about diversifying your business and marketing therapists have not listened and many chose to niche in one topic. If that is you currently you may be having a big problem. Not so much is you specialise in anxiety and stress but hell if you ware running weight loss sessions or help children in schools they you are seeing the bottom falling out of the market as we speak.

It is always so important to insulate your business by having a number of strings to your bow. This means on one website you may specialise in weight loss but in another it may be OCD. You don’t need thousands of different sites but having two or three in different areas could help you to mitigate your risks. Plus make sure you have a passive income strategy because that can help as well. Start thinking out of the box and create a proper marketing plan. Ask yourself what would I do if things changed with this tomorrow? How would I be able to react quickly to changing marketing conditions? How can I maintain a resilient business model?

If you don’t understand how to market well then you need to invest the time and the money in yourself and your business so that you get to grips with how you can make this happen. That is why I offer a large number of different marketing and mentoring sessions to fellow therapists to help them succeed in business. Don’t allow your hypnotherapy marketing to be a side thought. Make it a priority and when you do watch your client numbers and revenue soar.

 

Marketing Hypnosis – Who are You Targeting?

Posted on by Martina McKeough

marketing hypnosisSo you are a therapist and you are marketing hypnosis. How exactly do you go about finding people to come to your clinic? Well I will tell you what the average therapist does. They sign up to Yell and a few other directories, distribute leaflets around their area and make a generic website with the minimum number of pages to try and entice clients to call and book. The problem is they are trying to be all things to all people and are scattering their marketing efforts far and wide without ever considering who their target market really is.

Marketing hypnosis through leaflets for example must be one of the greatest examples of futility when they are distributed around your local neighbourhood. You can send out thousands of them but in 99.9% of cases they will never be looked at and thrown in the bin. Why? Because most of the people you are sending the leaflets out to have no interest in seeing a hypnotherapist. It is a classic case of non targeted marketing and it does not work! In order to attract clients you need to work smarter. A generic leaflet won’t cut it but a targeted leaflet handed to the right people might. For example a leaflet about weight loss hypnosis handed out to people before they enter a Weight Watchers class might be nearer the mark. Leaflets about past life regression handed to people attending a mind, body and spirit event could get a greater response and so on.

The same thoughts apply to your website marketing. Is your website trying to be all things to all people. Would it be better if your website targeted a specific group of people so that you are now perceived as an expert in that area rather than the scatter gun approach? I know that if I want help with something I look for someone who is considered an expert in that area. So if I had a problem with stress I would look for someone who specialised in helping with that issue. If I had a choice between a website that dealt purely with that problem and another which mentioned everything under the sun then I would be more likely to pick the one that targeted me.

You see when it comes to marketing hypnosis people want to feel that you know them and you can help them with their exact problem. When they come across your site they want you to have explained exactly why they are feeling the way that they are and how you can fix that issue. Preferably they would also love to see testimonials from people who have experienced exactly the same problem as they have and how they have been helped to overcome the it quickly and easily. A potential client reading this thinks that you know and understand them and will be happy to ring you because you seem like the go to person in that area. A generalist website, leaflet, directory entry or business card simply doesn’t speak to them in the same way.

Whenever you think of marketing hypnosis you have to consider who am I targeting? When you know who you are aiming your services at then you can write copy that speaks to them and them alone. It really is a very simple marketing tactic but one that so many people get wrong. Then when you have the targeted copy consider carefully how you are going to get that to your target audience. Match you audience with the treatments that they are looking for and bingo you get your sale. Think about adjusting your hypnotherapy marketing strategy today to encompass this tactic and watch your conversions increase.

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

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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.

 

Hypnotherapy Marketing – Work Smarter Not Harder

Posted on by Martina McKeough

Hypnotherapy Marketing - Work SmarterWhen I start working with therapists to help them grow their businesses I usually ask them what they would like to achieve from our sessions and the answer is nearly always the same. They want to have more clients. Now believe it or not getting more clients isn’t actually the difficult bit when you know how. My hypnotherapy marketing is generally very successful and when I first started my business I used to see seven or eight clients a day but frankly working that hard every day isn’t fun. It is also not the best way to build a booming business and I will tell you why.

Lets say that you decide that you would like to work a typical five day week with clients. So you ramp up your hypnotherapy marketing and end up filling each of those days with six clients. Typically that could mean starting work at 9 or 10 in the morning and finishing in the evening at 6 or 7pm (if you left a gap between each client and allocated time for lunch). Do that 5 days a week and you are seeing 30 clients a week. Now whist initially that sounds lovely the reality is very different.

1) You are exhausted – Seeing such a large amount of clients is draining especially when you are doing it week after week. Eventually each client will seem like a chore and you will find that your energy levels are unable to keep up with the constant late working hours.

2) Where does your business go next? – If you follow the more clients is better thought you have very little room to grow your business further. Yes you could take less breaks or see more clients at the weekend but ultimately you will hit a ceiling and that is where your business stagnates.

3) What about Business Development? – When you are spending every waking moment dealing with clients how can you find and develop new income streams to grow your business? The short answer is that you can’t because you are too busy working on those one to one sessions.

4) What about your social life? – Many of your clients will want to see you in the evening which means that you get very little time to socialise when you are working such long hours.

Filling your time with so many clients frankly does not make sense. If you really do want to be  great at hypnotherapy marketing and business development you need to find another way. In fact less can be more. I now see less clients per week but earn more income. How? Because I am now focused on growing my business in other ways such as through training, passive income and group work. This is a win win situation for any business. Your clients will be happier because you are not exhausting yourself by seeing too many people in one day. Your profits will also increase because you can earn money when you are asleep or by seeing more people at the same time. Plus there is no longer a ceiling on your potential earning leaving your huge amounts of room to grow your business.

So next time someone promises to help your hypnotherapy marketing by suggesting that you see more clients per week think again. Remember the aim of the game is not to work harder but smarter! For help with your therapy marketing and business development contact me for details on my business coaching packages.

 

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.