Want to increase customers to your business and get extra revenue? Then you need to understand some of the fundamentals of hypnosis marketing . Creating a business can be easy once you know how but you need to have the knowledge to get your therapy practice off the ground. Here are our top ten marketing tips to boost your hypnotherapy business.
1) Get Digital Savvy
The days of marketing via papers directories are over. Every hypnotherapist should now have a website which creates client conversions by being informative and professional. Your website is your shop window so if it is poorly put together, lacks content or is airy fairy then customers are going to visit for seconds and move on elsewhere.
If you feel that website creation is beyond your abilities then get another professional to build it. Make sure that you have the ability to edit the website yourself as it will save you thousands of pounds over the years. The number one platform of choice for website building currently is WordPress so where possible get your website builder to use this software.
Where possible learn how to create a website yourself. YouTube has hundreds of videos showing you exactly how you can create a website on WordPress or many other platforms. Creating your own website will save you hundreds of pounds initially and will enable you to control your content. As your marketing efforts become more sophisticated you will be able to add elements to your site to increase leads and profits.
Remember that a website should never be static. Add new content all the time and engage your readers as that will enable you to generate more clients. Where possible get a marketing professional to look over your website before it goes live. A professional website assessment will enable you to capture all the key elements you need to make your business a success saving you time and money further down the line.
2) Understand the Power of SEO
For those of you unfamiliar with the term it means Search Engine Optimisation. In other words how you optimise your website so that it appears highly in the main search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. If you website does not appear on the first page of Google you will be invisible to your customers so understanding how to increase your ranking is of huge importance.
SEO can seem complex to an outsider especially as the rules are changing all the time. Start researching what you need to do in order to increase your website ranking. Currently to rank well you need to:
- Site Technicals – It needs to be speedy, have a great site architecture and have minimal broken links.
- On Page SEO – Writing randomly about your business or treatments is not enough. You need to understand the key elements that you need on each page in order to be found by the Search Engine bots.
- Link Building – If your content is good then other sites will link to your information. The more links you have from QUALITY sites the higher up the search engine your website goes.
- Social Signals – Your interaction with parties on social media sites now counts towards your website ranking. Make sure that you have set up business accounts on the main social media platforms.
- Content Promotion – Letting people know about your great content is hugely important to building your brand. Using paid advertising, infographics, forums and the press to let people know how great you are.
I currently have an online course called “Turn your Hypnotherapy Practice into a Client Magnet” which can help you set you your website so that it converts customers rather than repels them.
3) Social Media for Therapists
Interaction on Social Media is now hugely importance for SEO and for also promoting your services. Think how amazing it is that you with sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram you can attract customers without ever having met them face to face. If you haven’t set up business accounts on these sites then it is time to start as they play a big role in promoting your brand.
Posting comments about what you had for your dinner or endless selfies simply won’t cut it. Instead you need to interact with your target audience. Remember sending out endless promotions won’t work either. People do not like to be bombarded with sales pitches. You need to engage with your customers on a personal level, get to know them and only then mention how you can help.
4) Understand the Power of Paid Advertising
Paying to advertise your services is great but only when the adverts are highly targeted. So sending out thousands of flyers around your neighbourhood is likely to get you virtually no response. Place your weight loss hypnosis adverts outside a gym or a slimming club and the response may be very different.
Do your research! If somebody rings you out of the blue trying to sell you paid advertising and selling miracles stay well clear. Never invest your money into anything until you are 100% sure that it will work.
Don’t forget that paid internet advertising on Facebook or Adwords can attract highly targeted customers for your business. These methods can be costly so before spending your money do your research or get a business professional to help you set up your adverts.
5) Stay in Touch with your Hypnosis Clients
How many of you finish your sessions with your clients and then never contact them again? Attracting customers is not an easy job so once you have a satisfied client understand that you now are able to sell to them again and again. Sign them up to your newsletters, give them information on your new products and you are likely to get further business. Most of your customers may only know about the treatments or products that they have already bought from you. Telling your customers about additional products gives them an awareness of all the great things you can do for them.
For example if I see a client for Fertility Hypnosis then I always tell them about my Hypnobirthing sessions as well. If they become pregnant following my treatment then helping them through the birth is a great way of getting existing business from them.
6) Serious Business Attitude
Unless you are planning to work as a hypnotherapist for pin money or on a part time basis you need to be working at your marketing every single day. You should think of yourself not just as a hypnotherapist but a business owner. Most entrepreneurs or people who run businesses work incredibly hard setting up their company and you should be no exception to this rule. That means that even when you don’t have any clients you need to be sat at your desk and working on ways to bring in revenue.
A typical entrepreneur or new business owner will be working 12 to 16 hours days every day until their business is established. So if you have three clients in a day you need to be using the additional hours to attract new business or to set up new products. Set yourself tasks which you need to complete every day such as Facebook or Twitter interaction, weekly tasks such as blog posts or YouTube videos and monthly tasks such as SEO or product creation. There should never be a point in your day when you are at a loss as to what to do. Marketing has endless possibilities to use that creative mind of yours to come up with what you are going to do next.
7) Money, Money, Money
Marketing also means understanding your accounts and balancing your budgets. One of the first questions you need to ask yourself before spending money on marketing is “will it bring me a return?”. In other words for every monetary unit that you spend exactly how much additional revenue will you get. That means you need to understand your accounts.
Just blindly advertising for clients and not understanding the numbers is a common mistake. You need to think like an accountant. Understand exactly how much money each client brings in and how much of that amount is swallowed up in room rental, travel costs, phone calls etc… That will tell you your profit for each client. One you know this consider your marketing spend. Every time you spend money on flyers or paid advertising you need to understand exactly how much more revenue that will bring in and how much of that will be profit. Do not listen to the sales people selling miracles to you crunch the numbers first.
Your marketing budget may be tiny or very large it really doesn’t matter providing it gives you a return. Imagine if you spent 1,000 dollars per month on advertising. As a small business this may seem like a huge amount to you but if it generates 6,000 dollars of business most of which is profit then you are on to a winner. That said you do not always need to speculate to accumulate. I am always a lover of free marketing. The internet for example has opened up a world of possibilities for small businesses. Now you can sell yourself and your products for nothing providing you have a computer and internet connection.
8) The Power of Blogging for Therapy Marketing
If your website doesn’t have a blog then start one asap. Blogging can be used in a number of ways to increase the number of clients that you see and your reach. If your blog is entertaining, informative and engaging you can build up an audience who subscribe to your content. Suddenly you are the expert in your niche which means that people will come far and wide just to see you.
Writing a blog also gives you an additional opportunity to appear in the search engines on certain topics. Think about the terms that people use to search for your niches or business and then write a blog on that subject. You may find that now you appear on the front page of Google more than once.
9) Video Killed the Radio Star
Utilising video whether it be on your website or YouTube can be a great thing but only if it looks great. I have seen thousands of websites where videos are badly put together, the person in them looks like they have been dragged through a hedge backwards and they can barely string a sentence together. If this is you don’t bother because it will send your clients elsewhere. Remember other people can create videos for you and for a small amount of money you can still get professional looking videos to show on your site without the bad production values. If in doubt stay out!
10) Get Professional Help
If you have never run a business before or are struggling to get clients or business then it pays to get in a professional to help you. If your central heating goes wrong you call in a plumber, if your lights go out you get an electrician but when a therapist is barely getting in any business they often do nothing. Professional business help is not only affordable but it is a necessity especially if you do not understand marketing or how to attract customers.
As a professional Business Mentor I help my fellow therapists to make money out of their chosen profession. I have over twenty five years of business experience and run my own successful therapy practices as well as mentoring others. I know that simple and practical marketing and business advice can make the world of difference to a therapist. In fact it can mean the difference between them continuing in the profession they love or going back to the old day job that they hated. I have packages suitable for everyone just check out my mentoring packages to see what may be most suitable for you. Simply give me a call on +44 1636 650 521 or alternatively fill out my contact form for more information.
Good Luck
Martina McKeough
www.hypnotherapymarketingexpert.com