April - May 2007 - Marketing for Healing Professionals by Juliet Austin, MA, Marketing Coach

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The Healing Journal

PO Box 371

5525 West Boulevard

Vancouver, BC

V6M 3W6

604-603-3840

Are You Wasting Your Money Advertising Your Healing Services?

One of the biggest mistakes healing professionals make is to assume that all they have to do to acquire clients is place an ad or two in some publication and clients will come bursting through their door.

Healers often tell me they have spent a lot of money on advertising with minimal, if any, results. Many become discouraged and erroneously assume that advertising doesn’t work.

But this is simply not the case. The reason you are likely not getting good results from your advertising is that you don’t know enough above advertising to make it work for you.

Chances are that your ad has one or more of the following problems:
It is not targeted to a narrow enough audience, has an ineffective headline, is focused too much on you and your healing modality and not on the potential client’s problems and concerns.

Furthermore, you may have completely unrealistic expectations about the length of time you will have to wait before your ad starts producing results. Finally, if you are relying on advertising alone to bring in clients, you could be headed towards disaster.If you want to maximize the financial investment you get from advertising here are some guidelines that will help you get the best results possible.

When placing an ad, commit to running it for at least 6 months to one year (or longer) so that people get used to seeing it repeatedly. You can’t expect to get results from an ad that you have only placed for a short period of time. People need to see your ad repeatedly before they are likely to take any action. Repetition is key here. It will typically take a while before you start seeing results. Remember, if in the beginning you are breaking even with your ad, it is completely worthwhile to keep it going. There could be many people seeing it who are thinking about your services.

Your ad will be more effective if you gear it towards a specific target market.

Directing your ad towards all people who might want a healing professional is not as effective as focusing it towards those who are experiencing a particular problem (e.g. allergies other specific health problem) and/or belong to a specific group of people (e.g. women with a chronic illness). Although there are exceptions, gone are the days where generalists can be highly successful. There are far too many practitioners out there. You must find a way to stand out from the crowd.

People want to see someone whom they believe has expertise with their problem. You cannot be an expert at anything if your market is too broad. When people see an ad that speaks to them and their problems directly, they are much more likely to respond to it.

Advertising works best when you place your ad in a well targeted publication. Think of the type of client you want to attract and their problem(s), find out what they read and place your ad in these publications. For example, if you work with parents of young children, you might want to place your ad in a parenting magazine. Likewise, if your market is helping pregnant women, you might try to find publications or websites that they read.

Start with an attention-grabbing headline.

The opening headline is the most important aspect of your ad. The goal of a headline is to get the attention of potential clients. If your headline is boring, the rest of your ad will be irrelevant, as your audience will never read beyond the headline. Make sure your headline has either a specific problem and/or benefit embedded in it.

Make the client’s concerns the focus of your ad, not yourself or your services.

Far too many practitioners focus their ads on themselves and not enough about their client’s problems and the solutions they are seeking. Open the ad by addressing the core problem(s) your clients are experiencing, so that when they read it, they say to themselves, “Yes, that’s me. This is exactly the problem I’m having.” In the end, you will not only get more clients this way, but your clients will be better served because they will be more suitable for your particular services. In addition to addressing the concerns of the market you are targeting, be sure to mention a few key benefits your clients can expect to experience if they work with you.

Never, ever, rely on advertising alone to attract clients for your practice.

Advertising works best when used as part of an integrated marketing strategy. On average, it takes at least 5 - 7 times that prospective clients must hear about your services before they may be ready to call you. Building a practice is not a one-time event, it is an ongoing process that requires a well thought out strategy. It takes repeated exposure in many different places before you can expect to have your phone ringing off the hook.

Juliet Austin, MA, a former therapist, is a Marketing Coach and Copywriter who assists counsellors and healing professionals in overcoming resistances to marketing so that they can attract all the clients they can handle. Visit Juliet’s website at www.julietaustin.com to get your free, 22 page guide, “67 Surefire Ways to Attract Clients.” Mention this article and you will receive $10 off on Juliet’s next Marketing Dialogues.