MHM#20 Once my caseload is full, can I stop marketing? 

I often get asked, "Once my caseload is full, can I stop marketing?"

The type of marketing and the intensity may change, but as a business, you'll always need to market your Practice.

Here is a brief lesson on one of my favourite topics, brand management. 

To build a strong brand, two things need to happen:

1. Your ideal clients need to become aware of you.
2. Your ideal clients need to create positive and accurate associations about you (thoughts and feelings about you and your Practice)

A key objective of brand management is to get your brand in people's consideration set. People can't consider making an appointment with you if they firstly don't know about you and secondly don't feel positively about you. 

Marketing's job is to increase awareness and create positive and accurate associations. 

A prospective client might become aware of you by typing "therapist" into Google and your Google Ad campaign pops up. Now, this prospective client knows you exist.

Then, this prospective client will hopefully visit your website, read your blog articles, visit your Instagram account, and watch your videos. Now, they have created associations - they know who you work with, what you help them with, and your modalities. Your videos give them a sense of your personality, what a session will be like with you, that you'll "get them", and you'll be a good fit.

This prospective client will typically visit other therapists' websites before considering which therapist they feel is right for them and booking an appointment.

Suppose a therapist's website does a poor job of resonating with their ideal clients and they have no social media presence, photos, or videos. In that case, fewer positive associations will be created and possibly even some negative or inaccurate associations created, making it less likely the prospective client will choose them.

I have very strong negative associations about Coke, and they are never in my consideration set when I'm considering what drink to purchase :) However, being a huge company with huge sales, they have a lot of data useful for marketing and consumer behaviour research. This is why they feature so highly as case studies when you're studying marketing at Uni. 

Coke and Pepsi are both huge, but they never ever stop marketing. Why? Because they know that if they did, people's awareness of them would start declining, and they would gradually fall out of people's consideration sets.

There are obviously some significant differences between the soft drink industry and mental health - every day, people can be considering what drink to purchase, whereas therapy clients might only select a few therapists to see in their lifetime. One of the main differences is how long people consider booking an appointment with a therapist.

According to LIVIN.org, "On average, it takes 8 years for someone to seek support, and still, about 55% of those with mental health issues receive no professional help." No doubt, the average timeframe changes depending on what people need help with. But as therapists, you know many barriers exist to people seeking help. 

This is why consistent long-term marketing is essential in maintaining your caseload and future-proofing your business. A prospective client might become aware of you today - but it's your Instagram posts and valuable blogs and newsletters that maintain that awareness and keep building on those positive associations, so if and when they're ready in 12 months or 3 years, they'll consider and choose you.

It also provides an opportunity to address barriers and stigmas on your website and social media, helping more people feel confident and safe asking for help.