Your potential patients care about how your practice looks. They especially care about how your website looks. According to Stanford University, 75% of people judge the credibility of a company based on their website design.
75% may seem like a high number, but how your brand looks matters. Having a quality high-end looking brand paints a story to the patient your high-end professionalism. Likewise, having a less than ideal brand screams unprofessional. While it seems unfair to be judged on how your private practice appears, it's a natural thing of what we as humans do.
6 Components of a Brand
The word "brand" is kind of a fluffy term to most therapists. But there are key components that you should consider when creating your brand.
Brand Part 1: Creating Your Private Practice's Purpose
Creating your purpose and boiling it into a sentence or two is an important part of how you want to display your private practice to your potential patients.
“To inspire humanity – both in the air and on the ground.”
“To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
“To create a better everyday life for the many people.”
As a mental health professional, what is your purpose? Does your purpose connect with your patients?
Brand Part 2: Positioning Your Private Practice
Brand positioning means the place a brand occupies or wants to occupy, relative to the competition, in the mind of a customer. Brand positioning takes into account the target audience, competition, and any outside market factors. There are some classic brand battles competing via brand position. One of the most memorable in my mind was Apple trying to differentiate itself from PC in the mind of consumers:
In these Apple commercials, Apple attempts to show their “cool factor” and also the ease of use for every day life. They also portrayed PC as a middle-aged man and Apple as a cool, hip, young adult.
As a mental health professional with a private practice, it's important that you know how you want to position yourself or your company to target the audience that you want to target. If you're looking to target athletes, everything that you produce, including your website, should target athletes and display information and imagery that will connect with athletes.
Brand Part 3: Establishing a Promise
A brand promise is what your customers can expect from purchasing your product(s) or the process of purchasing your products. Some great examples include:
“We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen.”
“Save money. Live better.”
“15 minutes or less can save you 15% or more on car insurance.”
Geico’s, Walmart’s, and Ritz-Carlton’s “promises” clearly demonstrate what consumers can expect if they experience their products and services.
How about your practice? What kind of "promise" could you create that your target patients would connect with?
Brand Part 4: Summarizing What You Believe
Brand beliefs define how your business makes its decisions. These are your business’ core values and what you stand on. Here’s a great example from Chick-fil-a of a brand’s beliefs, or values, on display:
“Why We’re Closed on Sundays: Our founder, Truett Cathy, made the decision to close on Sundays in 1946 when he opened his first restaurant in Hapeville, Georgia. Having worked seven days a week in restaurants open 24 hours, Truett saw the importance of closing on Sundays so that he and his employees could set aside one day to rest and worship if they choose – a practice we uphold today.”
Whether you agree or not with this viewpoint, Chick-fil-a is not shy in expressing their beliefs. It’s important your brand stands up for what it believes in.
As a mental health professional, you can also create deeper connections when your patients connect with your beliefs, whether that is your view on the best procedures to use or whether to offer insurance or not..
Brand Part 5: Creating a Personality for Your Brand
Brand personality are the characteristics associated with a brand. It’s something that the consumer can relate to. It includes characteristics such as humor, conservative, innovative, inspirational, and many more.
Under Armour often uses motivation to inspire in its marketing:
Under Armour knows exactly who their target market is and what they like to hear, see, feel, and experience.
What does your target market want to hear, see, feel, and experience? If you perform a teeth whitening service, perhaps an educational, inspirational, before and after approach would connect well with your potential patients?
Brand Part 6: Establishing Your Brand's Book Cover
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” In the marketing world we live in, your potential patients are judging how your brand looks to them. A Brand’s Book Cover are all of the visual characteristics derived from the above 6 components. Things like color scheme, logo, typography, tagline, and brand guidelines are important in visually representing a brand’s purpose, positioning, promise, identity, beliefs, and personality.
In creating your best website design possible, it's important that your brand speaks clearly to your patients and potential patients. With the high level of competition in the mental health industry, It's crucial that your website looks extremely professional and connects with your potential patients so that you appear to be the best option to help them overcome their needs.
Where Will My Brand Appear?
Once a brand is built out, it can appear in many places. Let's explore a few of the top places that your customers will see your brand in action:
Your Website
Your website is the most visual component of your private practice outside of your actual practice. It's important to showcase your values and what makes your practice different from your competitors on your website. It's also important to use your brand's colors and logo created.
Print Collateral
Any print collateral, such as brochures, mail marketing, fliers, and more should have your updated brand colors and logo used. These should also use the same or very similar fonts so showcase cohesiveness and professionalism.
Your Private Practice
Your actual practice should incorporate all your brand messaging. If your brand is lined up with a "zen" relaxing spot to get treatment, then you should strongly consider creating an environment that reflects that idea.
Your Customer Service and Ethics
Last but certainly not least, the way you treat your patients should reflect the core values you line up with. Brands are not meant to be phony but instead be a true reflection of what a patient can expect from your practice.
We are a Top Private Practice Branding Company for Psychologists, Psychiatrists, and Therapists
We work with many different types of mental health professionals and have the results to show we mean business. We would be more than happy to provide you with an honest overview of your private practice and how our branding service, combined with our other services, can grow, streamline, and protect your private practice. We are your X-factor for increasing bringing you new patients, keeping your practice safe, and reaching your financial goals.
Need some help on your branding strategy? Contact us for a free consultation - We are a top therapist marketing company that works with therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. we look forward to speaking with you!
The Problem
Growing your private practice can be a struggle for even the most talented practitioner. Many practices rely on word of mouth, which can take years to build and is inconsistent for referrals.
Also, some private practices have discovered the power of internet marketing and are taking away your potential patients.
Once a potential client reaches your website or practice, do they love what they experience? Mental Health Marketing and Behavioral Health Marketing can be confusing.
Our Solution
Branding is the solution to align your private practice to your patients so that they connect with you.
Learn our full process for growing private practices like yours, Read about our process here.
Here are a few of our tactics to grow your practice:
- Competitor Research
- Web Design
- Copywriting
- Search Engine Optimization
- Google Advertising
- CRM Setup
- Email Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Branding
- Consulting
After Amy’s website was built, she started a 24 month SEO campaign. Amy’s strategy targeted two main areas: Google Search listings and Google Map listings. In 24 months, Amy now ranks for over 1600 keywords on Google – Important keywords like “eating disorder psychologist”, “therapist miami”, “psychologist miami”, “psychologist near me”, and many more of Miami’s most competitive keywords. Amy’s previous site generated very little organic search traffic, she saw a huge jump of local searchers visiting her website. Amy’s Google Maps location was not being found by potential customers previously, but after 24 months of optimization 227 quality local leads brought new opportunities to Amy’s practice. Finally, Google Search yielded 302 quality leads, while previously her website was not generating any leads from Google. In total, 529 quality, local leads were generated in Amy’s 24 month SEO campaign (These organic campaigns will continue yielding leads for many months and years for Amy’s business). Amy continues to use our SEO services as we’ve only scratched the surface of potential!
“BartX are true professionals and a pleasure to work with. They have really helped my business grow and I am definitely seeing results. Anthony Bart, the owner, is a great guy and he knows his stuff!” – Amy Boyers
FAQ About Psychologist, Psychiatrist, and Therapist Branding
Below are some common questions our psychologist, psychiatrist, and therapist clients ask us about branding: