You came into the field of providing psychotherapy or coaching services because you want to help people. You trained in how to provide clinical services and you’re well versed in theoretical approaches and interventions. You did your stint working in an agency setting, most likely, and now you’re in private practice. You realize no one ever taught you how to get the word out about your practice!
Marketing your private practice can feel like an overwhelming, foreign and sometimes even paralyzing process. Fortunately, there is support available so you need not go this alone. Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) to support your practice marketing efforts can be a time saver and an anxiety management tool. There are most definitely specific ways a VA can assist you in getting the word out about your practice.
Ultimately, when I am guiding and mentoring therapists on developing their ideal private practice, I emphasize the importance of what I call authentic relationship building because we are in an industry that is relationship-based. In order to build your referral network, you need to build relationships within your local community. But this does not mean you have to go this alone. A VA can help. There are many ways a VA can support your business . and marketing is one of them!
8 Ways Hiring a VA to Support Your Practice Marketing Efforts Can Help
1. Creation of Branded Social Media Ads and Post Images and Social Media Management. Our VAs here at Adminities are skilled in creating aesthetically pleasing branded images and accompanying social media posts across all social media platforms to be sure your practice’s name is out in front online. You want people to see your business’s logo and name on the regular and a skilled VA knows how to create engaging posts and even schedule your social media presence for you.
2. Serve as your Community Outreach Coordinator. When I was building my first group private practice I hired someone to serve as what I called our Community Outreach Coordinator and now you can have one for your practice even if your VA lives across the country! A skilled VA knows how to engage with people in your community to make initial contact, set up appointments for you to meet with them in person, and find other ways to get the word out about your practice.
3. Create flyers to distribute in your community. Our VAs at Adminities know how to create visually appealing flyers, have them printed and delivered to your door or to other locations as needed. Coffee shops, libraries, medical offices, community centers, places of worship, and schools all may be places that would be willing to hang your flyer for patrons to see and learn about your local practice.
4. Coordinate free community talks. This might fall under #2 but it deserves its own mention. One of the things I have taught therapists in my business development training programs is how important it is for you as the service provider and practice owner to get out into the community to demonstrate your expertise, your warmth and to make those in-person connections. Providing free talks in the community allows parents, teachers and other professionals a chance to experience you in person. A VA can assist you in organizing a list of topics, scheduling as well as creating and organizing appealing handouts.
5. Email management. Hiring a VA to support your practice marketing efforts can also involve helping you be sure all emails that come in are responded to in a timely and personable fashion. Our VAs at Adminities are professionally trained in providing first-rate “customer service” and we have VAs who provide a BAA so they can even be in touch with your previous, potential or current clients via email.
6. Extending thanks to referral sources. Your VA can create a tracking system with you to identify where referrals are coming from and then follow up with those sources to extend a heartfelt thank you from you in order to reinforce the connection and keep that referral source feeling good about having referred to you.
7. Keep the referral sources remembering you. After a source has sent you a referral and they’ve received a thank you, your VA can put that source into her database and follow up in 30 days, 60 days and 90 days reaching out and sending a supportive article you’ve written that they may be interested in seeing or just touching base on your behalf to let them know you have a few openings on your schedule if they have anyone they may need to refer.
8. Manage your blog and/or video channel. It’s a good idea to engage in some content marketing as part of your strategy. The VAs we contract out are trained in helping you write, proof and edit articles for your blog, choose images, set up search engine optimization and upload videos you create to your YouTube Channel and on your website.
It can be very easy to be overwhelmed by the prospect of getting your name out there and building your referral network and we know how much you likely prefer to focus on clinical services for your clients. That’s why we created Adminities.
Contact us today and let us set up a time to talk about how we can personalize support services for you with your very own Virtual Assistant.
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