Authors: Ryan Shinazy & Cole Butler, MACP

(7-minute read)

For Counselors, Therapists, and other Private Practice Mental Health Providers

Introduction

In today's competitive landscape, branding is more important than ever for private practice counselors, therapists, and mental health providers. Your brand is the identity of your practice, reflecting the environment and services you provide. It is essential for attracting the right clients and building trust.

According to the American Marketing Association, a brand is a feature that distinguishes one business from another. It comprises elements like a name, tagline, logo, design, and brand voice.

By consciously creating your brand, you can control the impression you make on your target audience. This will also help you build a strong, noticeable identity over time. Here’s a concise guide to help you build your brand in seven simple steps.

1. Define Your Brand Identity

Your brand identity is the foundation of your practice. To define it, start with these elements:

- Inspiration: Identify what inspires your work. Is there a quote, image, or story that fuels your passion for therapy?

Example: No tree can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. ― Carl G. Jung

- Value Proposition: Consider what makes your practice unique. Highlight specific therapies, your approach, qualifications, and any specialized skills. Are there specific mental health issues you want to assist clients with?

Example: Do you practice using Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Humanistic/ Client-Centered Counseling, or maybe you use Existential Therapy? Do you specialize in Addiction Counseling? Each of your approaches, certifications and expertise add value to your brand; therefore, they are worth mentioning!

- Mission Statement: An important next step is to craft a brief and concise declaration of your practice’s purpose and values.

Example: As a humanistic counselor my goal is to provide you with empathetic, nonjudgmental support to help you realize your life's full potential.

- Visual Identity: This consists of everything from your logo to color scheme. Choose a color palette and fonts that evoke the feelings you want associated with your brand. Different colors evoke various feelings.

Example: red represents passion, blue stands for trustworthiness, and yellow elicits optimism. So, select your color palette based on the message you want to convey.

Tip: Tools like Canva can help with digital content design and creation. Additionally, Pinterest can also be a helpful resource for selecting color palettes. Just search for “color palette” or “color scheme”along with a color you like. Then see which results align with your visual identity.

2. Understand Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience helps you to tailor your brand to resonate with those you are most equipped to help. Follow these steps:

- Identify Your Ideal Client: If you haven’t already, define your ideal client. This can consist of factors such as age, gender, profession, life stage, mental health challenges, and therapy goals. Ask yourself, what population of clients do you most want to work with? Don’t forget to consider their values and lifestyle during this brainstorming session.

- Client Personas: An effective way to brand yourself to your ideal client is to create fictional representations of them. These fictional personas help you to visualize your target audience and create messages that resonate deeply with them.

Tip: your message should make potential clients think to themselves, “wow, this counselor is speaking directly to me!”

- Buzzwords: Create a list of words, or keywords, that will align to your ideal clients, reflect their core needs, and match their preferences. This will help your ideal clients find you when they search for a provider to match their needs.

3. Build Your Online Presence

A strong online presence is crucial in our digital age if you want to expand your practice and help your target audience. Here are a few essentials:

- Website: Your website is your home base, and as such, it should contain everything about yourself that you want to convey to your target audience and prospective clients. This ranges from your visual identity to your mission statement, value propositions and more.

After you establish your website, implement search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to improve visibility. These techniques will increase the odds of your website popping up when people search for keywords relating to your practice.

Tip: Read our previous blog post SEO for Mental Health Professionals for a more in depth look at SEO techniques.

- Social Media: Create profiles for your practice on platforms where your ideal clients spend their time. Ensure your social media feed authentically reflects your brand.

Tip: In Social Media Marketing for Therapists we said, you don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do." This is still true! If your ideal clients are women going through midlife changes, then TikTok probably is not the best strategy for reaching them! Try to imagine what platform you could reach your ideal client through.

- Online Directories: Another way to gain an online presence is to list your practice on relevant online directories.

Examples: Psychology Today, Healthgrades, or the Integrative Care Collective!

4. Utilize Content Marketing

Content marketing is a great way to showcase your expertise and provide value to your audience. Implement these content tactics:

- Blogging: Just like what you are reading now, blog posts are an excellent way to provide value to your audience through information. By blogging and writing articles on relevant topics, you establish yourself as an expert and increase your credibility.

- Lead Magnets: A lead magnet is a free item or service given away to collect people's contact information. By offering valuable resources like eBooks or guides, you can exchange them for your audience's contact information.

- Email Marketing: A significant way to keep in touch with your audience is through newsletters. Ensure your emails reflect your brand identity and include clear calls to action like the one below:

Tip: Check out our Mental Health Marketing Beginner’s Guide. It's full of helpful marketing tips for mental health providers.

5. Network and Collaborate

Building connections with other professionals can also enhance your visibility and credibility. Here are a few ways to do so:

- Local Networking: Engage with local therapists, healthcare professionals, and community groups. Attend events, join associations, and participate in activities.

Example: The Nowak Society is a Northern Colorado non-profit whose mission is to connect and organize psychedelic communities. Their goal is to give voice to the essential values and pressing issues of the psychedelic movement.

- Online Networking: Join forums, social media groups, and professional networking sites. This will help you connect with like-minded individuals and expand your social networking reach. Platforms like LinkedIn are valuable resources for professionals to connect.

- Collaborations: Moreover, partnering with other professionals is an astonishing opportunity for mutual growth. It is important to ensure collaborations are beneficial for all parties involved, especially the clients.

6. Include Testimonials and Reviews

Testimonials: testimonials and reviews are powerful tools to demonstrate the effectiveness of your services. However, it is critical that all testimonials and reviews are collected in an ethical, HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliant way.

According to the American Psychological Association Ethics Code, National Association of Social Workers Ethics Code, and the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics, directly asking for reviews from current or previous clients violates these codes of ethics.

As a mental health provider, you still have the option to gather character references and reviews from family, friends, peers, and professional colleagues. Additionally, by making it easy for anyone to leave a review for you practice through a link on your website, you can still gain reviews, as long as they are not solicited.

Tip: For more on How to Get Google Reviews for Your Therapy Practice in an Ethical Way read this informative article by TherapyFlow.

7. Invest in Paid Advertising

Last but not least, paid advertising can significantly expand your reach:

- Google Ads: Google Pay-Per-Click ads are a popular option for many businesses and are simple to set up. They target potential clients searching for therapy services you may offer.

- Social Media Advertising: Use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and more to reach a broader audience. Most of these platforms have their own built-in paid advertising system to help get your name out there even further.

Tip: Refer to our Beginner’s Guide and Social Media Marketing posts for more online marketing strategies.

Final Thoughts

Remember, branding is a continuous process, not a one-time event. Just like the practice of counseling, it is vital to regularly reassess and adapt your brand identity to stay relevant. To see long term results, these branding strategies and target marketing tips are a must to make your brand messaging a success!

Additionally, if you feel like you are still struggling with branding, support is out there. A professional branding specialist can provide you with the help you need. An expert can provide guidance, save your time, and enhance your branding efforts. This would allow you to focus on what you do best, which is helping your clients!

By following these 7 mental health branding steps, you can create a compelling brand. A strong brand will attract your ideal clients and establish your practice as a trusted and identifiable source.

About the Author:

Ryan Shinazy

Ryan Shinazy is an Intern at Integrative Care Collective PBC. He is an Honors Student in Psychology at University of Northern Colorado (UNC). He is currently a Senior with a 4.0/4.0 GPA. He is currently working on developing his honors thesis under Dr. James Kole, entitled: Understanding Loneliness in the Digital Age: Implications of Social Media Use. He plans to get his Master’s Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at UNC. As ICC PBC’s Intern, he is responsible for content production, including SEO-optimized blog posts and social media content.

Find him on LinkedIn!

7 Steps to Effectively Create a Mental Health Brand