Everybody makes mistakes. This is a well-known cliché. Now, when it comes to marketing and advertising, if you make mistakes it will cost you. Let’s take a look at some of the most common marketing and advertising mistakes in the counseling business:
1. Spending money on ineffective advertising
Advertising can work wonders for your business—if you do it right. But when you do it wrong, you strike out big time. For example: A counselor takes a $5000-dollar gamble on event sponsorship, or radio ad, and receives a near-zero return. After betting heavy and losing, the counselor no longer has the courage (or financial means) to try again, anywhere. Therefore, effective advertising isn’t about taking big swings. It’s about making smart decisions based on tests that don’t break the bank. Then, when you find something that works, you increase your budget.
2. Getting your target market wrong.
Another major, common blunder is getting your target market wrong. Do you know the gender, age, zip code, interests, goals, and concerns of your typical client? If you don’t know this, you aren’t ready to start marketing. First, spend time understanding who it is that is looking for your services and who might actually purchase them. Too many counselors think that their practice is for everyone. It isn’t.
3. Not paying enough attention to new clients.
There are plenty of ways to track the effectiveness of any given marketing campaign. From unique phone numbers to website analytics, UTM codes, to simply asking people who call for an appointment, “Where did you hear about us?” Counselors should be able to determine how potential clients learn about their practices. Think about it: If the client found you online, do you ask where online? Did they get your phone number from your website or your directory listing? Did they find you on Bing or Google? What keyword were they searching for? Did they find you in the paid or organic listings? This information is available if you take the time to find it and pay attention to it.
4. Spamming people who don’t want to hear from you.
For example: If you send out an email newsletter, make sure that the people you’re sending it to want to receive it. Sending your newsletter to every email address you get your hands on (or buy) won’t increase business; it will, however, increase the number of people who report you as spam. Soon, you won’t know who your real audience is, and you won’t be able to reach them anyway because Gmail will filter all your messages instantly into the spam folder.
5. A poorly designed website.
You mail out flyers, hand out business cards, and even pay for ads that lead people to your website. There’s just one problem; when someone visits to your website, they find a mess of bad stock photos, formatting, and typographical errors. If you’re going to have a website in 2019 (or 2009), take the time to have it well-designed.
Can you believe we’ve just scratched the surface? There are many other marketing and advertising mistakes that will cost you bigtime. But you’re off to a good start if you address the above.