MHP Institute – Therapist Marketing

Welcome to MHP Institute Blog. Our aim is to offer mental health professionals valuable marketing tips and psychotherapy news, helping them stay updated and ultimately draw in more clients. Would you like to enter to win a one year MHP License click on "click to enter" top right hand side.

The article below “Protecting the privacy of your patients online” raises several concerns about privacy and online communication. In this video we will focus specifically on using e-mail for client communication.

Many therapists do not realize that they could be compromising their clients’ privacy by using e-mail. They are also unaware of the need to inform clients that they are not using a secure form of communication. One solution is to use encrypted e-mails but there are drawbacks to this. Another way is to insert a note about privacy beside the e-mail contact form. However, here at Mental Health Pros we provide one of the easiest solutions in the form of our secure client communication options (Journal/Homework) as part of our practice management tools found in the health portal. (more…)

Here at Mental Health Pros we often receive questions regarding privacy.  We came across a informative article on privacy by Mike Langlois and he graciously allowed us to share this with you.  To read more from Mike go to his blog: http://mikelangloislicsw.wordpress.com/

How to Have a 100% HIPAA Compliant Online Presence

Many of you have asked me about protecting the privacy of patients in your practice online.  Since this concern with privacy often feeds into the anxiety psychotherapists have about using social media, I wanted to offer you a way to build your online presence with an eye to best practices and a sense of confidence.  So here is my instruction manual for having a practice that is 100% HIPAA compliant and respectful of patient confidentiality and therapist privacy.  Do these things and you will never be in trouble. (more…)

Therapist Tip #3

Therapist Tip #2 (Watch: Is your website chasing away clients?) suggested you take an impartial look at the copy on your website.  If it doesn’t effectively connect and inform those who are visiting you may want to consider some changes. You could edit the content, to make it easier to read and more effective at answering the questions most visitors to your site have.

The question this week is what else can you do? (more…)

I just came across a helpful article with some ideas of how to overcome the “holiday showdown” One of their points was to get out and share your holiday survival strategies during this time when many people are in need. They suggested to host a teleseminar, host a workshop or ask to speak at a local venue.  I would add to explore writing and submitting an article to local newspaper or website.  Usually articles with titles that have a number of tips are popular. For example something like “Top 5 things to do to enjoy a conflict free family get-together”.  There are lots of other helpful information in this article if you would like to read the whole article:
What are your plans for your holiday private practice slump?

With a large percentage of people searching the internet for health information your website is now a key point of contact with potential clients. Make sure the message on your website is drawing them to you, not chasing them away.

Therapist Marketing Tip #2

Try viewing your front page from a potential client’s perspective, ideally have someone else look it over too. The key questions to ask are:

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We thought this was a funny cartoon.  Hope you enjoy it also.

Word of mouth is incredibly important to all businesses. But do you know which method of word of mouth is used the most?

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Traditional advertising stalwarts, the yellow pages and print media continue to decline. Dr Lynella Grant, author of “Yellow Page Smarts”, makes the point that relying on just yellow pages is no longer safe as over half of all customers now go to the internet first to find information, even for local services.
So is it time to abandon your yellow pages advertising? Fundamental changes in client behavior suggests that, at a minimum, you should be reevaluating your print Yellow Pages advertising. You might want to consider using your advertising budget to create outstanding online content on your website or on a related blog. Some figures suggest that the use of on-line search can be as high as 80% of all information searches.

In part one and two of  “Is it possible for a cookie to bring in a stream of clients?”, Kelly Ross, Director of Therapist Marketing at the MHP Institute had fresh perspective on the challenges but also the potential of therapist marketing.  The general feedback we received was  “I know I need to do some marketing in order to stand out, but it is really outside my comfort zone.”  So  in “Cookie Part 3″ Kelly lays out a solution that will provide any therapist a variety of tools and resources to stand out while still remaining in their comfort zone.  Watch the video to learn how you can draw in a stream of clients using our “comfy marketing model”.

To learm more about the Practice Transformation System: http://unbouncepages.com/pts5

Did you know studies show over 70% of people checking out a health care practitioner online before booking an appointment?    The importance of the web to all businesses means there has been huge amounts of research in to how people interact with a website.  From these studies there are now established practices surrounding web usability.  I would like to look at just a few points that would apply to therapists.

When potential clients view you home page the pattern their eye movements follow looks somewhat like an F and has the following three components:
•    a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F’s top bar. (more…)