From Contact To Client : Increasing Client Conversion

You are, by any count, an excellent therapist. You are in good standing with your license. You are skilled, and highly trained. You have years of professional experience. Yet somehow, regarding the internet, you are not getting the clients you had hoped for.

Welcome to internet mental health advertising. In the past, therapists counted on referrals, or phone book advertising to gain clients. But the world is now changing. With the internet taking hold, people are much more selective about a counselor or psychologist then they used to be. In many ways, potential clients today "shop" for a therapist that they feel is best suited to help them.

The purpose and scope of this article is to give you some valuable tips on how to reach out to people using the internet, and how to convert your contacts into clients. Gaining clients via the internet is vastly different than what you may be used to. Potential clients have much more power and control over how they choose a therapist than ever before. You should expect a potential client to "shop around" and look for possible fits to their unique situation. Often individuals will simply "get their feet wet" by talking to a few therapists very briefly and then making a decision based on the therapist's response. Think about how most novels are written. Somewhere in the first few pages is a "hook". Most novels today are rejected for publication without a strong hook early in the story. This is because people will simply close the book and read something else. In many ways, finding a therapist over the internet can be the same thing. Having many choices, a potential client may ask you a few questions to gain a first impression. Their decision to hire you as a therapist will be based on that first impression. "Are you safe?" "Are you competent?" "Do you understand my problem?" These are critical questions most people have when they reach out to you. So how can you maximize your ability to answer "yes" to all those, and convert a potential client into an actual one?