The short version of this post? Your brand is your marketing. Without this valuable piece, you miss out on optimal strategies to get your name out there. Oftentimes, therapists and dietitians focus on getting their website up and running or being active on social media. Later, they feel disconnected and unaware of what their ideal client needs. In this post, we’re chatting about why branding is the answer to marketing for private practices.
Your Brand Is Your Marketing
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: your brand is your marketing. When people say “brand” a lot of times you’ll think logo and colors. While this is a large piece of branding, it’s not the only aspect. Branding is the experience a person has with your company. The ways that we curate that experience are through visuals: colors, logos, fonts, patterns, textures and messaging.
There’s no right way to start in your practice. I’ll always encourage someone to at least start! However, marketing without a clear brand means unclear messaging and inconsistent client attraction. When clients come to us seeking brand help, many therapists focus on social media before clarifying their brand and are left feeling unsure of how to attract the right people.
A strong branding helps you to feel effective, confident and resonate with your ideal clients. As you continue reading this post, you’ll learn how strong branding makes marketing your practice easier and helps you to connect with your ideal clients on a deeper level.
What Branding Really Means for Therapists
A simple formula to better understand branding for therapists is this:
Marketing for private practices isn’t as difficult as you think. Once you understand branding and all its elements, you’ll begin to uncover why it’s so powerful. Branding is how you communicate who you are, how you can help them and why you should be chosen.
It can also help with answers to:
- Who is this therapist/dietitian for?
- What kind of experience will I have working with them?
- Do I feel safe, seen, and supported here?
Because the answers to these questions essentially guide the buyer’s journey, this is why we recommend starting your practice off with a professionally done brand. Even if you aren’t totally sure of your design style, often intake questionnaires kickstart so many ideas in your brain!
5 Ways Branding Improves Marketing for Private Practices
Now that you have a basic understanding of what a brand is, what it answers and why it’s important, in the below sections we’ll be outlining a few different ways branding will improve marketing for private practices.
Brand Clarity Helps You Attract the Right Clients
When you brand is clear – your message resonates with the people you’re meant to serve. I know you’ve likely had those clients you are “obsessed” with because they understood you as a human, valued your expertise and were just lovely to work with. Those are the ones we want you to have more of!
If your brand clearly defines your niche and how you help them solve their problems, it makes them feel like “This is exactly what I’m going through… she gets it.”
Consistent Branding Builds Recognition and Trust
One of the biggest “wins” in business is finally being recognized by others. Maybe you start to get asked to be a guest speaker in a signature program. Or, maybe you begin to notice that individuals actually are coming to you as the “professional” in your area of focus.
When you have a consistent brand that feels professional and aligned with your values, your audience begins to recognize it and trust it as a well-known practice.
A Defined Brand Simplifies Your Marketing for Private Practices
Who else just wants everything simplified? We do. As you have a consistent brand, you’ll begin to notice everything else just falls into place.
When you have a clearly defined brand, writing blogposts becomes easier because you understand what questions and information your ideal audience wants to know.
On social media, you’ll find it’s easier to create social posts that look good, because your brand makes you confident to show up online!
Visual Branding Supports Professional Credibility
Ask yourself, the last time you visited a website that did NOT have a professional branding established, how did you perceive that brand?
Usually, practices that do not have a professionally defined brand are seen as less professional. First impressions matter so much nowadays (because our attention spans are so small) so your brand plays a big part in this.
Real-Life Example: Before and After a Brand Strategy
Nourishing NY has been one of our long term clients since 2021. It’s been such a joy to see how their practice has grown from a small practice to a now several-member group practice in NYC.
Attached below is a sample of their Instagram before an implemented brand strategy compared to after an implemented brand strategy. Some of the key points you’ll notice is consistency, clear messaging and visual cohesiveness that makes their group practice feel approachable and a professional in eating disorder help.
Since investing in branding, website design, copywriting and SEO, they have hired additional practitioners, accepted more insurances and consistently get ideal client leads every month via their website.
How to Start Aligning Your Branding and Marketing Today
As a private practice clinician, it’s best to begin aligning your branding and marketing as soon as you dive into private practice. We are a bit biased, but hope this blogpost has given you insight into why it’s so important as a practice owner.
Here’s things you can do right now to begin the alignment of your branding and marketing:
Audit your colors – how do they make you feel? Starting with this will help you review the visual piece of your branding. Do the colors feel too harsh? Is there room to add colors to make it feel more aligned with the feeling you want to portray?
Ask your audience: how does your existing brand make them feel? This is equally as important as asking yourself. Poll your audience on social media using a question box asking them what they think of your brand or what words come into mind.
Work with a designer. If you feel things are completely disconnected, contact a designer as soon as possible. Most designers book far in advance and will go through intake and discovery before diving into a project.
Conclusion: Branding Is the Foundation of Marketing for Private Practices
Marketing for private practice starts with clarity. Getting clear on who you serve, why you serve them and how you’re the answers to their problems will make marketing yourself come easy. I’d like to invite you to reflect on your current brand – see what’s working, what’s not working and how you can improve!
In the meantime, take our newest freebie quiz, What to Focus On in Your Private Practice Right Now? to best determine where you should focus your efforts.
If you decide hiring a designer is the right move for your private practice, apply to work with our team in 2025.
