MHM#72 It was like you were reading my mind

A therapist I work with told me something the other day that I thought was such a great example of what we’re actually trying to achieve with therapy marketing.

We’d recently helped her update her website, and a new client rang her to book an appointment and told her that when she read the website, “it was like you were reading my mind.”

And I thought that was such a good way of describing what we’re trying to do when we really understand our ideal clients and reflect back what’s going on for them in our marketing.

When someone comes to your website, you want them to be able to recognise themselves in what you’re talking about. Not just at the level of I have anxiety and this therapist works with anxiety, but at a much more nuanced level where they start to think, this person actually understands what’s going on for me.

People don’t experience their problems as a list of therapy issues. They experience them in their everyday lives, in the things they think about, the situations they find difficult, the patterns they keep getting stuck in, the things they worry about and the things they might not even have been able to put into words yet.

Someone might know they’re anxious, for example, but what’s actually affecting them might be that they replay conversations afterwards worrying that they said the wrong thing, find it almost impossible to say no to people without feeling guilty, or spend so much time thinking about what everybody else needs that they’re not even sure what they want anymore.

That’s the level we want to understand our ideal clients at.

It’s one of the reasons I spend so much time with therapists really digging into who their ideal clients are rather than just choosing a niche like anxiety, trauma, ADHD or relationships and stopping there. Two therapists might both work with anxiety, but the people they particularly love working with, and the way anxiety shows up in those people’s lives, can be very different.

The more you understand those nuances, the easier it becomes to write marketing that feels relevant and personal rather than like it could have been written for anybody looking for therapy.

And this matters because someone looking for a therapist is also trying to work out whether they can trust you enough to contact you. They’re potentially going to be talking to you about things that are incredibly personal, and they want to know that you’re going to understand them, that they’re not going to be judged and that you have experience helping people who are struggling with the kinds of things they’re struggling with.

Your website and your other marketing can start building that trust well before they ever speak to you.

It can also help someone understand themselves a little better. Sometimes people know that something isn’t right or that they keep getting stuck in the same patterns, but they don’t necessarily have the words to explain what’s happening. When they come across a therapist who describes their experience in a way that makes sense to them, there can be a real sense of oh, that’s what’s been happening for me.

This is also why generic therapy copy tends not to do very much. Saying that you provide a “safe and supportive space” or listing anxiety, depression, stress, trauma and relationships might tell someone what services you offer, but it doesn’t necessarily help them understand whether you are the therapist who really gets them.

So when you’re thinking about your own marketing, ask yourself: if your ideal client was reading your website, would they feel like you were reading their mind?

Of course, in the very early days of private practice, when you may not have worked with many of your ideal clients yet, you’ll need to make a few assumptions. But as you start working with more of them, you can keep building on and refining your understanding of what’s really going on for them.

Because when someone feels genuinely seen and understood, it becomes much easier for them to trust that you might be the right person to help them and take that next step towards booking an appointment.