My friend Maria got an email from Psychology Today with her monthly “profile statistics.” She was told how many searches were done in her area and how many people looked in depth at her profile. She was then told how many people sent emails to her via Psychology Today’s links.
Maria’s question to me was, “Are these good numbers? How do I interpret them”
My response was, “Don’t try to interpret them. Delete the email and never look at those numbers.”
In college I was one of those crazy people that actually liked statistics. I took 3 probability and statistics courses. In one class, the entire syllabus was about how to critically evaluate stats. Our textbook was actually titled “How to Lie with Statistics”.
So, with that said, let me explain why I encouraged Maria and why I encourage you to disregard those numbers.
1) What do they really mean anyway?
Okay so there 2,865 searches done for your area in one month. And 100 of those people viewed your full profile. And a measly one person sent you an email. Does that mean you chuck the whole thing and drop your listing?
Not by the statistics themselves. For example, say there was a borderline patient of another therapist looking to see what her therapist said in her profile – and went in every day to check..that could inflate the number of searches in the area.
Or let’s say that a therapist recently put his listing out on the site, he may be looking at who else is in his area and that may inflate the number of searches.
2) Who is doing the searching?
You can’t assume those searches are done by potential clients. For example, every time I do a workshop I show some great listings as samples. Then the workshop participants often refer to these listings later. Good grief – could you imagine if those therapists took a gander at their numbers? 3,850 searches for your area. 2,483 views of your profile. 0 emails sent to you. It could look as if something was terribly wrong. They could think their listing was bad, but in fact, just the opposite is true.
3) And do you really want email to be the method of contact?
Who cares how many emails you get – the point is how many times you are contacted and how many of the contacts will become clients.
In fact, phone contacts are much better for you so you can use your intake call script to really connect with the prospect.
Let’s say you get only one contact a month but that person becomes a full, cash-paying client. You have a great return on your investment.
When you next get your online locator statistics, please consider what I said to Maria – and make the “delete” key your new best friend.
Next week I will talk about how to know if your online therapist locator investments are “paying off” for you.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Most sites seem to be between $0 and $30/month, with most being $10. Although I wasn’t able to know which sites were bringing business, I was able to track my ROI. For the first six months of the year, I was spending $70/month on advertising and getting about $2,000/month of business. Although it has already been said, I want to repeat that it takes only 1 client coming one time (give or take a little) to pay for a year’s advertising on most of the sites. Also, I’ll reiterate the importance of using the free sites. Surprisingly, I’ve gotten several clients from the site of my professional organization, with little effort besides providing my name, address, and phone number
In July, I upped my advertising budget by another $150, and the calls have increased. I’m now a “featured therapist” on one of the main search engines, so I’m at the top of the page under a couple of terms. I’m not sure if I’ve gotten new clients, from them, but I’m confident that the increased name exposure hasn’t hurt.
Unsolicited suggestions: focus on couples’ sites, as they tend to be full-fee clients (because their insurance typically doesn’t pay.) Also, I’ve found that most Internet clients have never been to therapy. So, it’s even more important to be clear on your office policies (including forms of payment.) I’ve been “stiffed” a couple of times by clients who’ve expected to use credit cards and couldn’t with me. Then, they didn’t return.
In the end, take the plunge into Internet advertising. I certainly went through the, “I should be good enough to build my practice only on referrals” phase. The referrals do come (including some from Internet clients,) but it takes time (particularly for us “new to practice” therapists.)
Joe,
Each state has it’s own legal maze so my suggestion is to get involved with a local chapter of therapists and ask them. Or seek out others practicing in private practice and ask if you can take them to lunch and pick their brain about licensure.
Good luck!
Casey
Dear
I am a counselor with an MS in counseling psychology, and 15 years experience. I have been a team leader with a large agency in Yakima, and am trained in DBT, behaviorism, and many other approaches.
My difficulty lies in licensure. In my job at the agency, registration was considered good enough. After leaving and opening a practice, I have discovered the necessity of being licensed, and need to go through the process as effectively as possible. With the changing regulations, it becomes even more urgent. I have many times the hours required, but supervisors come and go at this agency, so it is difficult to obtain some of what is needed.
Any advice you could provide will be appreciated.
Thank you, Joe Schmidt, M.S.
Hi Casey: Great article — I found it useful, educational, and thoughtful. It made me re-evaluate my online presence in a more well-informed way. My question then becomes: How do I choose which 3-5 online therapist locators to be on? What might be some criteria to think about? Maybe this could be the basis for your next article!
Casy et al.
I am on most of the major managed care panels. I see between 32 and 38 appointments per week. My annual income exceeds 105,000 per year. I do not have to spend any time marketing my practice in order to keep up this case load. In fact, I turn away an average of 2-3 people a week looking for a therapist. However, I am not at all pleased at the reimbursement rates from the Insuance companies. I would like to get my full rate from many more of my appointments. However, if I average the amount of time and costs of marketing the practice into my income it is hard to see the benefit. I would like you to show me how I can make more on average. Most of what Casy and others talk about doesn’t take into consideration the cost of our time to do the marketing. Please consider that your time spent marketing could be used seeing paying clients. I am writing this because I want to be talked out of this position. I would like to make $150+ a year in the same amout of time that I am spending making &105+. I am no stranger to marketing. I have done many speaking dates, radio and tv appearances, written a newspaper column and even had my own radio talk show for 3 years. Is there a way for me to increase my income? When you consider the amount of time it takes to attract 10 appointments paying $125 per visit is it worth it if it takes 10hrs per week to get 10 appointments per week. The other question is who is the population that can pay $125+ per visit and do we want to exclude the “working people” who need to use their insurance to help pay for therapy?
Yes, Jill, you are right – most people don’t know how they found you other than “the internet.” This is understandable as I can’t usually tell how I found a particular website other than “the internet.” So just accept “internet” and don’t try to press them.
Sometimes you can use unique email addresses with the services so you can see, by the email address, how the prospect found you. But this only works with services that use email as the way to connect.
But you are right. In a way, you have to lump these together and call it your “internet marketing budget.”
Casey here’s a question for you and the other bloggers. I’m listed on several locaters but I have no idea WHICH one funnels clients to me! When I ask people how they found me (which I ALWAYS do), they simply say or write “online/the internet”. Once or twice only people told me Psych Today because they had begun with the advert in the magazine. How do you guys KNOW which locater people have usedto find you?
I can’t believe you published this today. The first thing I was doing this morning was adding up how much I was spending on internet advertising and trying to decide if $150.00 was worth the investment. Well, I did the math and realized that the two client’s I have obtained through the internet this past year have more than paid for my advertising. Thanks for the validation! Linda Arbiter, LMFT
I was glad to see your msg., Casey, about stats. I’m a fairly recent subscriber and user of your materials. I find them easy to use and invaluable. I get 1-4 calls/months from my Psychology Today ad and am pleased with the result even though a couple of thousand people may search in my zip codes and my profile may only get a tiny fraction of those hits. You taught me to use the language of the people who want what I treat and that works. I’ve been told by a very seasoned private practice therapist, that about 1/10 calls actually convert to clients who pay out of pocket and I’ve found this to be true.
My biggest challenge is not booking the clients but having clients who need weekly therapy get weekly therapy. This summer many of my private pay clients want to be seen every other week; some b/c they are getting better but more b/c of the economy. It forcing me to think more about marketing and consider taking insurance. I already work for a clinic so dealing with insurance in my private practice is not a pretty thought.
Hi, Casey, I agree with you about the statistics being meaningless. I advertise on PsychologyToday.com, and have done so for a few years. Basically, the numbers are inflated because some of the people viewing the page are people that got the address from the signature line in my emails. And I imagine that everytime I look at the website myself to decide if I want to edit it, that counts. Most of the emails I get are from people who want to use an insurance that I don’t accept or who want help for an issue that I don’t treat, despite the website listing my practice areas and insurance panels. I get an email about once a month, get a new client every few months, and have also used the site to locate a therapist for a client who moved away. Someone recently contacted me looking for office space, so it was a networking opportunity. Basically, Psychology Today is a good way to obtain a web presence that is highly ranked in Google searches, for an affordable monthly rate. Younger people rely on the web for information, so this is the wave of the future. Interestingly, 90% of people who contact me about the website send an email rather than calling.
Thank you for opening this discussion!
Well I am not sure about the slowing down part. I have gotten three new weekly clients in the last month- about one per week from online therapy locators. I noticed a slow down over the summer, but did not make any changes to my copy because I felt like it might just be a slow time. So here I am, happy I did not “fret” and enjoyed my almost full practice during the summer. Now I get to enjoy my completely full practice for the time being!
Hi Casey,
As usual, your comments and advice are right on. I am so glad that I have remained a subscriber to your service for so many years…your guidance and comments are what help me make my business decisions.
Thanks!
Casey thankyouthankyouTHANKyou forthe recent post about statistics…I’m one of those who has felt queesy and disappointed looking at those numbers. This one is suitable for framing and I will copy it to remind myself not to panic in the future. I also appreciate your generosity. A few years ago we had a conversation that was very helpful for me – at no cost as followup to your presentation in my area. Your suggestions have helped and I’m grateful! Thanks for the good work you do.