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When you provide a service for a living, your prospective clients have an infinite number of choices of who to hire to help them or work with them. The most common way that private practices get their clients is through referrals from happy and satisfied current clients. But that is no longer enough. When someone passes the name of their therapist, their chiropractor or divorce attorney on to a friend, you have to assume that the person will still do their Internet research before picking up the phone. Assuming you have established a web presence for yourself, when that person comes to your site, either as a cold or warm lead, it is vitally important you put your best foot forward. This does NOT mean that you need the world's fanciest marketing website. In fact, overspending on a website that includes custom graphic design, animation, flash, video or other sophisticated (expensive) technology is almost always overkill. A coach, a therapist, a healer needs a good-enough website. Good enough to inform the web visitor about you, your credentials, what services you provide, why you are an expert in your field. Don't let the site be bland and vanilla. Unless you are bland and vanilla. Because there are so many others out there who do what you do, your site has to stand out and stand FOR you. If a web visitor looks at eight or ten different provider sites, can they clearly understand what makes you different? Some of that is your messaging of your unique selling proposition (or USP). That is the problem you solve and why you are uniquely qualified to provide it. There is more to it than that. Ultimately the purchase decision about hiring you is being made by a person. And people want to work with people they like. So make yourself likeable. Let your personality show through in your web marketing. You don't necessarily need a blog and a Facebook presence, though those might both be worthwhile. A silly typo in a recent e-newsletter received more response than any other newsletter I had ever sent. Because I let my humanity show. People reached out to me. If you are a cat person, put an image of you with your cat on your website. Update your website with seasonal greetings. Tell stories that give a glimpse into your world---of course staying within professional boundaries. When you use a content management system, you can easily update and change your site on an ongoing basis. If you use a web developer, have them build some updatable sections into your site content where you can change the Quote of the Week or some other way to stay fresh and personal. Be real and be authentic and see what a difference it can make.
Article Source: http://blogticles.com
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