Penny For Your Thoughts? Top Tips For Effective Mental Health Marketing

Our country is facing a growing mental health epidemic, with people feeling more isolated and overworked than ever, mental health services like therapy and social work have become essential resources for many people. This means that now more than ever, therapists and social workers need to be marketing their services in a way that makes them visible to as many potential patients as possible. Ready to grow your clientele? Here are some of our best ideas for mental health marketing.

Where to Market Mental Health Services

When advertising mental health services, it’s important to keep in mind who you are marketing to. While marketing to individual future patients can be effective, there are more efficient ways to increase brand awareness. For example, why market to one person when you can market to an entire organization of potential patients? Organizations you can build service contracts with include: 

• Schools
• Employers
• Insurance providers
• Health clinics
• Assisted living centers

When you partner with larger companies, you gain access to a much larger range of potential customers and open yourself up to contracts that will ensure you have patients for years to come. 

Of course, you also want to make sure you’re marketing in places where mental health services are needed the most. Some of the best places to market for visibility include: 

• Libraries
• Homeless shelters
• Food banks

• Rehab centers
• Halfway homes for convicts

To cover the costs of those who don’t have the money, you can apply for government grants and fundraise in your community, allowing you to reach a greater audience of those for whom social work and therapy can mean the difference between life and death. 

Finding and Marketing Your Niche

All mental health services are essential, but they also cover an incredibly large range. From diagnosing mental disorders to family therapy services, student support to behavioral therapy, there’s a lot of area to cover, and no one clinic should expect to cover it all alone. Find your target audience, whether that be couples, individuals with disabilities, elderly care, pediatric services, or even just employee burnout prevention. This will make it easier for you to find and market to your target audience. 

Once you know your niche, reflect your specialty in your marketing. If you’re specializing in child therapy, you can offer branded toys and coloring books, and market counseling services to schools for students who need out-of-school support. If you specialize in addiction care, you can partner with other rehab centers (or create your own) and work with insurance providers to include your clinic in their coverage. 

Combating the Stigma

One important part of advertising mental health services is to combat the societal roadblocks that prevent patients from getting the help they need. Many potential patients (or their parents) will balk at advertising that talks about mental health problems as a disease or a disability. While this terminology is helpful when protecting the right of medical care for those with diagnosed mental health problems and can be used when marketing to company decision makers, it will often not be as effective when it comes to the patients themselves. 

When marketing to individuals and their families, there are two ways to approach fighting the stigma to get people in your office, and you can absolutely use both at the same time. 

1. Build Awareness: People may not realize that the problems they are having are something that can be treated, or that it’s a problem at all. Use your marketing, especially online, to share what you treat, how you treat it, and why it’s important to the quality of life for your patients to get treatment.

2. Normalize: More than just spreading awareness, it’s important to help people see mental health problems as a normal part of being alive, like skinning your knees as a child, and nothing to be ashamed of. You can also use this method to suggest that those who aren’t aware of any mental health problems should seek counseling as part of preventative care, just like they should get yearly doctor checkups.

Some ways you can accomplish both goals include: 

• Posting informative articles on social media
• Hosting educational workshops
• Giving presentations at schools and businesses
• Sharing informative videos in your newsletters

Breaking down the stigma to allow more people to gain access to mental health care is more than just a business imperative. It’s a public service, and because of that, it is also something you could request government grants for. As you put together your marketing campaigns, remember to take time to sort out what you can get funding for and what would be solely clinic expenses. 

How to Create a Social Media Following

Your social media is an important venue to both gain new patients and to educate your followers. However, in order to accomplish either goal, you need to be seen. If you want to gain a following, here are a few methods to use: 

• Use lots of visual media: People respond well to pictures and videos, so make use of as many of them as you can when trying to engage your audience.

• Offer rewards and prizes: Branded swag and discounts make great incentives to help customers engage with your social media.
• Be candid: Customers want to see real people, so show them a sneak peek behind the scenes at the office and on the job (where appropriate.)
• Be available: If people in crisis can contact you through social media, they will. Offer a chat option on your social media to help those get immediate help, then you can guide them through the process of arranging an appointment later.

Using Giveaways to Promote Your Services 

How are customers going to remember you when they’re home and feeling stressed? Will future patients know how to find your information after attending a workshop? Giveaways are a great way to share promotional materials that will last in the homes of your current and future customers. Here are a few great ones that therapists and social workers can offer to market their services. 

Color Therapy® Adult Coloring Book – 24 Pages

Adults need to let out their creativity however they can, and this coloring book is a great way to bring out that self-expression without the stress of creating your own lines. Customize with your logo and share it with your own branded colored pencils! You can also offer something for the kids with this kids’ coloring book and branded crayons. 

Globe Shape Stress Reliever

While we offer all sorts of stress reliever shapes and sizes, the globe has always been popular when marketing to schools, businesses, and other companies. Easy to play with at home or at work while offering that squishy side to take your stress away, stress toys are a great way to put your brand right where customers will see it when they are most in need of your help. 

Carton Garden

Everyone knows the power of nature on mental health, and this cute portable planter is a great way to bring a piece of nature indoors. Branded with your logo, this DIY garden works both to share your brand and double as a therapy device for those who need something extra to smile about.

Vienna Hard Bound JournalBook™ Bundle Set

Journaling is a great therapy tool for any patient, and these journals feature cheerful colors that will make your patients look forward to their therapy homework. These notebooks come with their own custom stylus pen attached for easy journaling on the go. 

Mood Fun Guy Pen

While not necessarily accurate for telling your mood, these super fun pens are sure to put a smile on anyone’s face! Made to change color according to the temperature while featuring a smiling face, these pens are a great way to brighten up your customers’ day while sharing your brand. 

Hot tip: Need more ideas for great giveaways? Check out our selection of stress relief promotional products on our site! 

Boosting awareness for your services not only helps your business; it helps your community. So many people are struggling with mental health, unaware that there are options available to get better. Take your marketing to the next level with these mental health marketing tips designed to grow your business and bring in new patients.