Our best recommendation for speech pathology marketing is to start with a basic website, an optimised business profile on Google, possibly some ads and strong local marketing activities. Avoid seo, a blog and print.
Before you start your marketing plan though, you need to be clear about your business plan and more specifically the types of patients you wish to engage. If you are a generalist vs a specialist, if you do tele therapy or not, will change the focus of your speech pathology marketing strategy.
In speech pathology, the customer journey to being a patient or “purchase cycle” is much quicker than most businesses between awareness > consideration > decision > purchase. You patients need your help, now.
So focus on minimal marketing for awareness and consideration through minimal digital presence such as Google Business profile and your website and some local marketing. Then add trust signals to help favor the decision towards your practice with testimonials or “social proof”. Finally, to kick start your business, you might invest in some initial basic ads to get you up and running fast.
Remember also, with speech and language therapy, it’s a seller’s market. There is much more demand for your services than there are available speech and language pathologists (SLP). If you select the right type of customer, the right region and are selective in your marketing your practice, you will be able to quickly build up your business.
What basics shall I start with for my speech pathology marketing plan?
As a small local business, you need to have a website and update your business profile on Google. Both should have contact details, possibly a contact form. Some SLPs only have a Facebook pages. That’s a simple and manageable solution! Ideally you should have some testimonials from previous customers on your Google company profile, your website and/or your Facebook page. Do follow guidelines from ASHA or RCLST on requesting testimonials and ensure your customer’s privacy.
It is very important that across your website, if possible, in the title of your website, you specify the area in which you practice. This might enable Google to serve you in top 10 search results when someone local types in ‘Speech and Language Pathologist Near Me’. For example, your website title might be ‘Speech and Language Therapist in Birmingham’. If you have a physical local or provide your services in a specific region, you can setup a Google business profile, high quality photos, a phone number, a link to your website.
You can build, even yourself, an easy website with Wix with standard templates that include appointment scheduling, payment solutions and services packages. For custom logos, multiple AI tools within Wix or such as Looka.com or LogoAI.com can enable you to create your own design. If you’d like more help than the DIY, 99designs and Fivver full website design packages.
Some people might suggest investing in search engine optimisation (SEO) and blogging for your website. These take a lot of time and investment. Competition is fierce for ranking in top 10 results on Google search engine results. So I would be careful to invest time or a huge sum of money unless you decide to build a brand and sell products on your website.
How do I do local marketing?
Local marketing is about building relationships and building trust that will bring you word-of mouth referrals. Local marketing will be by far the most effective marketing practice you can invest in. It does take more time than other marketing activities but, especially if you do a great job, word of mouth will be strong.
As an SLP, unless you do tele therapy, most of your patients will be local. For generalist speechies, I would recommend registering your name with:
- all local general practitioners (GP), pediatricians, behavioral therapists, pediatric physical therapists and occupational therapist, and school-based professionals (including teachers, counselors, senco and administrators)
- associations such as Association of Speech and Language Therapists in Independent Practice (UK) or American Academy of Private Practice in Speech Pathology
- local directories such as Yell.com, Yelp.com
- with your local borough directory of business or local chamber of commerce
- specialized charities
- joining local Facebook Groups
Consider sending thank you notes or the occasional bouquet of flowers to people who refer you. If you receive referrals from a GPs, monthly reports to the GPs keeps you top of mind to send you more referrals.
Do watch out about scams where people want to include you in a directory but ask for a fee.
More information on local marketing on the Wix blog.
What about paid ads as a marketing strategy?
You can consider some locally targeted ads if you are just starting your business. Facebook social media ads provides good control to focus on specific demographics and regions so you aren’t marketing to the whole world but are very targeted to whom you wish to serve.
There are pay per click ads on Google Search, Google Display Network or Facebook Display network. Google Search is more about keyword intent i.e. what people input in the browser for example ‘Pediatric Speech and Language Therapist in London’. While display ads, are banners on websites or social media.
With ads, it can be an easy way to start your business up and running with a few first patients. Though when paid ads stop, your business referrals stop so if you haven’t developed alternative means of generating business, this can be an endless cycle of paying rent to Facebook and Google.
You may want to consider hiring a marketing agency to runs speech therapy advertisement because this is a very technical domain but be careful about return on your investment as marketing agencies might ask for a minimum spend that would not give you the right “bang for your buck”.
Make sure you develop in parallel word or mouth and local marketing. They are cheaper means of generating new business, although less quick to show results.
With ads, always ensure that you measure the cost to acquire new patients vs how much business you get from each patient as you want to avoid paying more on ads than the business it brings in.
Finally, Google and Facebook have strict ads policies about speaking directly to someone’s disability, disorder or disease. You will need to experiment and determine what you can do within those guidelines and what works for you.
What about social media such as Instagram or X?
If you want to focus your business on providing local speech and language therapy service, then social media is not the best marketing strategy.
Your customers will not find you because of social media. Customers will find you via a Google Search “speech and language pathologist near me” or via the directory in “Association of Speech and Language Therapists in Independent Practice” then land on your website, and finally understand who you are from social media before contacting you.
In this case, it would only serve to give a window into who you are, your practice and what you can help patients with, then linking your website to your socials. Posting only once or twice a week should be fine.
Do you want to reach a large digital audience and say, for example, resell some materials from your own ‘Teachers Pay Teachers’ store? Yes then social media might be an option.
Social media takes a strong commitment to regularly post new and engaging material to develop your audience, at least a few times a day. Social media means engaging, commenting, responding. It’s a highly involving activity if your goal is to generate new business. We love the simple templates built by Therapy Marketing Kit. Alternatively you can look at great templates on Canva.
If you decide that social media is a good strategy for you, you should consider the trade off between social media platforms with short term lifetime of a social media post. Instagram posts ‘live’ a few minutes or hours, YouTube and Pinterest assets have longer, evergreen lifetime value. Also, start with one social channel and build on that specific channel before you spread yourself thin. Don’t try to simultaneously do Instagram, X and Tiktok.
What about search engine optimisation or SEO for speech pathology marketing?
Similar to social media, if your primary business is delivering in person local services for speech and language therapy, then focus on local marketing tactics and local search engine optimisation including the above basics: a Google Business profile, a website or Facebook page, some limited social media.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) for SLP delivering in person services is not worth it. It takes time, it costs a lot of money, it’s very competitive. Review our detailed “How To” guide on how to SEO for speech pathologists.
If you intent to sell digital products, then that is an entirely diffrent story, because with search engine optimisation you can reach customers more broadly, even globally.
Now, if you do intend on selling digital products, make sure you focus on a specific niche where you differentiate. There are many speech and language pathologists creating great material and trying to sell them online. On “Teachers Pay Teachers”, selecting “Speech Therapy” and the filter “Free” there are over 10,000+ available materials.
Be very clear about where you invest your time and why you invest your time, maybe that’s a specific underserved clinical focus area where you are an expert? To make money, be diffrent, be unique.
What about a blog or a newsletter?
Same advice here, unless you can commit to regularly posting or creating a newsletter, which might deter you from your practice, that you really love writing, think wisely about investing in a blog to ‘acquire new business through content marketing’. If you are a generalist, the amount of content to serve well all the different patients you have will be too high for this to work for your business.
However, if you are in a very specialized practice, for example court appointed pediatric SLP, having a blog which helps Google users find you through content marketing could pay off as it costs up front to develop the blog content but then it can pay off for a long time.
How about a large banner over my street front office space?
If you are building a private practice with multiple SLPs, if you have a receptionist, then possibly a business front on a busy street may make sense. A busy street will serve both as publicity and patient acquisition.
If you are a solopreneur, best is to start small with an office space that does not require an expensive lease, where you don’t need a receptionist to manage appointments and scheduling then consider upgrading as the volume of business grows.
As you business grows, measure which are your most effective marketing ‘channels’ is that word of mouth? Referrals from GPs? Local Facebook groups? A busy street front address for walk-ins? An expensive office space might not be the most cost effective splurge to recruit new customers.
What about leave behind printables or print advertising?
Consider some minimal business cards, postcard mailers or flyers that can be displayed at local GPs, chiropractors, osteopaths, pharmacies, and libraries.
Print is otherwise dead. Avoid a home door-to-door mailing campaign.
Also strong caution on print advertising. If you are considering this as an option, before investing, ask the editor where these magazines or newspapers are distributed and how many consumers they reach. They might only have a small distribution, of which most is outside your area.
What about a referral program?
Start with the above and then measure and understand where your business comes from. If they come from word of mouth, without the need for paid referral program, then such a managed program might not yield very good returns.
If you get your referrals through a few select GPs, charities or law firms, then maybe it is a consideration worth exploring depending on the competitiveness in your area or your domain of specialization. You might already get enough business to fill your working hours and so this could be only extra unnecessary management.
Managed referral programs with paid incentives are usually better suited to highly scalable digital products or high volume businesses.
In conclusion, our best recommendation is to setup your website, your business profile on Google, register with ASLTIP, possibly build a skeleton social media presence to get people to know you and your style and some minimal paids social ads at first. Finally to focus most of your efforts on local marketing activities.
