Our best recommendation for an optimised speech pathology marketing that helps with therapy client acquisition 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 therapy clients 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. They are looking for a solution.
So focus on private practice marketing ideas that bring to your business clients looking for therapy 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 your therapy client acquisition engine 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.
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 to acquire therapy clients 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 speech pathology 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 wasting money on ads outside your region.
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 therapy client acquisition, this can be an endless cycle of paying rent to Facebook.
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”.
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.
Should I include social media in my speech pathology marketing plan?
If you you provide local speech pathology services, then a skeleton social media is enough to serve as a window to you as a speech pathologist.
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.
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. Start with one channel, grow that channel before you spread yourself thin with another.
What about search engine optimisation (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?
You won’t find blogging tips for speech therapists here. Same advice. 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. If you work part-time, is there a therapist you can share the office with?
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 therapy client referral program?
Start with the above and then measure and understand where your business comes from. It is unlikely that a formal referral program rather than simple networking and word of mouth will yield outsized results.
Managed referral programs with paid incentives are usually better suited to highly scalable digital products or high volume businesses.
How does therapy practice client retention play a part into this?
Client retention is more cost-effective than new client acquisition. For private practitioners, it involves balancing clients’ needs and goals. Unlike public settings focusing on getting to basic function and meeting regulatory qualification requirements due to budget constraints, private therapists aim for complete treatment if clients desire it and can afford it.
When thinking about the ethics of retention, it is a delicate balance between the needs of your clients, their goals, their participation, their budget as well as what is strictly necessary.
In a private practice, if a client’s financial situation allows, the focus can be more on achieving the client’s specific goals, often aiming for complete treatment rather than just functional improvement. This is why it is essential to always first seek to qualify your client’s goals and outcomes.
Older children and adults should be involved in this decision and could be able to advocate for themselves. For example, a parent may want a child to work on their lisp but the lisp is not an impediment to their learning or social interactions nor does it bother them so the child may want to be discharged. The goal here would be to work with the family to ensure the child’s voice is heard and acknowledged in the decision.
Building trust as a currency for therapy practice client retention
In building trust gradually to help with therapy practice client retention there are three main approaches I recommend:
- Building goals up gradually: clients however may not always identify all their needs. Your experience becomes valuable in suggesting additional goals as therapy progresses. Some clients with extensive needs, may feel overwhelming to list all goals upfront.
- Educating your client and their families about the therapy process: In pediatric therapy, there is a fine balance between conducting therapy and engaging the client to make progress. Parents might not understand the purpose behind activities like playing games such as Uno. Break it down step by step and train parents to use the strategies at home1.
- Encouraging parents to share simple records in the journey (audio recordings, number of correct elicitations, etc). Include these measures in in your reports. Remind clients and their families of where they started and where they are now. Showcase the improvement to reframe the investment in your services and keep them motivated over time.
In conclusion, our best recommendation for speech pathology marketing 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. Finally, strong ethical therapy practice client retention strategies will unlock the trust that can build a strong word of mouth referral back to your practice.
If you’re just setting up your business, you can read a simple guide on how to start a private practice in speech pathology.
1Roberts MY, Curtis PR, Sone BJ, Hampton LH. Association of Parent Training With Child Language Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatr. 2019 Jul 1;173(7):671-680. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.1197. PMID: 31107508; PMCID: PMC6537769.
