Smart Marketing Strategies for Private Practice Therapists

Kristie Plantinga [00:00:00]: 

Again, I’ve run very successful Google Ads campaigns, but Google itself is a selfish and unreliable partner. They could change something like that, their policies, and they’re not going to tell you about it. It’s just going to happen. All of a sudden your ad groups are down and you’re just kind of left in the dust. And we’re not high spenders, therapists, right? We’re not like these other companies that have hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad spends every month, right? Maybe a couple thousand dollars. So we’re not, we’re not Google’s priority, right? So that always freaks me out a little bit when working with Google. And that’s kind of why, like SEO, we’re kind of like behind the scenes more kind of like, how are they working? Because I don’t work for them. I don’t even work with them. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:00:44]: 

I kind of work against them. 

Linzy Bonham [00:00:48]: 

Welcome to Money Skills for Therapists, the podcast that helps therapists and health practitioners in private practice go from money confusion and shame to calm play, clarity and confidence with their finances. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by numbers or avoided looking at your business money, you’re in the right place. I’m Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of Money Skills for Therapists. 

Linzy Bonham [00:01:09]: 

Before we jump in, check out my. 

Linzy Bonham [00:01:10]: 

Free on demand masterclass. You’ll find the link in the show notes or@moneynutsandbolts.com under masterclass. It’s the best first step to finally feeling empowered with money in your private practice. Let’s get started. 

Linzy Bonham [00:01:23]: 

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Kristie Plantinga. She is a mental health marketer who lives in Colorado. She’s the founder of Place Digital, which was formerly known as Therapy SEO and is a marketing agency that serves specifically therapists and coaches. Today, Kristie and I talk about the digital marketing space. We get into SEO and Google Ads and who are those for and how do they work? We talk about the importance of Google in terms of the way that folks access the Internet and the importance of being able to work with Google as it is. We talk about return on investment both. We talk about how soon you can expect to see a return on your investment when you are spending money on marketing, but also how do you calculate return on investment and how do you know whether somebody who’s come to you has actually come from this marketing activity or that marketing activity? And we also talked about the best forms of marketing. 

Linzy Bonham [00:02:17]: 

Whether you are just starting your solo practice or growing a solo practice or growing a good practice, there’s different levels of marketing that Kristie suggests, which is really helpful to hear. Here’s my conversation with Kristy Plantinga. So, Kristie, welcome to the podcast. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:02:41]: 

Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here. 

Linzy Bonham [00:02:44]: 

I am excited for this conversation, too. I feel like I have a lot that I can learn from you, and I’m planning to learn from you during this conversation. No pressure. Just so you know about the marketing space, because this is certainly not my favorite part of business. And I’ve joked before when I go to, like, hire a marketing coordinator that I’m always like, so you like marketing? 

Kristie Plantinga [00:03:04]: 

I don’t believe you. Yeah. 

Linzy Bonham [00:03:06]: 

I’m like, are you safe? Like, blink once if you need help because it’s certainly not what lights me up. I mean, I love doing this podcast, which is a certain kind of marketing activity, but that general kind of world, I think, is certainly not where my strengths are. Right. So it’s always, like, lovely to talk with folks who have just, like, different brains, different strengths, like different passions. And marketing for therapists is what you do. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:03:30]: 

Yeah, it’s all I do. You know, we work with therapy practices and rehab centers, but we’re solidly in the mental health space. As unique as it is, as ever changing it is, we specifically focus on website design, but SEO primarily. So all our wagons are hitched to the Google horse, you know, so it’s interesting to see how the healthcare industry and how people search and how Google wants people to search and how Google wants to make money, how that interacts with how my team does what we do to get our clients to grow their businesses. So it’s all very interconnected. And, yeah, I love it. So that’s why I’m here. 

Linzy Bonham [00:04:10]: 

But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it really does make me think, like, it kind of is like Google’s universe and we just live in it at this point. In terms of the Internet, they really are like the gateway to the Internet. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:04:22]: 

I mean, it’s definitely, I think, the most used platform across all demographics, all ages, and it’s never going anywhere. I think there’s always a lot of panic, you know, oh, my gosh, people are using TikTok more in ChatGPT. Totally. Those things are search engines. And it’s always something that my team and I think about and how we can incorporate to the work that we do. But one reason that I think Google is always a solid investment is they are so motivated to make search work because it is at least 90% of their revenue comes from mostly Google Ads. But still, the Search engine as a whole, that’s really their money maker and they’re one of the biggest companies in the world, so they’re motivated to make it work. Right. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:05:08]: 

So I think there’s always going to be a path forward on Google for therapists. But as you know, the AI overviews come out. I think it’s called AI Mode or something that they’re experimenting with now. It’s all going to be change and different, but the core principles of how I think people will be ranked will stay similar because this is like an algorithm that’s been developing for decades. So of course they’re going to have crazy algorithm updates. In my team, we just observe and figure it out for a while. But yeah, Google’s not going anywhere. 

Linzy Bonham [00:05:43]: 

Yeah, I know. If I think about my own Internet usage, Google is the way into the Internet for me. And I’ve started using Google Gemini also to play especially for accounting questions. I would love to have an accountant that just lives on the couch behind me that I could just ask my questions of like, okay, wait a second, so on the balance sheet, how would this kind of transaction show? So my backup is Google Gemini. I get to ask it accounting questions, which is still Google. They certainly dominate the space and there’s a lot of money and a lot of really, really smart people who are very invested in making sure that it stays the number one search engine. So, yeah, certainly lots to be said about making Google work for you. So something Kristy, that I see a lot with group practice owners, specifically where they have to make sometimes some really big decisions around marketing, like which marketing path they’re going to go down, how much they’re going to spend as they’re trying to fill not just themselves, but many clinicians. 

Linzy Bonham [00:06:42]: 

As solo practitioners, our responsibility, our need is to fill ourself. To fill one clinician as group practice owners, they may need to fill 10 clinicians or 20 clinicians. So there’s these really big decisions they have to make about marketing. As we even just think about the kind of like investment side. How much should group practice owners, group practices be investing in their marketing? 

Kristie Plantinga [00:07:06]: 

Yeah, and it’s such a tough thing to think about, right, because every practice is different, every market is different. So I could never come up with an exact figure. But what I will say is I’ve noticed a cycle, I think for group practice owners that they can sometimes fall into. And, and that’s where, you know, they’ll maybe they don’t really have a ton of marketing in place. Maybe it’s their own reputation or maybe a Facebook post in a local group kind of takes off. And then they get this flurry of inquiries. Great. But they realize they need to hire someone to accommodate those people. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:07:44]: 

So they hire someone. But that flurry of inquiries just isn’t enough to fill that caseload. And so then they’ll kind of, oh, oh, shoot, I need to do some marketing here really quick to fill this person’s caseload. But a lot of times those kind of smaller ad hoc investments don’t really pan out. And so either maybe they’ll get another client or two for their employee, or maybe they’ll just kind of be out of, you know, on the investment altogether. And those things certainly add up, you know, five or ten thousand dollars here over time. That really adds up if you think about it. And then by the end of it, they, you know, start with this company, they invest however much, and then a lot of times, like, they’re not even full. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:08:29]: 

Like the clinician isn’t even full. So then the clinician has to make the tough decision, hey, I can’t do this. I have a family, I have a livelihood that I need. So they leave and then the cycle starts again. Right. So I definitely think if you want, you know, sustainable growth, thinking about. I’m not thinking about my practice surviving the next six months. I’m thinking about how this is going to be my life and my lifestyle and my business for. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:08:54]: 

For five years. I think investments should more reflect that. Could I just spread this out kind of ad hoc over time, or should I just commit to something and work with a company that I really trust and they have results that they can show me that this has worked? I’m more partial to that just because I think so much a part of owning any business, definitely a group practice, is that founder wellbeing. That’s also kind of a meter that can run very, very low. Oh, yeah, if you’re always experiencing this. Because I understand not liking marketing, believe me, I have felt that many times when people come to our doors, they’re like, I don’t want to do this. 

Linzy Bonham [00:09:30]: 

But we get it. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:09:32]: 

You know, we’re not everyone’s favorite, favorite people to contact. But I think just for peace of mind and actual sustainable growth over time, it’s profitable. That’s not going to drive you crazy when you’re thinking about your business in the future. It’s better, I think, to just really commit to something. Go all in again with a company you trust that has a proven track record, and then do that instead of just 5,000 here, 5,000 here, 5,001 here. It’s probably not going to work, or it’s just going to take you a really long time to get where you want to be. Yeah. 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:05]: 

I mean, it sounds like the difference between a reactive approach and a proactive approach. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:10:10]: 

Exactly right. 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:11]: 

If you want to be in this business long term, if you’re not planning to close your doors in six months, then what is this work that has to happen ongoingly to create that ongoing demand for your services? And in a business mastermind that I’m in, somebody the other day said, whenever things are quiet now, she thinks about, what was I not doing six months ago? And I was like, that is very interesting because, yeah, there is a long game here too with marketing. Right. Like, it’s not always this fast thing. And I think with Google Ads, I’m curious your perspective on this. With Google Ads, what I do see is there can be this illusion. Maybe it’s not an illusion, but it can be more instant gratification, feeling where you’re like, I spent this. I got this. This is my results 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:52]: 

And I certainly know for us, when our Facebook ads have been working, it’s like that. It’s like, I spent 5,000, I made 20,000. Like, wow. It almost feels like a machine that you’re just like putting money in and you put $1 in, $4 comes out. That’s not very typical, though. And I’m curious, what do you tend to tell folks about setting expectations for time frames or how do you think about marketing and when we should expect to see returns from the activities that we’re doing? 

Kristie Plantinga [00:11:20]: 

Yeah. And, you know, marketers love to say it depends, especially people, you know in the SEO field. 

Linzy Bonham [00:11:27]: 

Yes, of course. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:11:28]: 

You know, therapists like to say that too. 

Linzy Bonham [00:11:29]: 

So everybody says that. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:11:33]: 

But, you know, I think it depends primarily on the type of marketing that you’re doing. You’re right. With kind of the advertising, whether it’s meta ads or Google Ads, it does feel a little bit like a slot machine. Kind of. You put it in and like the lever and then, ooh, it worked. Or maybe it didn’t. 

Linzy Bonham [00:11:48]: 

Yes. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:11:48]: 

And my only thing with Google Ads, I know some group practices. They just do Google Ads. They’re happy. They love it. No notes. My issue. Google Ads that I’ve experienced, and this isn’t to say it’s the same for everyone. Again, I’ve run very successful Google Ads campaigns, but Google itself is a selfish and unreliable partner. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:12:10]: 

They could change something like that, their policies. And they’re not going to tell you about it, it’s just going to happen. All of a sudden your ad groups are down and you’re just kind of left in the dust. And we’re not high spenders, therapists, right? We’re not like these other companies that have hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad spends every month, right? Maybe a couple thousand dollars. So we’re not, we’re not Google’s priority. Right. So that always freaks me out a little bit when working with Google. And that’s kind of why like SEO, we’re kind of like behind the scenes. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:12:42]: 

How are they working? Because I don’t work for them, I don’t even them, I kind of work against them. Right. We’re like very scrappy people on my team. 

Linzy Bonham [00:12:50]: 

So we kind of that, you know. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:12:52]: 

Like we like the feeling of kind of figuring it out and on Google and their wins and stuff. And we do to a certain extent because it’s our job. But I think again, especially with a group practice, because you just have so much more responsibility in terms of the livelihoods, the families that you’re supporting, thinking about something more sustainable, more long term is the way to go. SEO, traditionally, yeah, that can have a longer turnaround, but there are certainly things that at least my team does where we can, you know, get people, clients, certainly within a couple months. And sometimes that’s typical for a Google Ads campaign as well. If it takes time to kind of figure out the market, optimize the campaign, tweak the landing page, who knows. So I think timelines can actually be similar with SEO if you’re doing certain things, which is something that my team always prioritizes because we know that it’s not fun to have to wait for results and it doesn’t feel good when you’re spending money and you’re not getting that fun slot machine back. You don’t get that with SEO necessarily. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:13:57]: 

But I just always encourage practice owners to think about, let’s not think about where you want your practice to be in three months, although that can be very exciting. And there’s lots of stuff we can do during that time. But what about one year from now? Where do you want to be? So I think it’s more about perspective in terms of that. But when you’re working with a marketing company, because it really is all about results. It’s about, did I get a return on the investment that I put into this? It’s the most important thing really, when you’re working with a marketing company. A lot of times I see marketing companies do this and then of course, you know, the therapists or other clients that come to them focus on this as well. It’s kind of this deliverables focus. What deliverables am I getting? How many pieces of content am I getting? How many backlinks am I getting? Stuff like that. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:14:44]: 

More focus on, like, what is. What are you actually gonna get me in the result? Because I could create you 12 pieces of mental health content within an hour within AI. Right. Or I can make you one really, really good one. So let’s not compare deliverables because it’s more about what’s ranking, what’s working. So that’s kind of where I’m. I’m really just big on is who are you working with and what are this kind of outcomes they’ve seen for practices like yours? What are the things that they’re seeing working now? Have they updated their strategies in the last year, which is important? Like, minimum a year, we update our strategies. It feels like every three months at this point, just because of Google. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:15:22]: 

So, yeah. Not an exact idea on timelines, but I would say with Google Ads, probably within two months, and with SEO, within six months, you should be seeing traction. 

Linzy Bonham [00:15:32]: 

Yeah, yeah. Which is helpful to know in terms of setting your patience and expectations appropriately. Right. Because again, I think the instant gratification has permeated our culture. We’re so used to like, oh, here’s something on Amazon. Oh, it showed up the next morning before I even got out of bed. There has been this real distortion of the idea of kind of cause and effect and marketing. I mean, an analogy that I like to use when I think about marketing is like, you’re planting seeds, and seeds don’t come up right away 

Linzy Bonham [00:16:03]: 

But when you plant lots of seeds, it’s amazing how many of them do come up, you know, within like six months, a year. I have folks sometimes that are around listening to the podcast and on my email list for four years before it’s the right time for them to buy. Right. And every time that I’m putting something out to them that, like, resonates and helps them feel like, oh, yeah, this person really could help me when the time is right. I’m maintaining that connection. But if I was looking for instant results, I would be disappointed because that’s just not really how I think business works in the long term. So I love that emphasis that you have on thinking about five years, because I’ve certainly experienced that being in the business now for five years. I see so many returns on things that I did years and years ago. 

Linzy Bonham [00:16:45]: 

But at that time it seemed like nothing was happening. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:16:48]: 

Yeah. And there probably was not anything happening. Exactly. Like you said, it’s a seed, it’s all underground. But I also think for people who want to even this is for solo and group practices alike. We are in a competitive market. Right. So I think luck favors the bold. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:17:09]: 

So are you going to do the kind of same cop out stuff that everybody else is doing? Who’s afraid? And I get it. But the practices that I’ve worked with, who make their marketing and probably most of their business decisions based on fear, I don’t see many of them making it, frankly. And we’ve worked with lots of people, so it’s scary to. I think just working with a marketing agency can be very vulnerable in the sense that you’re just kind of putting your trust in someone, which is always scary. You’re putting an investment, but also in something that you don’t understand. 

Linzy Bonham [00:17:43]: 

Yes. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:17:43]: 

And you’re just kind of like, okay, I’m just gonna hand this off. I get it’s terrifying. Right. And so I, you know, endless empathy for that. But if you’re making all of your business and marketing decisions out of fear, I think in this market it’s not going to look good for you. Just, just from my experience, what I. 

Linzy Bonham [00:18:00]: 

No, no. And I mean the thing that really matters is return on investment. Right. It’s like, do you actually get back more than you put in? How do you suggest that folks calculate return on investment when it comes to marketing? Knowing that there’s maybe like a bunch of different activities that we’re doing? How do you think about it? 

Kristie Plantinga [00:18:20]: 

Tracking. Tracking. Tracking, yeah. All about tracking. Probably most therapists can set up. It’s very cheap. There’s a tool called CallRail. It’s just like a little line of code on your site. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:18:31]: 

It’s really, you know, pretty cheap. The HIPAA compatible plan is a little bit more. But you know, I know that depends on states. And if your marketing itself needs to be more HIPAA compliant, we have a HIPAA compliant plan just to be safe with our clients. But it’s really, really advanced, essentially what’s called attribution tracking. And that’s. I got a lead. How am I attributing this essentially to what marketing channel? So it can track form submissions if you have kind of like a native form submission. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:19:01]: 

So if you have an embed, like a Jotform or maybe another HIPAA compliant one, CallRail can’t track those, but they can always track any calls. And if you have just like an embedded form, Squarespace, wix, whatever you use, you can see exactly how they found you. So whether it’s Google Ads or Google Organic or Psychology Today, or like, oh my gosh, that podcast I did two years ago, you know, that kind of thing. So then you can see, okay, I’m putting my money here. Did that, you know, I got a lead. Great. But more importantly, did that lead actually become a client? 

Linzy Bonham [00:19:33]: 

Yes. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:19:33]: 

Right. So it’s just a lot of it is just taking the mystery out of it. And there are amazing tools that allow us to do just that. So even if you want to try it out for a couple months, I sometimes say that to my clients if they don’t really want to spend money on the tool, I’m like, just do it for three to six months. Just so at least you can get a picture of what’s going on so that it can guard or guide your future marketing decisions. But that’s really what it comes down to because there are a lot of vanity metrics as well. You know, in, in marketing. Like for example, for a lot of our newer services, we don’t even offer blogging anymore. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:20:11]: 

And that’s. It’s been a staple, a standard in SEO for so many years. You do blogging, but we just couldn’t attribute enough direct results from it. So we’re like, all right, let’s just do the content that we know gets clients instead. So it’s that sort of thing. Like, you can get lots of leads from Google Ads. Are those leads actually turning into something? And if they are, and you’re spending, you know, a couple hundred dollars to sign a private pay client, it’s like, that sounds pretty good to me. You know, Google Ads. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:20:40]: 

So it really just depends. But knowledge is absolutely what. What is going to be the best thing for you? Because you can guess all you want, but there are tools that can help anyone. 

Linzy Bonham [00:20:52]: 

And even people’s self report is often not very good. Like, people will often not actually accurately remember where they found you. They’re like, oh yeah, I think I found you, like on the Internet. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:21:01]: 

But you’re like, right. 

Linzy Bonham [00:21:02]: 

But was it the Google Ads you’re paying for? 

Kristie Plantinga [00:21:04]: 

But I clicked on Psychology Today and you’re like, well, which one last ad? 

Linzy Bonham [00:21:07]: 

Yeah, I know. So I’m hearing. Then if I understand correctly, like CallRail, what it tracks is if someone fills out your form, it will be able to tell you where that person who filled out your form came from. Do I understand that correctly as well? And phone calls. Okay, okay, how does it. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:21:22]: 

And you can do texts too as well. But then you need to get like a legal texting number and there’s a whole bunch of, you know. 

Linzy Bonham [00:21:30]: 

Okay, right. So is that if somebody like is on. I’m going to ask you some, some beginner questions. So when you say calls, is that because somebody’s on their phone looking at your website and then they click the call button from their phone? So it wouldn’t work. Like if I’m looking at a desktop. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:21:46]: 

It doesn’t psychically know call on desktops, at least mine. So I have a MacBook and I can click to call and it’ll open FaceTime and I can call someone. Got it. So it’s not going to work in every scenario, I don’t think. But it does also track. It originally started as call tracking. 

Linzy Bonham [00:22:03]: 

Okay. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:22:04]: 

So a lot of times it’s used, you know, I’ve experienced in the legal marketing industry you’d get intakes, you know, record the intake so you can go back and assess the lead. It’s, it’s very, it’s pretty amazing. 

Linzy Bonham [00:22:15]: 

All the stuff do and what I’m hearing, you know, in terms of that return on investment piece is then you can know where somebody actually came from. So then you can look at how much are you spending on that particular marketing channel that they came from. And then I’m curious like when with your clients do you have a kind of guideline on how many months a client is worth? Like do you have your group practice owners look at like their average sessions per client? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:22:44]: 

We don’t always know the answers. So we kind of like we’re almost kind of helping them adjust how they think about this, this stuff. Because I think a lot of times business owners and definitely have seen this in therapists marketing is just kind of this like this checklist item. Yeah, it’s like I have to do this. And it’s like no, let’s, let’s really think about this and see how it’s benefiting you and how you’re thinking about your business in light of marketing because they’re, they’re, they’re like this, you know, they’re, they’re very, very connected. So I typically recommend your average hourly rate. A lot of times like a group practice owner’s own rate will pro would be significantly higher. So I would just like remove them because they’re not trying to fill their own caseloads anyways. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:23:24]: 

Yes, that’s true. I remove your rate. Take the average of your, your employees rates and then just calculate average sessions. I typically recommend just because for the most part the clients that I work with do more depth work. They’re usually working with their clients for about at least a year, let’s say. So I’ll say, okay, maybe four sessions were missed, sickness, vacation, whatever. So 11 months weekly sessions, times like 150 or something. So then, you know, your average client value could be 6,000, 8,000. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:23:56]: 

I have some clients where the average client, you know, value is 12,000 or something. And this is before like costs and all that. 

Linzy Bonham [00:24:04]: 

Yes, yes, it’s just, but just you. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:24:05]: 

Have a sense of the value of someone that you sign. Generally you can just like track this in a little CRM and be like, ooh, I signed someone, that’s $8,000 headed my way this year. That’s so exciting. And I only spent a thousand dollars on Google Ads, you know, in the past few months or however it is. So yeah, that’s typically the, the formula there. It’s very simple. 

Linzy Bonham [00:24:26]: 

And that’s, yeah, that’s how I think about it too. And that’s something that I talk to my group practice owners about. So maybe your group practice owners just send them to me. I’ll help them understand their numbers and develop their financial literacy and confidence. Yeah, but like looking at those averages and in terms of return on investment, what do you personally see as a good return on investment when it comes to marketing spend. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:24:48]: 

Yeah. And it’s tough to do a percentage and actually should think about a good percentage. But I think something that at least like, I mean, because ideally, well, at least with the work that I do, we’re not just thinking about your return like in the slot machine sense. It’s like, what’s your return over years? So I would say double, triple, more like it should be. And the bigger the investment, the bigger that return needs to be. Like, those things need to be very, very separate. So it depends on like how long you’re investing for how much you’re investing. But yeah, big, big numbers, big returns is really, you know, what, what you should be going for. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:25:29]: 

But again, those little ad hoc kind of marketing investments that I was referring to before, those are just gonna be smaller returns because they’re just not as transformational. You know, it’s kind of like a little bit of a band aid approach, a little bit of a slot machine approach. Less of, I’m investing in this really long term thing that I know is going to continue to unfold for me for years to come. That’s, that’s gotta be a big, big fun number. 

Linzy Bonham [00:25:55]: 

Yes. By fun number, you mean for many therapists, nausea inducing, like a really large number. And I know for us, as we’ve run ads over the years, we want to see at least double, like at least a two times return on ad spend. Because also in that number is your team’s time and energy and bandwidth. Like, there’s all these costs that are in there, right? Like, it’s not like I actually put a dollar in a slot machine and I got two because my team members are working on that instead of something else. And yeah, so there’s, there’s other ways. So at least double is. Is worthwhile. 

Linzy Bonham [00:26:24]: 

But I’m hearing more is better, obviously, in terms of return for more. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:26:28]: 

And it’s the type of marketing. Some are just higher investment. Again, I think higher risk, higher reward, the bolder you are in a competitive environment, you will get the returns again if you’re working with someone that is trusted and has proven results and are very confident, you know, backing that stuff up. But yeah, it depends. But at least, at least double, right? Yeah, across the board. 

 Linzy Bonham [00:26:52]: 

So for folks who are looking to grow their group practices and they’re thinking about marketing, what forms of marketing do you find are best? 

Kristie Plantinga [00:26:59]: 

It’s interesting. I’m actually kind of working on this, this thing right now where if I were to, you know, I. Someone sits down two minutes, gives me the lowdown, here’s where they’re at in practice. What would I actually recommend for them? Cause I don’t always recommend SEO. I really don’t. Like, I don’t think it’s for everyone, especially not just with how rapidly things are changing. You need to be pretty adaptable. And I think a lot of therapists are just kind of like, I want to do my marketing and then I’ll have done it and then it’s. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:27:28]: 

And then everything’s fine forever. Did it. Yeah, I did it. Marketing check. All done. So I think if, if that’s kind of where you’re at with marketing, like, honestly, SEO is not a good, a good thing for you, right? So I think it depends. I think if you’re just starting out, solo practitioner, doing all of kind of like the basic small stuff, getting on all the directories that you can, again, you can track if you are getting a return on those. Now that everyone knows about CallRail track, if that’s working. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:27:59]: 

I just think, you know, standard networking and that can also be online. If you want to do more like Instagram stuff, being on the list serves the Facebook groups. That’s kind of like a little like base. So anyone who’s like, I’m starting my practice tomorrow or I started in the last three months, I’m like, okay, cover your bases. Solo practitioners, I do think Google Ads is a really good spot to be because you do get more of that money in money back. Is it more expensive per lead probably than something like SEO. Like we have a practice, they get like 150 leads a month from SEO or something. Right. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:28:32]: 

And they don’t spend anything on Google Ads. So it’s a lot cheaper to get ads or through SEO for them. But with solo practitioners, especially when you’re just starting out, I think Google Ads is a good approach because you can really scale the investment to where you are. So with SEO, for example, you kind of just have to go all in. You can’t like dip your toes in SEO. It’s like you either have to do it or it’s just not going to take. Like Google just won’t pick up on you if you’re not really doing enough and doing the right things. Google Ads, it’s like you’re pay, you’re basically like paying them to be your friend, you know, and they’re like, yeah, I’ll be your friend for 500amonth. 

Linzy Bonham [00:29:11]: 

Yeah, they’re like, she’s great. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:29:12]: 

Yeah, she did. She said, great, we’ll do that. Yeah. You know, SEO is like. Sorry, did you say something? You know, like you, you have to be a little bit more aggressive with SEO. So I think if you’re just starting out, solo practitioner, trying Google Ads is a great thing. I wouldn’t put like a ton of money behind it just to try it out again. Work with a company that knows what they’re doing, has worked with therapists. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:29:37]: 

That’s super, super important in Google Ads. And then I think when you’re ready to scale and you’re ready to grow, you’re ready for sustainable growth that’s gonna serve you for years to come. You’re ready to take on more of that, just the, the bolder kind of bigger moves. Then I think SEO is a really good thing. And especially if you’re in a really competitive market. Toronto, Louisiana, New York City, Vancouver, these are very competitive markets. So you just kind of have to be ready for more of that kind of thing. But again, how many practices can say, oh, I got 150 leads just from Google this month. 

Linzy Bonham [00:30:13]: 

Yeah, it’s wild. Yeah, yeah. Like, I’m hearing that SEO is kind of the. I’m trying to think of the right analogy for it. Like, I kind of have a vague visual of it, but it’s like you’re really kind of like reorganizing the whole house. When you do SEO, you can’t just do like a little. It’s like you really have to go in. So I’m hearing that if you’re a practice that’s new, it’s not going to make sense for you to make that kind of huge investment. 

Linzy Bonham [00:30:34]: 

But if you’re a group that’s scaling and looking to be around, that’s a good long term investment that you can make because you’ll just keep showing up on those search engines. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:30:43]: 

If you’re in less competitive, I think you can get away with less. Even as a solo practitioner, you can just do less. But you know, if we have someone coming to us again in one of these hyper competitive markets, it’s like this is the minimum, you know, of what we have to be be doing just to make a dent. So I think it depends on where you’re located. 

Linzy Bonham [00:31:02]: 

Yeah. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:31:02]: 

As well. I will say that’s an important contextual factor. 

Linzy Bonham [00:31:06]: 

Sure. Of course. Like how, how many hundreds of therapists are within a couple miles and how. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:31:11]: 

Much are they spending and how much are they trying. Right. So and that’s how we get into like the competitive market. It’s not just about how competitive Google might be. How much are other therapists around you also doing this? And that’s really where the competition comes from. 

Linzy Bonham [00:31:26]: 

Yeah. And I find that in the meta ad space, which is where we’ve hung out, you also end up with that competition in the market because there’s just limited ad space. So it’s like when it comes to be like Black Friday now I’m competing with like Walmart and Amazon and it’s like we’re just going to stop our ads because like we can’t outspend massive multibillion dollar companies. But yeah, there’s kind of only so much billboard space on the Internet. Right. There’s only so many things can be at the top. So depending on how competitive it is, where you are, or if in the case of like meta ads, there’s only limited spaces, like you’re reaching people all over North America that is also going to determine what your spend is going to have to look like. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:32:05]: 

100%. 

Linzy Bonham [00:32:06]: 

Yeah. Kristie, this has been so informative. Thank you so much. For folks who are interested in learning more about you and the work that you folks do with therapists. Where can they find you? 

Kristie Plantinga [00:32:16]: 

Yeah, they can head over to our website@therapyseo.com and actually, probably when this episode comes out, we will be under our new name, which is place digital. So placedigital.com that’ll take you to where you need to be, reach out. We’d be happy to, you know, take a look at what you have going on and make that recommendation. We’re very honest. We often refer to ourselves as the Bad News Bears because we might tell you what other marketing consultants wouldn’t. So we’ll, we’ll always recommend what we think is actually going to, to work for you. Then in some cases it might not be our services and we’re happy to connect you with other people that we think that can help you out. But yeah, I hope this was, this was helpful. 

Kristie Plantinga [00:32:58]: 

My Bad News Bears approach, you know, some of you gotta do it. 

Linzy Bonham [00:33:03]: 

Well, we are grateful that you are taking that, falling on that sword for us. Thank you so much, Kristie, for joining me today. 

Linzy Bonham [00:33:17]: 

I really appreciate Kristie bringing her marketing expert expertise onto the podcast today. Marketing is not always our favorite thing to do as therapists, but is a non negotiable. And as she said, sometimes we might be riding the benefit of certain things that we have in place already, like our, our reputation or, or some piece of marketing that we did that had a big impact. We might be benefiting from it, but eventually, you know, everything that we do kind of runs out of steam. And so we need to be thinking continually about how we are putting ourselves out there in, in the world and getting found, you know, through SEO, through ads. There’s so many other marketing activities we can do. And I love her point about just saying zoomed out and thinking about where do I want to be in five years. Right? Marketing should not be a reactive thing. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:07]: 

It should not be the thing that we’re doing and we’re like, oh no. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:09]: 

We have no clients. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:11]: 

It should be, you know, to use the analogy that I mentioned, planting seeds continually and seeing what comes up. Right. But putting regular effort into putting ourselves out there, putting a regular investment into putting ourselves out there to keep our name top of mind for those people who really need to find us and. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:30]: 

Really need to work with us and. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:32]: 

Especially for group practices, to keep your group practice top of mind for, for everybody, not just you, but your group practice so that you have that continual stream of folks coming in the door to, you know, keep your clinicians full month after month after month. And these things do take continual, sustained effort. So I so appreciate Kristie’s perspective on us taking perspective on our businesses and thinking big picture, not just what do we need to do now to make the next month a good month. But what are the marks marketing activities we need to do now to make the next few years good years? So thank you to Kristie for joining us today. I’m Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of Money Skills for Therapists. If you’re ready to go from money confusion and shame to feeling clear and empowered, my Free On Demand Masterclass is the best place to start. You’ll learn my four step framework to get your private practice finances finally working for you. Register today using the link in the show Notes notes or go to moneynutsandbolts.com under masterclass. 

Linzy Bonham [00:35:32]: 

I look forward to supporting you.