The one thing that every counselling practice needs is excellent local marketing. Even though many counsellors have taken to Skype and Zoom for their consultations, clients still want to work with someone near to them.
There a a great many tools in the local marketing kit bag to help counsellors get found locally. But there was one which we hadn’t used for a while and some may think it a little old fashioned. A Letter to the Editor.
Marketing tip – A letter to the Editor
With dwindling circulations and so much content being consumed online, it’s easy to forget about this little local marketing gem. Our client passionately believes that working women and mothers are struggling more than men during this pandemic. And that these women are less likely to seek out the professional support that can really help them. It may only be a little bit of help, but they prefer to ‘let of steam’ to a friend or close family member. This never addresses the root of the problem.
Our client was able to communicate her concerns in an effective and personal way and her fears are authentic. In a Letter to the Editor we have been able to find a strong local voice for these fears. The newspaper in question is the Romford Recorder. It has a circulation of 21,000 (Wikipedia 2011) but will be seen and read by many more than that. Ithas been a trusted source of local news and information for many years. Never underestimate the value of trust in effective marketing.
The newspaper has a strong online presence too and our client’s letter has appeared online too, so we have been able to leverage social media benefit. Finally the area where she lives has a number of community Facebook groups and sharing the letter in these groups has also helped to raise the local profile.
In this era of tweets, posts and blogs – don’t forget about a letter. Occasionally in marketing, it pays to do something others aren’t.
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To learn more about effective local marketing campaigns to help counselling practices, email hello@sixthsensemarketing.co.uk
