Psychology Private Practice Marketing: Choosing A Niche Market

A niche market is a group of people with common characteristics, problems, and concerns.

For example, lawyers, couples dealing with infertility, parents of children with ADHD, children whose parents have divorced, and professional women over 40 are all potential niches.

Defining your services and target groups is an important step in effective marketing. It is not enough to say that you are a therapist. The “therapy” is too broad and unspecific.

Marketing is simply getting the word out about what you do.

Not choosing a target market or markets is like trying to make your voice heard over the din of your entire community.

You will not be heard.

If you want to communicate effectively and spread the word, you need to know who you want to communicate with.

That is the idea behind the exercise of choosing a niche market. No one can effectively market to everyone.

Great marketing goes deep with a specific target group. Superficial attempts to get the attention of the masses do not work.

Sometimes a niche can be a clinical specialty. Specialties attract clients more than general practice. You will also attract your ideal client, the type of client and the services that you enjoy the most in your work. Today’s sophisticated consumers are more likely to seek out a specialist if they can find one.

It may take some time and thought to identify the ideal niches for your practice. It can evolve over time. Or maybe one day, your niche will catch on.

Richard Bolles said, “Your mission is where the deepest hunger in the world and the greatest joy in your heart intersect.” The same can be said for identifying your niche.

Some questions to stimulate your thinking:

• Think about your previous clients. What profession was your most pleasant client?
• What characteristic of customers do you usually attract?
• What similar problems do your customers seem to have?
• In what type of situation has it been most effective?
• What knowledge and skills have you accumulated? How have you used (or underused) them in your work to date?

Development of a service line

As you define your practice, you will want to select a niche or perhaps a few niches and get to know them well. You will investigate their felt needs and their urgent concerns. You will shape your services to meet these needs and develop effective ways to communicate with your niche.

Do market research. What are the felt needs and issues that seem to be of urgent concern to the people in the target group you plan to serve? Talk to and interview several people in your target market to find out. Read the newsletters they read. Go to the meetings they attend.

Make a list of the types of services you are interested in providing and the ones that interest and energize you.

Examples:

• Helping ADHD Executives Increase Productivity
• Help struggling college students get better grades
• Help singles to be more successful in love relationships.

The basic idea is to match the felt needs of your market with solutions you can offer, based on what services pique your interest and are within your capabilities. You may need to receive training if a service is not within your current skill set.

By focusing on a specific niche and service line, you will develop a competitive advantage over other providers in your area, due to your specialization. You will eventually develop a reputation for service that will attract referrals to you.

Speaking of competition, there are advantages to having services on our line that are not covered by managed care. While many people will choose to pay out of pocket for quality, personalized services, others may not. Examples of services that are not covered by managed care include child custody evaluations and other court-related services, psychoeducational evaluations, business consulting, and business owner or executive training.

Other examples of specific services include resilience training, co-parenting counseling for divorcing parents, divorce recovery groups, marriage enrichment retreats, professional counseling for professionals in transition, court-ordered psychological evaluations, forensic counseling in cases of personal injury group of business professionals with ADHD.

Again, more traditional services, like psychotherapy for anxiety or depression, are fine too. There are effective ways to market these services and collect private pay referrals. I have a constant stream of referrals based on my reputation for cognitive therapy for anxiety and depression. If this applies to you, keep it as part of the mix.