Latest / The Mental Health Evolution / Ep 10: Thriving in Local Therapy Marketing with Becky DeGrossa

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Ep 10: Thriving in Local Therapy Marketing with Becky DeGrossa · The Mental Health Evolution

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Here we go.
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Welcome back, everyone, to the Mental Health Evolution podcast, where we are
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talking about how the landscape is quickly evolving in the mental health
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industry.
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Today, we are joined by Becky DeGrossa, who is the founder of
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CounselingWise, which is a digital marketing firm for therapists.
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We are talking to Becky today because she recently sent out an
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email, and I get her emails, and I found her discussion really
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compelling and wanted to get her on the pod to let you
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all listen to the conversation.
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And in it, she basically discussed the state of mental health marketing
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and how private practice therapists can leverage local marketing to thrive.
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One point that stood out to me was how a local clinician
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with a bricks-and-mortar practice has a unique advantage over what
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can feel overwhelming competition from large therapy platforms.
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Becky explained how understanding local search patterns, identifying different
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types of therapy searches and searchers like crisis research, contemplation,
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and never, and building a strong local presence allows private practice
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therapists to connect with clients in ways that national platforms cannot.
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She shared some practical insights about mapping the search journey, nurturing
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potential clients, and creating a strategic approach to connect with the right
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people at the right time.
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I will tell you, too, part of why this stood out to
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me is that as I've been doing this rebrand and launching this
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new podcast, some of our listeners have been reaching out to me
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saying, Rachel, this stuff is so great and so informative, and now
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what do I do?
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So I think Becky has some cool ideas that we're going to
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dive in and talk a little bit more about.
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But just to give you some more about Becky, she spent two
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decades at IBM before pursuing a master's in psychology and becoming a
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successful therapist.
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She now combines her technical, marketing, and psychology backgrounds to help
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therapists build and grow their digital presence.
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Becky loves learning new things, calling herself a process nerd, I totally
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love that, and brings a mindset of experimentation and openness to both
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therapy and marketing.
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I'm excited for this discussion.
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And as you know, before we dig into the conversation with Becky,
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I just want to share a couple of relevant articles, kind of
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a what's in the news related to our topic today.
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And I hope that these are helpful for listeners to kind of
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understand a baseline of where this conversation comes from, and give you
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some research resources if you want to look into things afterwards.
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So this first article is from Mental Health Match, and it's called,
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Is This the End of the Private Practice Therapist?
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This article talks through some of the changes on the business side
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of things, citing things such as the race to acquire market share
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in the VC, meaning venture capitalists, backed tech health space.
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It also mentioned tech companies who offer mental health care are often
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asking therapists to ignore ethical and legal requirements in the field, such
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as limiting the number of words allowed to respond in text therapy,
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which I would add in and of itself is an ethical violation
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to some, and also hiring coaches to provide care instead of therapists.
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This article also talked about MSOs that are looking for the market
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share.
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And we've talked about that in some of our previous episodes.
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Check out Jeremy's episode for more on that.
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It talked about new clients going to tech companies or MSOs due
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to their high marketing budgets, but also maybe not staying too long
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with those therapists.
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It talked about the lack of building the right fit and relationship
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to support effective therapy.
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And ultimately, this article states that this is a whole new market,
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kind of thinking about everything has changed and how solo and group
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practitioners will have more challenges to acquire clients.
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So that's kind of a baseline for that initial article.
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The second one with kind of a different take is called the
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marketing formula that's fueling small business success.
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And this was from Entrepreneur Magazine, and it is looking at small
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businesses and talking about a formula that is the great equalizer, and
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that is combining local marketing with AI.
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I know Becky has a lot of opinions on this, so we'll
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just give the overview here.
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But this article had an interesting angle stating that in the past,
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big corporations and big companies have a huge advantage because they have
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a marketing budget.
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And the little guys, the small group practices, the individual solo practice
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owners had a harder time competing in that marketing space.
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And what this article is saying is that AI and leveraging that
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plus the local marketing is a great equalizer, allowing the smaller fish
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to also have some great marketing reach.
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So that's kind of the background there.
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And now we get to dive into the conversation.
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So as you know, we let this conversation go wherever it goes.
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But I'd like to start out with just some broad stroke conversations
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about marketing, specifically in the mental health space, since that's what you
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do, Becky.
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I know you talk about local therapy markets as living ecosystems.
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So maybe first, what's your general like bird's eye view on marketing
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for the mental health industry?
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And then we'll get into these living ecosystems a little bit.
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Okay, yeah, sure.
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So what I see is that, well, what I've lived, I guess,
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for the last 17 years in this space, is that it's always
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changing.
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So that's, you know, it's always changing, right.
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And, of course, I started out just like everybody else, I got
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out of grad school, and I thought, Oh, great, I have this
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tech background, this is going to be a piece of cake.
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And I have a website that I thought was beautiful, and nothing.
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And so then I was like, Oh, that's a little, you know,
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humbling.
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And so I had to learn strategy, I had to learn SEO.
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And back in those days, I'm going to age myself here.
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It was Wild West in terms of SEO.
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And it's just like AI.
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Okay, AI is the Wild West.
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SEO used to be that.
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And so there were all sorts of silly things, you know, it
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was, you could do keyword stuffing, you could do all this crazy
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stuff.
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And you got away with it.
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I mean, I was able to rank people in like, two days,
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top of Google, you know, with some of the things and then,
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you know, that stuff got shut down, right?
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The world.
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I'm going to pause you just a second.
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Can you define SEO for people that are like, I've heard that,
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but I don't know.
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Very good.
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Very good.
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It's search engine optimization.
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And so it's basically getting your website optimized.
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So it'll show up in Google searches, you know, Google owns like
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85% of the market.
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So other search engines as well being, you know, whatever, but mainly
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Google, okay, that's what's optimization.
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And that's what it's historically meant.
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But to bring that forward, the new term that I like is
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search everywhere optimization, because now we do have AI, and we do
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have, you know, Instagram is indexing posts, look for local businesses, you
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know, you have Pinterest, you have all these other things.
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So there's a bunch of different platforms now that might be relevant.
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You don't want to waste time with those that aren't relevant.
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But you want to keep an eye on is what I'm doing
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going to help me show up in all these different places that
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matter to my market.
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Okay, so that's, that's the new term we prefer is search everywhere
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optimization.
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But anyway, it was the Wild West back then.
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And then things got changed, you know, there was, there was the
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panda update in 2011.
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And then the penguin update in 2012.
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And then the hummingbird update in 2013.
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And each one of these was basically shutting down all these gimmicky
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little things that used to work, much to my chagrin, you know,
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at one point, I was 300 or $3,000 from a site,
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you know, myself, just on ads, and then all of these little
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things get shut down.
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So the it's always been that easy doesn't last.
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Okay, that's finally what I and that's I mean, psych today, perfect
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example, easy doesn't last, right?
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That used to be so easy.
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$29,000, you would get calls.
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And now, most of the traffic that goes out of the psych
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today directory goes to those companies.
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It doesn't.
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Well, the majority goes to those companies, those VC backed companies.
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And so they've taken over psych today, you know, and so easy,
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easy doesn't last, it never has lasted.
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It's a fun ride for five minutes.
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It is really fun.
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That's what got me into it, right?
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It was really fun.
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But dang, it doesn't last.
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And so it's it's the sad story of darn, you have to
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do some work, right?
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You have to treat your practice like a business.
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And you have to provide quality content and a good user experience
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for someone searching.
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And you should really go after what's in market demand.
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You know, there's so many people that are doing, I'm going to
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develop my own little special niche.
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And I'm going to treat you know, whatever, women who, you know,
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BIPOC women who are traumatized by something that happened at work, and
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they're in their 40s or something, that's great.
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If there's enough of those people in your market, that you can
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help, there's probably not enough that are going to find you to
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make a business out of that, right?
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So if you love that, go for it, but also do some
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other things that are actually in market demand, right, that actually have
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market demand.
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So that's the kind of thing that we teach and do, and
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coach people to implement, and we help them implement it if they
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don't want to do it themselves.
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But that grows practices that are viable.
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And once you're visible, you tend to stay there.
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We have practices that have been visible for 15 years.
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Once they get up that mountain, they stay there, right?
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They have authority and trust.
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And so they stay.
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So anyway, it's always changing.
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That's the message.
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Everything is always changing.
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And right now, I'll just, you know, make this one point.
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I put out an email today on this AI thing.
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It's all the rage right now.
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Everyone is saying, oh, AI is the new thing.
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It's the great equalizer, like you said in that entrepreneur, you know,
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article.
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It's going to be, it's going to be very short.
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Okay, so, so first, well, what I mean is the gimmicky part
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of getting ranked in AI is going to be very short lasting.
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Yeah, yeah, it's just the SEO world all over again, right?
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It's, ooh, here's this new thing.
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And what everyone tries to game a system.
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We're built that way, I guess, right?
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So now look, Reddit is working.
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I'm going to go get in Reddit, or whatever, right?
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Citations, schema, whatever it is, and anything that is easy is going
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to be done better and harder by someone who has more money
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than you.
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So sad.
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It is.
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It's sad, right?
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Because it's really fun to think that we can figure out some
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cool little loophole and we can just, you know, be successful.
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So I've been there.
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I've done all those things.
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It's human nature to want it.
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I get it.
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No judgment.
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But if you really want, if you want it to last, just
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do the right thing, right?
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Put up pages that talk about anxiety, and depression, and that you
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get it, and you know what it's like.
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And there's hope that therapy can help.
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And I've done this, but I mean, come across as a professional
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who's helped people, right?
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And give them really good content.
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I mean, have blogs on how to get to sleep at night
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if you're highly anxious, all the things, right?
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And then you'll just go up, you'll not only rank in Google,
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but you'll also rank in AI, and you'll have practice at the
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end of the day.
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Yeah, so that was going to be my comment for you, or
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my question really, is if AI is, and the marketing side, and
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we've talked about AI on this pod a lot.
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So I just want to clarify that Becky is talking about literally
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like ranking in AI, and coming up in AI searches that people
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are doing and things like that as a marketing approach.
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But so if we are competing, I do think one thing that
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has changed in our field, you're right, change is constant in this
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marketing realm.
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But in the mental health industry, I don't know that we've had
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this many venture backed companies, either tech companies providing platforms
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or MSOs.
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And I don't think we've had the level that we have, or
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literally AI being a therapist, right?
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So we have all these different players that are putting marketing money
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into them acquiring market space, them acquiring clients.
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So how do you recommend people even just start to think about
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I'm sure everybody's situation is different.
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I'm not asking for like a marketing plan.
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But what are some buckets to think about to compete with that
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level of marketing?
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Yeah, so the first thing is, and this is not all the
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all the VC companies, but most of them, the better helps the
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talk space, the, you know, I mean, a lot of them are
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online, right?
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Yeah.
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And so they're blasting traditional marketing venues, like magazines,
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newspapers, radio, TV, podcasts, exactly.
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They have Oprah talking for them, putting in a putting in a
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pitch or whoever.
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And so they're trying to get these, like new to therapy or
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crisis clients to say, Oh, this is really easy.
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All I have to do is sit in my house and I
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could text somebody and do therapy that way, or whatever.
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So they're trying to reach an audience that the traditional practice has
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never tried to reach.
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Okay.
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Like we don't, I mean, typically, as a therapist, I was never
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gonna offer text therapy, give me a break, right?
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That's like, I think it's fake therapy.
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And that's not to say that the therapists who are engaging in
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it are fake therapists.
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But the system that is put on them, forces them to engage
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in substandard therapy, if you even want to call it that.
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So and so they're going after that.
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But what they can't do, and there are some in this space
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that are doing it, like life stance, I believe, is actually buying
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and buying up practices, and then having a local presence, right.
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And there may be more that I'm not available, I'm not aware
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of.
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But I mean, I'm in search every single day, millions of times,
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right.
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So I can see who's showing up.
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And outside of life stance, and I mean, a couple of other
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ones that have little, a little bit of presence here and there,
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mostly what shows up in Google, which is the biggest source of
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traffic is local therapists, okay.
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Because why Google gate keeps it, they say you have to have
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an office address.
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Yeah.
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With a legit address, you have to do a video showing us
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that you can get into that office with a key and show
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us your signage and the whole deal, which is really a pain
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for everybody.
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But it keeps those companies out.
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Otherwise, they'd be saying, Oh, we're at this address and this one
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and this one, right.
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But it keeps Oh, yeah.
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Yeah.
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So you can be a real fixture in your city.
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And you have an advantage over these companies doing that.
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Okay.
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So that is what we recommend is be a real player, be
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a real practice, take care of your clients, build relationship in the
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community, all those things.
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And they can't, you do not see BetterHelp and Talkspace and, you
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know, Alma and Headway in Google search.
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They're not, they're not there.
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And very rarely do they even buy ads.
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Okay, very rarely.
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So it's your domain, it's like protected for you.
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And you can you can make that happen.
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I love that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So if if a private practitioner is going to try to rank
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higher in local search, are there things you see like kind of
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as common mistakes or pitfalls or things to try to avoid?
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Yeah, um, you know, so many after COVID don't want to get
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an office.
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They don't, you know, they're like, I'm virtual only I can be
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virtual only this isn't fair.
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Yeah, it's, I mean, you could say it's not fair.
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Or you could just say, I'm gonna do what it takes to
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be a solid business in this city, and I'm going to get
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an office.
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You don't have to even be in it all the time.
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But you have to have access to it.
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You know, you have to be able to get your little video
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verification to get your G your Google Business Profile verified, right?
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But then just have it Saturday morning for two hours so that
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you can say you have it, right?
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You don't have to pay very much even, you know, I saw
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yeah, to people on Saturday morning, and they paid me 100 bucks
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a month.
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Back in the day might cost you 200.
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But still, there's ways to work around this, right?
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And, and you can do that.
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And so that's, that's the first thing you got to have an
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office, and you got to have the Google Business Profile, and then
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you need a decent website.
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You know, you need one with good content, and you need it
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to be positioned to show up for things people actually search for,
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you know, anxiety therapy, child therapy, teen counseling.
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And in bigger cities, you can even really rocket with modalities, right?
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Because in bigger cities, there's enough people that know what Gottman is,
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or IFS, or EMDR, or whatever, and they search for those things.
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And so you can rank easier for those.
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And then you get really pretty mature clients for those, right?
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Because they know enough to know that they like a modality.
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That's a good client.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I want to ask you a question.
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And it might, I mean, it's really just predictive in nature.
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So there's not like a hardcore science here.
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But I'm wondering about like looking at all of these players from
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a marketing perspective.
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What do you see as potential things in the trajectory?
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Like, what would you guess the market going to look like a
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year from now, five years from now?
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Like, what kind of patterns or things do you see on the
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horizon for us?
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I tend to be an optimist.
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And I tend to just kind of look at history with what
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happens.
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And VC companies don't have to make money.
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Now, when they're starting, eventually they do.
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Yeah.
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And so there's already been, for instance, a big behavioral health company
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that bought up a whole bunch of stuff and crashed and burned,
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because they couldn't make it right.
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They had to start making money and they couldn't do it.
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And so I think we're going to see a bunch of them
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fall.
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You know, the market is going to distill down to a few
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players.
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And it's still going to be so much easier for them to
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be online than it is.
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I mean, it's a lot of work to have an office and
21:07
a receptionist and have your tea and your coffee out and all
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the things, right.
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And take care of your clinicians and take care of your clients
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and get good reviews, not even from your clients because you can't
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ask them, but from peers.
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And, you know, how are they going to get reviews from peers
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in Google, right?
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There's so much they can't do well.
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And when it distills down to a few players, they're going to
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still probably try to do the leveraging online thing.
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So give them those clients, let them have those clients that are
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first to therapy.
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I think the other thing that's going to happen is, and we've
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seen this in many areas already, but these clients are going to
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not have a good experience with the therapy.
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And they're human.
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So they're going to have stuff come up.
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It's not going to be, oh, I'm done with that.
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It's going to be that wasn't a very good experience.
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If we get the word out there more, Hey, have you tried
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fake therapy and you didn't get anywhere?
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We get it.
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Why don't you come and actually engage with a human being who
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has training and really actually cares about helping you through whatever
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you're going through, right?
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I think that's going to be the next wave of the people
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who tried the easy button and it didn't and it was inexpensive
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and it was very convenient, but now they're ready to actually, maybe
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they're a little older now and they're ready to actually engage in
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some real work, right?
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So in my experience, I see this all the time with therapists
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who want the easy button, right?
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They come and they talk to us really, that's expensive.
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I don't want to do that.
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You may not have to put up a website.
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I just want to do a psych today listing or whatever.
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And so long ago, I learned they're just not ready.
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Okay.
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That's fine.
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You know, no harm, no foul, go do your thing.
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And we're always here invariably they come back in two years, 18
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months, whatever it is.
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And when they come back, they're believers because they already tried this
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thing that didn't work.
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And so now they're open-minded.
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They're like, ah, okay.
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I get it.
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I get why this is different.
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I think the same thing's going to happen with these therapy clients.
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Yeah.
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So in a way you can thank the tech companies for giving
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them a bad experience because they're going to be like, oh, real
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therapy.
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This is much better.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I know it's a very positive spin and I know
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it's also very painful right now.
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But the people who are going to do the research right now
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are going to be better clients.
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The ones they just are, right.
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They, they read your site.
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The people who spend the more time on your site and who
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call there so much better clients than the people who are grabbing
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the first thing.
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Right.
24:06
That makes a lot of sense to me.
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Yeah.
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Well, we are just about out of time, but I'd love to
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ask you if there was one thing that you could say to
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clients, to clinicians, to businesses in this space, what would be the
24:23
most important takeaway from your perspective on this topic?
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It would be just do the work, just do the work to
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create something solid, you know, really think about your potential client and
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kind of go back to beginner's mind.
24:43
You know, imagine a panic attack you ever had or high anxiety
24:49
you ever had or depression or anything, and just really think about
24:53
what they want to hear at that point.
24:56
That's going to help them and do the work to provide it
25:00
and, and do the work to do it strategically.
25:02
So you're visible, right.
25:04
You have to be.
25:06
And once you do that work, I don't think you're going to
25:10
look back because it's going to serve you for years to come.
25:14
And if you're not ready to do it, then, you know, that's
25:18
okay.
25:19
Throw more things against the wall, you know, see if they work.
25:22
It's just, I get it.
25:24
I've always wanted the easy button myself, but it just, you know,
25:30
don't, don't stay there spinning around for too long.
25:33
Eventually just do the work.
25:35
And, and I, there's still plenty of opportunity.
25:38
We have clients opening offices left and right.
25:42
And so it's still totally possible, you know, you have a lot
25:45
of offices.
25:47
Yeah.
25:48
Yeah.
25:49
And I love that do the work from a client consumer perspective
25:53
too, right.
25:54
Do the research, find your good match.
25:56
There are really great brick and mortar relationship-based therapists out there
26:02
to definitely connect with.
26:04
Yeah.
26:05
Yeah.
26:06
Amazing.
26:08
Well, we will have all of Becky's information in the show notes.
26:12
If you are interested in connecting more with her after this podcast
26:17
episode, and I just have to thank you.
26:19
I really appreciate your perspective.
26:22
I appreciate the way that you're thinking about things and thank you
26:26
for helping people in this industry to be more visible.
26:30
That's a pretty cool mission.
26:32
It's great to have.
26:33
Thanks.
26:34
Appreciate you.