Marketing for Therapists: a 90-Day Channel Checklist

Marketing for therapists, on a full caseload, is not a new channel every Monday. On this sheet it is six rows, a minute cap, and a count you can point to on Friday. The caps and the three month bands are a choice for a week that is already full of sessions. Another practice can write different minutes.

Alex keeps 18 sessions and has been meaning to “do marketing” since March. Sunday night usually opens the same three tabs: a profile editor, a half-written post, and an ad draft. Monday none of them have moved, and the first client is at 9. The sheet above is the refusal. One row is new work. The others are upkeep. The minutes are a ceiling, not a quota.

The 90-day channel checklist

The six rows above are the marketing for therapists sheet. Copy a row onto paper, or download it and tick it there. Do not add a seventh row because a blog named one. The notes under each channel say where the words live.

Google Business Profile

Do not copy a category from this page. Confirm the words in the live editor before you save. The category list, the photo rules, and the review reply live in the local SEO guide for therapists. This row only assigns the weeks.

Practice website

A visitor should be able to check the license line and the fee line without calling you. Page-by-page wording, including what to keep and what to rewrite, is in therapist website examples. Check the video-location line and the crisis path on that page against your own license before you copy them. A line you have not checked stays blank. Stay on this row until the lines you can stand behind exist. Do not open a redesign.

Organic social

Not posting is a complete week. The three rewrites and the stop rule are in social media for therapists. That rule asks whether the post needs a person. A colleague saying no one would know does not clear it. This row does not ask you to grow a following.

Referral outreach

The referral row names three sources and one send. If the note would include a gift, a fee, or a fee split, ask the board that licenses you before you send it. The answer can differ by profession and by state. The script, the must-say list, and the follow-up tracker are in how to get more clients as a therapist.

Directory profile

One listing. Not every directory you have ever joined. When the listing and the website disagree, the directory profile checklist is the place to fix the words. This row only holds the date they matched.

Paid ads, only if you spend

Zero spend is a finished week, not a skipped one. Marked drafts are in therapy ad examples. That page treats the mark as a copy screen you run before you spend. This row records whether you ran it. Do not set a cost-per-client target on this sheet. You do not control who calls.

Print the six rows from the Therapist Marketing Kit. The kit is the same checklist, plus the setup sheet, the annotation key, the rewrite card, the referral script, and the marked ad sheet. Open one of those when a row sends you there. Do not open all five in the same sitting.

Educational resource for licensed US mental health clinicians. The minute caps and month bands are a planning choice for a full caseload. This is not legal, advertising, ethics, or licensure advice. A gift, a fee, a video-session location, and whether a post may stay public are questions for your profession and your state. Confirm any number, category, or public line in the place you will actually publish it.

Pick one row, then leave the others alone

Private practice marketing strategies fail in the same way a treatment plan fails: twelve goals, no next session. The caseload already has a next session. Marketing gets the leftover hour, and the leftover hour cannot hold six beginnings.

Choose the row by the failure a stranger would hit this week.

• They cannot tell whether you are open, or whether you offer video. That is the profile row.
• They find you, and the fee, the license line, or the crisis line is missing or vague. That is the website row.
• You are about to post something that needs a client’s story to be interesting. That is the social row, and the first action is the rewrite, not the post.
• A colleague asked what you treat, and you answered with a paragraph you would not want forwarded. That is the referral row.
• A listing still says you take a plan you have not verified, or names hours you no longer keep. That is the directory row.
• You are about to pay for a sentence you have not marked. That is the ad row, and the honest first week may be zero dollars.

Digital marketing for therapists is still these six rows. A new scheduler, a new directory, or a new content tool does not earn a seventh. If the tool does not change the first action on a row you already have, it waits.

If the week is already full of notes, the minutes on the row you picked are the cap, not a suggestion. The rest of a solo week, including the schedule that marketing is not allowed to eat, sits on the solo therapist practice page. This sheet does not add hours.

What one week looks like

Same day each week. Alex uses Thursday after the last session, because Sunday is when the three tabs open and nothing gets ticked.

Set a timer to the cap on the new row. Do the first action if the row is new, or the next unticked line in the current month band if it is not. Write the date next to the line you finished. Stop when the timer ends, even if the line is half done. Half done, with a date, is a better record than a finished line that took the evening.

Then spend what is left, if anything is left, on maintenance. Maintenance is not a new idea. It is one of these:

• Hours on the profile still match the week you will actually be open.
• The fee on the listing still matches the fee on the site.
• A review from this week gets a reply, or a dated decision to leave it unanswered.
• A draft you were tempted to post goes through the rewrite card, or you decide not to post.

If maintenance would blow the cap, it moves to next week. The cap is how the sheet stays a sheet.

The useful test for marketing for therapists is whether Monday has one row, not five half-started ones.

The count is the point

A ranking is not a count you control. Stars are not a count you should chase. “More clients” is a hope, and a hope cannot be ticked.

Each row names a count that can be wrong in a useful way.

The profile row can fail because the hours on the screen do not match the hours you keep. That failure is a date you did not earn yet. It is not a verdict on your clinical work.

The website row can fail because one page still says you treat everyone. The count of pages that pass the key goes down by one. You rewrite that page. You do not commission a new site because one line failed.

The social row can succeed with a blank week. Silence counts. A post that needed someone’s story does not become acceptable because the week felt slow, or because a colleague said no one would know.

The referral row counts conversations booked, then stops. No second follow-up. A source who does not reply is not a project.

The directory row fails if the listing and the website disagree, including an insurance line you cannot verify this month. Delete the line. Do not leave it up because taking it down feels like losing a lead.

The ad row, on this sheet, is unfinished if a line you already marked as failing is still live. Pause it, then write the date. Stopping in weeks 9 to 12 is a complete decision, not a gap in the plan.

None of these counts promise a new client. The sheet produces a practice a stranger can understand, and a record of what you actually did.

When a row is the wrong job

Stay on this sheet for the week assignment. Leave it when the work is the words.

If you need the category you will confirm, the photos that are allowed, or the reply you can send on a review, that work is the local SEO guide. Coming back here to invent a category will only give you a line you have to undo.

If you need a home page, a fee line, or a crisis line you have checked against your own license, open the website examples and write those lines there. On this checklist they belong in weeks 1 to 4, and traffic is not the measure.

If the draft in your folder needs a before-and-after, that work is the social page. If the note to a colleague needs a script, that work is the referral guide. If the sentence you want to pay for needs a mark, that work is the ad examples. Do one of those. Then come back and write the date.

A row is also the wrong job when you are using it to avoid the room. Marketing minutes stolen from notes, from a no-show follow-up, or from the hour you said you would leave the office are not on this sheet. The cap exists so the public story does not eat the clinical week. Continuity of care is still the job. A profile that matches your hours is useful. A profile you updated instead of returning a client’s call is not.

Close the week in one line

Write one sentence in the margin of the sheet before you leave.

“Thursday. Profile row. Category confirmed in the editor. Hours still wrong. Next Thursday is hours only.”

That sentence is the plan. It is not a brand story, and it is not a promise to the next person who finds you. Run marketing for therapists from the row you picked, and from the date you can point to, not from a new tab on Sunday night.