The Myth of “Set It & Forget It” Marketing (Episode 33)
Let’s bust a myth that still lingers in the therapy world: the idea that once your website is live or your caseload is full, your marketing job is done. In this episode, I gently but firmly challenge the “set it and forget it” mindset and show you why staying engaged with your marketing isn’t just necessary—it’s freeing.
Marketing your private practice today isn’t about working harder or hustling more. It’s about building a rhythm, fueling your client conversion engine, and choosing actions that make sense for your season, bandwidth, and goals. You’ll walk away with a clearer picture of how to stay visible, connected, and in control of your practice's growth—without burning out.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
1️⃣ Why “set it and forget it” marketing no longer works—and how to build a rhythm instead
2️⃣ The two non-negotiables every successful private pay practice needs right now
3️⃣ Three marketing levers you can pull (visibility, connection, optimization) to keep your client conversion engine running
-
Hey y'all. Welcome back to Marketing Therapy, episode 33. Today I want to talk about a myth that unfortunately remains really, really prevalent in our world Now, there's a fantasy that most therapists secretly or maybe not so secretly want. They want to believe that once I fill in the blank, launch my website.
Start my practice network with a couple of people, whatever it might be. Or once I fill my caseload, I can coast. They believe that if they do a couple of things, then the marketing box is officially checked and they can move on to other things. Unfortunately, I'm here to tell you that is not the case.
That version of marketing worked. A decade ago, pre COVID, definitely there were fewer therapists out there. There was less noise, there was less competition because mostly it was happening in person, so you were only quote unquote in competition with those geographically near you. It was just easier, quite frankly, to get clients.
But the reality in this market is you cannot set it and forget it when it comes to your marketing. The marketing that is working today, the marketing behind those full practices that you see people talk about, it's not passive. It's not a one-time project. It's not something that you do and then you're done with.
I mean, think about it, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Starbucks. These brands are as well known as they come, and they still market every single day. So if you have thought as you have gotten into owning and launching and growing and building a private practice, that marketing was something you would do and then be done with.
I'm really sorry to tell you that that's not the case. And then marketing is something you will stay in relationship with over the life of your business. It is an ongoing part of your practice that will continue to grow with you. Now, this can sound like a little bit of tough love. I understand that, but I actually want you to know that this is not bad news.
This is a good thing. I know that the idea of never having to think about marketing again, especially if you're someone who quote unquote hates marketing, kind of sounds peaceful. Wouldn't it be nice to just not have to think about it, but if that were the case, you would be powerless here when things slowed down in your practice.
If you had said it and forgotten it, you'd be at the mercy of that. There would be nothing to adjust. But when you stay engaged in your marketing, when this is an ongoing relationship, you always have levers you can pull. You are in the driver's seat of your practice, and there are ways that you can create movement and connection and visibility no matter what.
And so again, if this sounds like tough love, I want to reframe this, that it's actually incredibly freeing to know that your business isn't at the mercy of luck or referrals or what you did five years ago and haven't touched since then. This keeps you in control of your practice growth. Now, what we're really talking about here is what I call the client conversion engine.
This is the system that powers your practice. It's the combination of your identity as a clinician, your presence online and off, and the connection that's ultimately bringing clients your way. So you'll be hearing this metaphor throughout this episode that you can build the absolute best engine in the world.
But an engine cannot run without fuel. And marketing is the fuel that keeps your engine turning and the thing that's going to keep your practice alive and moving forward and toward your goals.
So if we know that we can't just set it and forget it, let's talk about why that's true in this market and what it actually looks like to stay in relationship with your marketing. Now, I don't need to tell you this, that the private practice market has changed so very much. There are more therapists in every city and every niche than ever before.
Just about everyone is online. That means that the number of options available to your clients has grown. And as we have talked about recently, your clients are more discerning than they've ever been. They're doing more research, they're comparing, taking their time to deciding. And then of course, algorithms and platforms are evolving constantly.
Psych today we know is operating a whole lot differently than it used to Instagram, no doubt. Even SEO, Google ai, all of these are evolving, and so what worked to get visibility 2, 5, 10 years ago does not automatically translate into today. So if the environment around you is moving, then your marketing has to move with it.
When I started Walker Strategy Co, it was a beautiful time. Marketing was very linear. You followed these steps. I had a training like the Four Step Formula to fill your practice fast. It was one of the first free workshops I ever put out there, and it worked. You figured out your niche. You built a website, you joined site today, you got a couple referrals.
Off we go. Today, it's more cyclical. It's not quite as linear as it used to be. We're building visibility, we're attracting attention, we're converting people, nurturing relationships. It's a lot more cyclical and active and in a cyclical model like this, if you stop showing up, then your visibility fades and your referral relationships weaken and your momentum drops. Now, as always, you're never gonna hear me tell you need to be doing more. Or you need to be in constant motion, or that this is about hustling, but it's about staying connected enough that your practice keeps a pulse.
An active living pulse, just like your clients aren't gonna reach transformation, the ultimate goal that they have for therapy after one or two or five or 10 sessions, right, their growth is happening because of continued and consistent engagement in the therapeutic relationship and the process with you.
Marketing functions the same way. It's gonna compound with your consistency. Now, the moment you choose to set it and forget it, then your marketing starts to cool off. Systems need maintenance. A website left untouched for three years. Networking done only. When things slow down or when you think about it, it's not enough.
In this market, your visibility and communication needs to evolve just like every other part of who you are as a clinician.
So remember, this isn't about hustling. This isn't about doing more, and I'm gonna give you some ideas here in this episode on what you can be doing to create this marketing rhythm. But you have to keep that marketing warm. It's about staying engaged. And I will tell you as I have watched therapists go big right in the beginning or start small and consistent, that often the small, consistent regular attention beats the big sporadic effort.
Remember, this is part of the rhythm of a healthy business. This is not because something is wrong.
This is not because the market is dire. This is what it means to run a healthy business, a healthy practice in today's market. And remember, you are not powerless here. You are in charge of what happens next, and what a cool place to be as a business owner. So I wanna talk a little bit now about what does need consistent attention.
What I am seeing make the biggest difference in private pay practices, and that really starts with what I call the non-negotiables. Now, there are hundreds of ways to market a private pay practice. I will never sit here and tell you that there is absolutely one way you must do it. You can be on social media if you want.
You don't have to. You can blog if you want. You don't have to. You can speak if you want, you know what I mean? You can experiment with a whole bunch of different things, but when I look at the most successful private practice owners that I know right now in this market, there are two non-negotiables that you're gonna need as you start to build your marketing rhythm.
And this is about what's truly essential, the things you can't skip, and that is a strong website and a consistent networking rhythm. Now we love websites around here, and that is because your website is hands down, your number one marketing tool. It is the heart of your marketing ecosystem. If you imagine right now a set of a bunch of different activities, maybe in a big circle and along the edges are things like ads and SEO and networking and social media and whatever it is that you're doing in your marketing, at the very center of that circle is your website. This is not just a brochure, it's not on the same level as those other activities. It is at the heart of what it is that you do. It's the conversion hub where people decide whether or not to reach out, and so every visibility, effort, the things along the edge of that circle, networking, referrals, SEO directories, whatever it might be, ultimately leads back to your website. Now it's funny, sometimes I will hear from therapists, Hey Anna, I really love my website but it's not working. And I'm like, really? Okay. What are you noticing? Well, I'm getting contacts through my website, but I'm not getting traffic from Google.
And it's like people have reduced their website to whether or not the traffic comes from Google. Now, we've talked recently in some past episodes about the fact that SEO has changed a lot, and SEO is one possible strategy to get clients. But it's funny when they say things like this, I wanna say, friend, that is your website doing its job.
I'm getting contacts through my website. They're just not coming from Google. If someone hears about you. Be it word of mouth or a directory or however else they found out about you. If they chose to reach out to you via your website, that tells us that your site did something.
It led them to decide to inquire. They did not necessarily come to your website already knowing you were the therapist for them. Your website likely finished that job, so please hear me that your website's main role is not traffic, it's conversion. So if you are getting conversions through your website, but they're just not coming from Google, please hear me, that that's okay.
And to me, that's not actually a sign of failure. That tells me that the other visibility efforts you're doing in your practice are actually working.
So as we look around right now in this very, very saturated market, your website is how you are demonstrating and proving your professionalism, your credibility, your warmth, your level of connection with your clients. It is often the first impression clients have of your work, and that is not something to be taken lightly.
So know that a strong website is absolutely a non-negotiable right now. And if you are sitting here listening to this episode and realizing, wow, I don't have that in place, it is bar none. The thing I would recommend you go focus on. Now, of course we have resources around that. I don't really care if you use our resources or someone else's or if you completely DIY it, but you need to focus on that piece because remember, it is the heart of your ecosystem.
Now, the other non-negotiable right now in your marketing life is a consistent networking rhythm. Every year we do a state of the industry survey, and we'll be releasing our 20 25 1 in December, but in our 20 24 1 and in the 20 23 1, but especially in last year's, we saw the way that networking is reigning supreme, that it continues to still drive the most referrals in private pay practices.
But the fact is that relationships require ongoing care. Do I need to tell you that? You know that and networking? That's just relationship. You cannot meet someone once and expect referrals forever. You cannot reach out once and expect to hear back, and then get an onslaught of inquiries coming your way.
This is about a rhythm, and a rhythm means something repeatable and sustainable, something you are engaging in regularly. That might be monthly check-ins, quarterly coffee dates, staying visible in your local or professional community, keeping track of who you talk to and when you talk to them. Again, doesn't have to be complicated, but it has to be consistent.
If you've been in my world for a while, you've heard me say this exact phrase, I have yet to meet a fully booked private pay clinician who is not well connected. Networking is an active and critical element of your marketing, not something you can ignore, and I hear often that people. Quote, unquote, hate marketing.
I'm an introvert. I don't know what to say. It feels icky. Please hear me that there are ways that you can do this. Well, we actually have a past episode on networking that I will link in the show notes where you can go and learn a little bit more about some authentic ways that you can create these connections.
But growth in this area that is so critical to getting referrals right now does not come from luck or waiting or expecting people to reach out to you. It comes with you staying in conversation with your network, building trust, staying top of mind, contributing value, being memorable, and it is absolutely critical right now.
So if you have these two things, a strong website and a consistent networking rhythm, then hear me that you already have the foundation for a full stable, feel good caseload. Again, I have the privilege of looking at hundreds of different practices and these are the two consistent elements in the most successful practices that I know of right now.
Everything else you do, social media, ads, speaking, whatever, it's simply additional fuel, and those things are necessary too. We're gonna talk about them, but you've gotta have this foundation first.
Now, I mentioned the idea of the client conversion engine a little bit earlier, and the client conversion engine is made up of three parts. So the first is your confident identity. And that is knowing exactly who you are as a clinician, being very, very grounded and connected with what sets you apart, what you bring to the table, who you serve best.
And it's really the clarity that leads to everything else. Your niche, your messaging, your confidence as you show up. We've gotta have this confident identity in place, and it's one of those intangibles. We can't measure your niche the way that we can measure website traffic or an Instagram following, but if you don't have this identity piece in place, those other things are going to be weaker.
So we have the confidant identity. Then we have what's called the confident presence, and that's how you're showing up online. That's your website, that's your brand, your copy, how you feel in your marketing, how people perceive you. It's the way that potential clients experience you before ever talking to you.
The things that communicate competence and warmth and trust and connection. So we've gotta have that element of your engine. And then we have what's called confident connection. And those are the relationships and the visibility habits that keep your practice discoverable and referable and memorable.
It's things like networking and collaborations, community involvement, whatever that might be. So these three things together. Create a living system, something that is able to turn gears, that can turn together and actually create forward motion. In your client conversion engine is where those non-negotiables live.
Your website, your networking relationships. But as I mentioned earlier, an engine needs fuel so you can build the most beautifully designed engine in the world. You can have the prettiest website anyone's ever seen. You can be the clearest on your niche that anyone's ever been, but if there's no fuel in it, it's not going anywhere.
The engine does not run on its own. And that's where I want to emphasize this. Lack of set it and forget it. You used to just be able to create the engine and then it fed itself. That's just not the nature of how things work today. So your marketing, your ongoing activities are what fuel this engine.
I love hearing from confident copy grads about how freeing it feels once this engine is built, because they know where to focus. When things slow down, they're not guessing or spinning their wheels. They can choose which lever to pull to pour fuel in, knowing that the engine can and will work. It's the thing that creates some consistency and some reliability in your marketing, and then you get to decide what type of fuel you wanna engage in.
So this is really where the consistency of your marketing lives, the not setting it and forgetting it. The beautiful thing again is that you get to choose how you're fueling this, depending on your goals and your bandwidth, your season, your energy, your personality.
This is the fun part, quite frankly, of growing a practice. When you understand your system, you aren't stuck waiting for clients to appear. You can actively create momentum by choosing which levers to focus on. There's a couple different levers I wanna walk you through. The first is a visibility lever, and this is helping more people find you.
And often when clinicians come to me and say, Hey, I'm not getting the results I want, it's because they need to be pulling some visibility levers enough people don't know about them. So if you're gonna pull a visibility lever, that's gonna mean that you're adding or reactivating a visibility channel.
Visibility channel means ways that you are getting in front of people who don't yet know about you. Instagram ads, community involvement, ways that you can get in front of people who are looking for services like yours but don't yet know you exist. Maybe it's engaging in SEO. Okay, those ongoing activities to help you rank better on Google and meet people at that point of need.
It can be updating your Google Business profile. If you are an in-person clinician and you don't have a Google Business profile, please go do that right this minute. But new photos posts showing some signs of life to Google to again, support people finding you when they're going looking in your local area.
So again, these visibility levers are helping people find you. If you're sitting here right now and you feel like you have that client conversion engine built. But you're not seeing the gears turn. It's not moving forward. Do you need to be focusing on visibility? Do you need to be focusing on more people knowing that you exist?
You get to decide how to do that, but often this is a weak point that clinicians forget about, and the work here, it compounds. That's the beautiful part here, is that often if you start doing some good work as far as visibility goes, then your reach will only grow without added effort. But you do have to be engaged on a regular basis.
Now, the next type of lever is what we call connection levers. This is where we are strengthening and expanding relationships. So these are with people that already know you, but we're improving and investing in those relationships. This can be reaching back out to colleagues you already know. This can be attending local professional gatherings or CEU events.
This could be partnering with other professionals in your area. I know of a confident copy grad who connected with a reflexologist in her area, who works with many perimenopausal women, which is exactly what her niche is, and they're putting on a workshop leading up into the holidays about holiday stress.
What a great example of strengthening and expanding relationships, and also as a byproduct, getting in front of more people so that they know that she exists. This can be engaging meaningfully in therapist communities like it or not, therapist. Facebook groups are a wonderful place to be doing this. So connection.
We know this builds trust in marketing right now and trust drives referrals. We talked recently about how we're gonna trust recession. How can you be cultivating and building upon the trust that people already have in you? This isn't about being transactional, but about staying part of a conversation with people.
So do you need to be considering your connection levers here? How can you be pulling those, strengthening and expanding relationships? And then finally, the third type of lever is what we call an optimization lever. And this is what's making what's already working better. So this is perhaps auditing your website.
How easy is it to launch your website and to never look at it again, or at least not for six to 12 months? I know what that's like. I don't know the last time I visited the homepage of my website, but it is a good practice to go back and look at your website. Is it still up to date? Is anything missing?
Could a page be added to reflect your current services, your current niche tightening your inquiry flow? The experience people have with you when they decide to reach out is a precious time. And making sure that experience is as smooth and engaged and personalized as possible is a great way to optimize what's already working in your practice.
That could be faster response times, clearer next steps. Self-scheduling, if that's something that you're open to doing, but tightening that flow is a great way to optimize and to pull that lever in your practice. It could be refreshing your branding or your visuals. Now, I'm careful to suggest this because I don't want you to get stuck refreshing your branding when you really should be building visibility.
Okay? So these three types of levers that I've talked about, visibility, connection, optimization, they should happen in levels. So if you are sitting here again wondering why am I not getting results in my practice, you probably need to be focused on visibility. Not as much optimization. Optimization comes after you have the rhythm of the former two.
Do you understand that? So they're building upon one another here. Optimization levers here in this top level, don't necessarily add more work, but they make the work you're already doing more effective. And these refinements can lead to often immediate improvements in conversion. Now, hear me that this isn't about pulling all the levers at once.
Okay. It's about choosing the most immediate one, the level that is most pertinent to you and engaging in it regularly. The other beautiful thing here is that when things quote unquote feel slow in your practice, guess what? There's something you can do. You pull a lever, you go do something, you stay engaged, but these are your fuel options for your engine, and you decide which to pour in, how much when, but you gotta keep doing it right.
Now I want you to know that everything we're talking about here in this episode, it's not just theory, the consistency, the rhythm, the fuel concepts. The reason I'm able to talk about this in such detail is 'cause I see it in action. I've had a really cool privilege to see it. It even more up close. This year, we offered what's called an accountability group to folks that enrolled in Confident Copy earlier this year in January.
So when they finished the program in May, we have been supporting them in the following six months to check in and see how things are going and keep them actively fueling their engine. The goal was to help 'em stay consistent and to actually do the things they know will move the needle. And sometimes they're committing to something like finishing a page of their website or making an update to their psych today, or reaching out to one or two colleagues.
But every single month they're committing to something, and then in the following month, we're following up on them, we're holding them accountable, and we're setting intentions for the next month. So the emphasis has really been on regular meaningful action, not these massive marketing overhauls. They effectively already did that in confident copy as they built their client conversion engine.
So it's been so cool to see and stay in touch with these practices and to watch how the regular actions that they're taking are actually shocker paying off. Just this month here in October, two of our alumni share that they heard from clients who found them because of their website.
Clients who said, your site spoke to me. For the very first time they were hearing that from clients. Another therapist hit her highest ever revenue goal and is continuing to see steady full fee RightFit referrals coming in. The thing to know about these clinicians is that they are not people sitting back and waiting for the results to come to them.
They didn't go through confident copy, create their website, and then sit there and look around and wait for the inquiries. They took action, even small action, but they did it consistently and they owned it and they kept moving. Every single one of these outcomes and wins that we have heard from these clinicians, another one got six clients in the middle of the quote unquote summer slump.
It came from fueling the engine, not about building a system and letting it sit idle, but keeping it running. It's why they are seeing continued results and stability, even in a quote unquote, slower or more saturated market. I share this story because I want you to see that marketing responds to energy.
When you put energy in, it moves, and I really do believe in the current climate that this is the difference between practices that keep the steady momentum and hit those goals and those who stall out and burn out and get very, very frustrated.
So I really want to invite you to establish some sort of marketing rhythm as a pattern of attention you are giving your business over time. So rather than being reactive in your marketing, oh no, my caseload's low, I need to do something. A proactive approach, keeping your momentum steady, creating a rhythm that fits your current season.
This doesn't mean having to overhaul your marketing every single quarter or do something new and shiny every month. It's about establishing habits and routines that keep things moving. Maybe you commit to checking your analytics once a month so you have an understanding of what you're working with.
Maybe it's two outreach colleagues to someone you've never met before. And two, to check in with some established ones every other week or every month. Maybe it's an intentional social media post per week or blog post that keeps your name out there.
And remember that this is likely gonna change by season. We've been talking a lot about the season of private practice here this fall, and in your growth season, your rhythm is probably going to be a little bit more experimental. It's gonna be adding things, you're gonna feel a little bit busier, most likely.
But as you reach that maintenance season, this might be dialing it back a little bit, maintaining referral relationships, keeping things up to date, engaging more in those higher level levers.
Your connection levers, your optimization levers, and less on the visibility. If you're in a rest or reflection season, then rhythm might just be some smaller check-ins, keeping things from fully going cold, but always stay engaged. The rhythm can change, but the pulse of your practice, it needs to always be there.
In the same way that supervision and continuing education is part of the rhythm of clinical growth. Your marketing is part of the rhythm of practice growth, not something you do once and graduate from, but something that evolves with you. When you see it this way. When you look at marketing this way, I want it to be liberating.
I want it to stop feeling so much like a chore and start feeling like caring. Caring for your practice, caring for your future clients, caring for the stability and sustainability of this business that you're building.
So, like I said at the top of the episode, you can't set and forget your marketing anymore. But rather than that being bad news, I want it to be good news. That when your practice is built on rhythm and attention and care, you are always the one in control. You are not at the mercy of the market. You are not at the mercy of luck.
You get to decide what to do. You get to decide what levers to pull, and you get to decide what fuel makes sense for you. This gives you power in your practice and in your business ownership. It means you're not stuck waiting. Yeah, for what others do, what the economy does, but instead, the actions that you yourself can take.
That's agency, that's ownership.
Remember the therapist, like in this accountability group I shared, they are proving this concept day in and day out. You build the engine, you create that client conversion engine, you keep fueling it, and then you get consistent results. So as you leave this episode, I encourage you to take one small active step in your marketing this week.
Do one thing to establish a rhythm or a routine in your practice that can add fuel to your engine and start moving you forward in a consistent and sustainable way. Now, of course, if you want support building that client conversion engine, creating that foundation so you actually have something to fuel, that's exactly what we do inside.
Give confident copy. You can get all the details, Walker strategy co.com/confident-copy, but if you do nothing else, let this episode be a reminder. That when you keep fueling your engine and you keep showing up and you keep engaging with your practice and with your business, it will keep responding and that is what will lead to a business that's both full and feel good. I hope this one was helpful for you today. I'll see you in the next episode.
Resources & Links Mentioned:
Confident Copy: walkerstrategyco.com/cc
Previous Podcoast: Networking Isn’t Gross—You’re Just Doing It Wrong: https://walkerstrategyco.com/show-notes/11
The Walker Strategy Co website: walkerstrategyco.com
Connect + Subscribe
Enjoying the podcast? Subscribe so you never miss an episode—and feel free to share it with a fellow therapist who’s building their private practice.
Explore more marketing support for therapists: The Walker Strategy Co website
About Marketing Therapy
Marketing Therapy is the podcast where therapists learn how to market their private practices without burnout, self-doubt, or sleazy tactics. Hosted by Anna Walker—marketing coach, strategist, and founder of Walker Strategy Co—each episode brings you clear, grounded advice to help you attract the right-fit, full-fee clients and grow a practice you feel proud of.
Rate & Review
If you’re enjoying Marketing Therapy, please consider leaving us a rating or review. This helps more therapists find the podcast (& avoid the marketing spiral).
