Does Your Therapy Practice Need an Opt-In?
One question we get from our clients a lot is: “I’m a therapist, do I need to be building my email list?”
Your opt-in or lead magnet or whatever you want to call is a tool used to build your email list. (We’ll get more into detail about what that means below.) But before you decide to invest your energy–or money, if you’re hiring someone else to develop one for you–take time to decide if it’s something you really need!
There are many different style of therapy practices, and depending on your goals for the communities you serve, you may want to be building an email list as a touch point for practice news, events, when there are new services, or other things of that nature.
When could building an email list be helpful?
You’re a growing group practice
You offer things other than 1:1 therapy such as:
group therapy
workshops
community education
You provide educational services to other therapists
You provide multi-state virtual services
When don’t you need to be building an email list?
you’re a solo practitioner with a full practice
you’re a solo practitioner with no interest in offering services other than 1:1 therapy
you don’t offer any virtual services
you have no need to connect with anyone outside of your geographic location
These aren’t the only scenarios where an opt-in would or would not be appropriate for you, but hopefully it’s enough to get you thinking about if investing in one would align with your practice goals. Basically, if you have need to connect with other members of your community, an opt-in is a means of getting those people on your list by providing them something useful. If you’re connected with everyone you need to be connected with, building an email list is probably not necessary for you!
What is an opt-in?
Like we said above, an opt-in is a tool to grow your email list by providing something useful to your community. It’s not the only way to build your list, you can also ask clients directly for their emails when you work with them, have sign up sheets at conferences, etc. But an opt-in gives you a way to connect with a larger community because it’s digital.
Some businesses use things like coupons for services, discount codes, exclusive offers + deals for subscribers to get people to opt-in, which can be great if you’re a business that sells products, but you can’t really offer a therapy coupon can you?
But what you offer doesn’t have to be a discount or coupon to be valuable. You have expertise to offer and passion to share! To start thinking of what sort of opt-in you want to create ask yourself:
What’s the mission of your business?
Who are you trying to reach and why?
How are you trying to support your clients?
How do you provide that support?
What are your core areas of expertise?
Are there any fundamentals clients could benefit from knowing before starting working with you?
Designing your opt-in
We basically do all of our content designing in Canva. We know there are so many options out there, and we’ve tried a couple others but honestly? The ones we’ve tried have basically the same user interface and features and unless something is going to be notably better, why spend time transferring everything over?
Canva has tons of templates you can choose from and their interface is easy to use. You can upload your own photos or stock photos, and depending on your subscription, you can add your own fonts and brand colors so they’re automatically the default. Once you have a template you like, it’s easy to customize to fit your content and your brand.
We’ve been working with therapists since we launched our business, and they’ve become a bit of an accidental niche for us. Here are some ideas based on the practices we’ve worked with!
our favorite opt-in ideas for therapists to use:
guides/ebooks/workbooks
Mindfulness workbook
Stress management guide
Guide to starting your journey with therapy
Questions for opening up your therapy session
Free mental health resources roundup
Anxiety grounding techniques workbook
Reflection guide: are your habits serving you?
Guide to what to expect in couples therapy
Life transition grounding techniques workbook
Decision-making tips
Self-care ideas workbook
Affordable/free self-care ideas
practical self care
caring for your mental health vs. commercialized self care
Improve your sleeping habits guide
Affirmations (for depression, anxiety, relationships, etc) ebook
Worksheets
Creating positive self-talk
Emotional regulation practice
Self-love exercises
Goal planing worksheet
Goal tracking worksheet
Daily routine planner
Daily planner (tracking moods, highs & lows of the day, amount of sleep/water/etc.)
Journaling
Mood tracking journal
somatic mood tracking journal: keep track of your feelings & how they show up in the body
Benefits of journaling ebook
Journaling as a tool to aid therapy
Journaling prompts (for anxiety, depression, reflection, gratitude, grief, life transitions, for couples, to explore your gender/sexuality, etc.)
Bullet journal setup guide
Keep mulling over the brainstorming questions from above as you browse the list of ideas, hopefully that will help you hone in on one that works with your practice goals–or at least gives you a jumping off point for developing your own.
(P.S. If this helped kick off your development process we’d love to hear about what you came up with!)
