Sunday, May 17, 2009

APA Summit on the Future of Practice 2

Marketing Practice

Practitioners and agencies should look around the community and see what relevant agencies are there to which they might offer tickler or sampler services. Then, patiently wait for the word about you to get around. This is the old “first one is free” approach. The other point is to just keep showing up in your community, as people get to know you, there will be a natural tendency to think of you first when the need for services is percieved.

The discussion turned to discovering the unique opportunities for practice. Podcasts were mentioned as a marketing strategy. Individuals, their agencies, or their organizations could offer Podcasts. These could be interest oriented or practical, solution oriented, short productions.

Watch trends in society: one resource is trendwatching.com. One current trend is do-it-yourself, suggesting it might be effective to offer empirically supported psychology that people can do themselves.

Training for use of modern communication technology would help students find resources and package their services.

Offer a wellness or anticipatory consultation to individuals or agencies dealing with major transitions in life or business. Another marketing idea is a baseline assessment at major life transitions, such as moving, home buying, divorce, expecting a new child, adoption, changing jobs, and many others.

Professionals should publish to the marketplace rather than just to their peers. A course in public communication and media applications for graduate students might be helpful, with a dash of marketing and commercial organizing principles.

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