How to Develop a Brand Identity That Attracts Clients to Your Practice

When I was a new therapist early in my clinical career, I was first exposed to the concept of branding through stand-up comedy.

Like many mental health practitioners, I’d received little training when it came to branding and marketing a business, and eager to begin my mission of helping others heal, I’d never considered it necessary to learn. 

One night, I watched my favorite comedian claim one evening that a particularly salacious joke was “pretty off-brand” for her, and—given my marketing ignorance—I assumed the phrase alluded to something scandalous and offensive. And, in fact, I’ve since come to learn that to many therapists, branding can feel like exactly that. 

Shortly afterward, the treatment center where I was accruing my hours for licensure began going through the process of rebranding. For weeks, we attended meetings about logo changes and company verbiage, with topics ranging from the look of the website to the structure of our email signatures. Many of the therapists on my team, including myself, found the process excessive and tedious, having little idea of how it related to the work we were actually doing with clients. 

The importance of brand identity 

It wasn’t until I found myself overseeing the branding of two mental health companies that I began to understand and appreciate the significance of what those meetings were attempting to do, or the importance of that comedian I saw naming that the material she performed was inconsistent with her typical content. Like many therapists in the field, I initially felt unprepared and underqualified to build a brand when the opportunity was presented to me. At best, the idea seemed intimidating and overwhelming. At worst, it seemed inauthentic and self-promoting. 

Much to my surprise, however, I discovered that many of the same skills and interventions that I was already utilizing in my clinical practice translated into brand development. 

3 steps to building a brand identity

The same ethic, authenticity, and therapeutic approaches I was using with my clients also helped me begin building a strong brand identity for my companies. Subsequently, the stronger our brand became, the more clients it attracted. 

Because of this experience, I believe all therapists have the ability to build a brand that creates a thriving practice using the same skills they’re already utilizing in providing therapy to clients. Here are the three steps it takes to start building a brand identity, and how you’re already practicing them as a therapist. 

1. Explore your brand’s identity 

A brand, first and foremost, is about identity, and we can approach building a brand in the same way we approach guiding a client through their own identity development.

Branding offers a way for clients to recognize and perceive a business. It’s the image and identity of an organization, and how that organization communicates its values, beliefs, and mission. When a business is established, it becomes its own entity, and a brand is that entity’s voice in the world. 

Much like it is for people, a business’s identity develops from a deep understanding of who it is, the values it holds, and how it communicates those values and characteristics to the world around it. Through its brand, clients come to recognize a business and know what it stands for.

This requires getting to know the nuances and personality of your business based on what resonates most deeply with you and the clients you’re hoping to attract. Like an adolescent, your business may need to try on different identity expressions as you clarify what feels most true to who you want your business to be. Your brand may go through different iterations and design before it becomes fully formed and effectively expresses itself. Much like getting to know ourselves and our clients, we must ask questions, experiment, and clarify the values and essence of what makes our business authentic to the work we want to do. 

To begin establishing a brand, it may be helpful to ask some foundational questions, such as: 

• What do I most value in working with clients? Is it hope, resilience, play, acceptance, justice, etc.?
• Who do I want my business to speak to and attract?
• What makes my business unique? 
• What kind of language do I want my business to use? 
• How do I want my business to express itself? Is it reserved and calm or colorful and loud? Is it minimal or detailed? Is it light and optimistic or deep and serious?

2. Think about your brand with intention

In addition to a foundational identity, a brand requires intentionality—similar to how we approach every interaction and intervention with our clients with a justifiable purpose.

Once you begin to form a brand identity, the devil is in the details on how you communicate that identity to your audience. Everything from the font type you choose to the colors you employ require intentional reflection about how they are expressing the values of your practice. 

The nuts and bolts of a brand live in the colors, font, style, and images. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the visuals of your businesses will inspire emotional reactions to those who see them, either attracting them to reach out—or prompting them to look elsewhere.

For example, dark colors will inspire different emotions than light colors. Images of people crying will communicate different messages than images of people laughing. A sans-based font, or one that has no tails on the ends of letters, will cause different reactions than a script-based font, or one that does have tails. 

As mental health professionals, we regularly practice dual consciousness in considering how a client may think, feel, or react to how we speak, what we wear, and how we design our offices. You can use this same approach and awareness to build a brand. As you organize your website, develop your paperwork, and create content for social media, it’s important to consider what reaction potential clients may have, as well as the reason behind each of your choices. 

It’s also good to remember that the style of your business will speak to some clients, but not to others. Much like we do in a therapeutic relationship, you can assess what your ideal client needs and is drawn to and then design your visuals based on that evaluation. For example:

• When you consider an ideal client, what’s their style? Is it more masculine or feminine? Modern or traditional? What sort of settings may they be found in? 
• When you consider the values of your business, what colors come to mind? What emotions do those colors bring up in you? 
• When you consider using a specific image, how does looking at it make you feel? Does that feeling align with the values you want to communicate in your business? How do you imagine it will make an ideal client feel? 
• What font have you chosen for your business? Does it reflect the style and values of your business somehow?

3. Show up as your brand with consistency

Finally, a brand requires consistency, and in the same way you build relationships with clients by consistently showing up in ways they can count on, remaining consistent in a brand allows your potential clients to get to know your business and build trust with it.

Once a brand identity and details have been established, make sure that all the rest of the content you create stays in alignment with those details. Making sure that everything is “on brand” builds trust and rapport with your audience, and establishes your business’s unique presence in the field. 

Consistency sets a standard of professionalism and the expectation for how your business will repeatedly present itself. Your brand may still grow and develop, but all those developments should still feel like they stem from your values and identity, and work to bring your brand closer to them.

You may want to consider:

• Do you use the same colors in all of your content?  
• Is your language and messaging consistent across platforms or do you use different phrasing?
• Does your choice of font appear in all spaces you are able to choose it? 
• Does your content communicate and align with the values of your business? 

Even though it may seem totally foreign, building a brand doesn’t need to be overwhelming or intimidating—even without any formal training in marketing or brand. It all comes down to intentionally reflecting on the characteristics and values you want your business to reflect, and choosing a style that feels aligned with them. When you do that, you can build a brand that expresses the essence of your therapeutic practice, and attracts the clients you want to serve most.