Do you have a client newsletter or are you thinking about launching one? On the face of it these seem like a great idea but, for therapists, offering a newsletter may not be as straightforward as it seems.
All businesses are bound by legislation to safeguard their clients’ personal data but most collect pretty basic stuff - just enough to complete your order. Therapists hold more detailed information (e.g., about a client’s health and family circumstances) and we’re bound by the confidentiality requirements of our various professional bodies as well as the law. This means balancing the benefits of improved communication with professional ethics.
The Pros: Improve Client Communication via Newsletters
- You can take the opportunity on your signup forms to collect extra information about those who choose to receive your emails such as age and gender. This, in turn, might help you identify your best demographic for ads. However, although I’ve included this as a “pro”, some people are suspicious of why you want this information when you’re simply going to send them an email. So consider making the questions optional on your signup form, and explain clearly why you’re asking.
- A newsletter gives you a chance to remind clients about your services and lets them know about new therapies or events you might be offering. This can lead to extra bookings.
- More people see your information. A decent open rate for a health and wellbeing newsletter is around 37% [1] This might not seem like much, but it beats the 2-6% of your followers who see a Facebook post. [2]
- Including relevant links to your website in your newsletter encourages people to click on them to get more information. Getting more visitors to your site is good SEO (i.e., it makes Google like your site!). [Click here to see my article on making your website search engine friendly].
- Researching up-to-date and relevant information to include in your newsletter helps you refresh your knowledge and find fascinating new facts about your therapy and/or the issues you work with.
- Newsletters can offer clients extra support between sessions and build community, especially if you have a niche. For example, you can encourage newsletter recipients to participate in social media groups or forums that you run, allowing them to connect with others facing similar issues.
- You can educate clients on the importance of self-care, giving tips and coping strategies that you might not have time to cover in sessions.
- Consistently providing useful and practical content can improve your relationship with clients or potential clients, helping to build trust and rapport.
- People may sign up for a newsletter before they are ready to contact you directly. It gives them a glimpse of who you are and how you work and offers a way to ease themselves into readiness to book an appointment.
The Cons: Effort, Inspiration, and Ethics!
- Creating a newsletter worth reading, and a list of people to send it to, takes time and effort. This time is initially unpaid (although it may well bring in work in the long term) so you have to ensure it doesn’t impact your essential admin or self-care time. I’ll suggest some easy ways to get great content in next month’s article, dealing with what to include in your newsletter.
- You need to send newsletters out on a regular schedule to build a proper relationship with recipients. So sooner or later you may find yourself up against a deadline and staring at a blank screen wondering what on earth to write. (More about this next month, too.)
- Clients, like you, receive newsletters from many different sources. This can be overwhelming, especially for those who are already busy or struggling with mental health issues. So, even though they have asked to receive it, not everyone will read your newsletter. (As above, a good open rate is around a third of recipients.)
- Newsletters can sometimes lead to a blurring of professional boundaries. For example, an effective newsletter helps people get to know you, which is why it helps to build rapport. But it can sometimes lead to a level of self-disclosure that you wouldn’t normally offer in a therapy session.
- There may be confidentiality issues, for example, if the client shares a family email address with someone who is unaware they're seeing you, or if the email addresses of other recipients are accidentally revealed. This can be overcome by not automatically adding every client to your newsletter. Provide a link for them to sign up if they want to.
The Law: Emails and Regulation*
You must ensure your email newsletters comply with all relevant regulations. In the UK, these are the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). Briefly, you need:
- a clear audit trail proving consent from the client to receive your newsletters,
- an unsubscribe option,
- links to your privacy policy,
- clear identification of the sender (you) and your contact details,
- cross-border security (in case any of your emails go outside the UK) and
- parental consent for anyone aged under 16.
The easiest way to ensure all this is in place is to sign up with a third-party email marketing service, which will see to it for you. Mailchimp is the one I use, but there are others such as Mailjet, Brevo and Mailerlite. Most have a free option though I’d check out a few as they have different features available on their free accounts.
Any third-party newsletter provider will, of course, be storing your subscribers’ contact details on their servers and if they get hacked, it could be your customers’ information that is compromised. However, they will give you a Data Processing Agreement which sets out their responsibilities in safeguarding your clients’ personal details.
Your own GDPR/privacy policy needs to include details of everyone you share information with, so mention who provides your newsletter service, and provide a link to their privacy policy.
The final legal concern is around a popular way to gain extra subscribers, i.e., the free gift or “lead magnet” on signing up. Your lead magnet could be a tip sheet on dealing with anxiety or an ebook on healthy eating – whatever fits best with your client demographic.
Under the GDPR you are obliged to get permission for each separate use of someone’s data. So, asking for their email to send them a freebie and then also signing them up for your newsletter is not allowed.
You must make it clear that their email will be used for both purposes.[3] Something like “Sign up for my newsletter and receive a free factsheet on [topic] as well as monthly messages giving you news and offers from my hypnotherapy practice. You can unsubscribe at any time and keep the free gift.” It's made very clear that they will get the newsletter as well as the freebie.
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Overall, I think that while sending newsletters might take some work, or raise concerns around privacy and boundaries, the benefits are worth it when handled with care. You can use your newsletter to start a conversation with people who may become clients, offer ongoing support to those who already are, share knowledge, build community, and give your clients the tools they need to thrive.
Next time, I’ll be looking at what to put in your newsletter, plus when and how often to send it out.
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And, last but not least, if you'd like to receive my therapists' newsletter which goes out monthly and includes:
- client tips,
- business building tips,
- links to relevant research and interesting articles,
- details of hypnotherapy and CPD courses, along with subscriber discount codes.
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
*Remember, I’m a therapist and not a lawyer! This information is provided from my personal experience and does not replace advice from a qualified legal advisor or data protection professional.
Resources
[1] https://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-communications-strategy/statistics-sources-for-email-marketing/#q1 Accessed 19.2.24
[2] https://www.einsteinmarketer.com/organic-reach-facebook Accessed 19.2.24
[3] https://www.mailerlite.com/blog/how-to-create-opt-in-forms-that-still-work-under-gdpr Accessed 19.2.24
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Author: Debbie Waller is an experienced hypnotherapist and hypnotherapy trainer. She is the author of Anxiety to Calm: a Practical Guide to a Laid-Back Life, The Hypnotherapist's Companion, Their Worlds, Your Words, and The Metaphor Toolbox, all available from Amazon or direct from the author. Find out more about Debbie's services on
Yorkshire Hypnotherapy Training - multi-accredited hypnotherapy practitioner training, taster days and foundation levels.
CPD Expert - accredited CPD and other therapy training (online and workshops options), expert and qualified hypnotherapy supervision
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