I’m a marketer with more than a decade of experience working with mental health professionals. 3,000+ therapists read my newsletter every week.
📣 What is marketing?
Good morning and welcome to the first issue of Therapy Marketer.
I’m Michael Fulwiler, founder of Fulwiler Media and former head of marketing of The Gottman Institute. Every Tuesday, I’m going to be sharing no-BS marketing tips, insights, and learnings to help you become a better marketer in five minutes or less.
You’re probably thinking, “I’m not a marketer.” I get it. You went to school to do therapy, not marketing. But here’s the thing. Being a therapist is hard. It takes years of education, training, and practice. It’s not for everyone.
Marketing is for everyone. I’m a good example. I didn’t go to school for marketing or even business. In fact, I have no formal training or education in either. I’m completely self-taught and by no means do I claim to be an expert. You should be skeptical of anyone who does.
The word “marketing” is triggering for a lot of therapists. It feels slimy. That’s because there’s a lot of bad marketing (and marketers) out there. Bad marketing is about manipulation.
Good marketing, on the other hand, is about people. As a therapist, it’s your job to understand and relate to people, so you already know more about marketing than you think.
Which brings us to the topic of today’s newsletter: What is marketing? And what’s the difference between marketing, advertising, public relations, and branding?
We’ll dig deeper in the coming weeks and months, but here’s a good visual.
Marketing is how you talk about what you do. The American Marketing Association defines it as “the process of identifying customer needs and determining how best to meet those needs.” It’s about making it easy for your ideal clients to find you.
Seth Godin, one of my favorite marketers, puts it this way:
If you need to persuade someone to take action, you’re doing marketing.
If you’re looking for votes at the city council meeting, or looking for a promotion, you’re marketing.
If you’re writing copy on your website, taking a selfie for your social media profile or trying to talk your way out of a speeding ticket, you’re marketing.
Marketing goes way beyond advertising, email pitches or the way you do pricing. In fact, most of the time, marketing has nothing at all to do with money.
We’re surrounded by people who would like a piece of our attention, a bit of our trust and some of our action. Those people are marketing to us, and it helps to know what they’re doing right (and wrong).
If someone says, “I don’t do marketing,” they probably mean, “I don’t spend money on ads.” Those are very different things.
Our culture is driven, more than ever, by marketers. The links we click on, the shows we watch, the people we vote for–they’re all marketing artifacts. If you don’t like the political situation, you’re commenting on the marketing situation.
As soon as we take responsibility for the marketing we do and the marketing that’s done to us, we have a chance to make things better (by making better things).
By subscribing to this newsletter, you’ve already taken the first (and most difficult) step to becoming a better marketer. Thanks for showing up.
Quick ask: Hit reply and introduce yourself. What you would like to see from this newsletter? What marketing questions do you have? What’s working for you? What’s not working for you? I look forward to reading your replies.
Until next time,
Michael
Therapy Marketer
I’m a marketer with more than a decade of experience working with mental health professionals. 3,000+ therapists read my newsletter every week.
Read online | January 27, 2026 If you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed, subscribe here. Enjoying the newsletter? Forward it to a friend. Marketing feels weird when the world is on fire. How are you supposed to post on social media and act like everything is normal after witnessing another collective trauma? People need your help now more than ever. But you can’t help them if they can’t find you. So keep putting yourself out there–even if it feels weird. Until next week,Michael P.S. My...
Read online | December 17, 2024 If you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed, subscribe here. Enjoying the newsletter? Forward it to a friend. If you offer free consultation calls, one of the best ways to increase your conversion rate is to schedule the first session at the end of the call. It’s important the client doesn’t feel pressured if they’re not ready to commit. But if the call goes well and they seem like a good fit, then here’s what you can say. “If you’re ready to move forward,...
The first 1,000 followers were the hardest. Welcome to the 18 new subscribers who have joined since the last issue. 231 therapists are reading today’s newsletter. If you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed, subscribe here. I’m excited to share an interview this week with Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT, also known as @lizlistens on Instagram where she has more than 200,000 followers. Liz is a Certified Gottman Therapist, which means she’s one of only a few hundred therapists in the world...