subject: Growing A Successful Mediation Practice [print this page] Whether you are just starting up, or have been in practice for years, the one thing successful businessmen and women know is that you can never rest on your laurels. You can't just sit back and wait for clients to come to you, if you want an active and thriving practice. So where do you go to get the best bang for your advertising buck?
Papers and Journals all have long standing reputations for advertising, but unless the people who need your services are looking for you in them they aren't that effective. Journals that are aimed at those in your profession are excellent resources for your professional information, but you aren't trying to attract fellow mediators to your business. Newspapers have lost a lot of their edge as a media advertising outlet. Other than traditional store sales and coupons, people aren't as drawn to advertising by businesses in newspapers.
Television is still a massive advertising outlet, but it is expensive, and more and more people tune out the ads they see, or get up and go for a snack during commercial breaks. The Superbowl, one of the most costly ad space venues on the TV used to measure it's "success" as a viewer draw by the volume of water flushed during half-time, and during commercial spots. Do you really want to spend thousands, if not tens of thousands on a television spot to have someone leave to "flush?"
The most effective advertising venue of the 21st century is the Internet. Everybody is online, and the Internet search engines is where they go to find information at their fingertips. Offer them something they want, and they will flock to your doors. Great, right? If only it were that easy. Many are the hopeful Internet marketers who subscribe to the motto "if you build it they will come." That was actually a very true motto in the 90s, but now, in the second decade of the new century, things have changed drastically. The Internet universe has expanded drastically, and there is a sea of competition out there. That, plus the fact that the leading gatekeepers to website traffic: the search engines, have developed ways of stacking the odds either for, or against you depending on how much you know about successful online marketing, and search engine optimization.
You can learn the best tips in the business for building a successful mediation practice from someone who has been there, done that, and took advantage of the knowledge learned to create a business model that anyone can follow. Robert Hetsler, Jr. is one of the most successful mediators in Florida and he shares his methods of marketing online in the "Mediator Money Machine Handbook." Follow the tips and he guarantees you will experience a boost to your existing business, or find a path to getting started that won't fail you.
