How do you promote your services?

[MsBlack]

Other than a few standards like yellow pages listing or being on a statewide list...what are the creative ways that you put yourself 'out there' to the public? Time for me to take some steps, rolling various ideas around in my head....

anyone? Whether cbe, doula or mw, your brilliant ideas are welcome

[momto9kidlets]

In all honesty everything I have ever done other than word of mouth has been less then successful. Some of what I have done would be:

1. Phone book ad
2. Ad in a parenting magazine
3. Ad in a magazine that went to ob offices
4. Holding open houses
5. Holding informational sessions
6. Direct mailings
7. Posting information at stores
8. Car magnet
9. Advertising online (not my own website, but on paid sites)

Now, what has worked is word of mouth - staying in contact with satisfied clients (I used to send a letter after each birth and knit a baby blanket for each client with a custom tag on it saying "Made especially for you by your doula", and then would send a birth story on the first birthday). Those two things worked really well for me because when they were expecting again or when their friends were expecting then they still knew I was doing doula work.

One other thing that I used to do when I was first starting but it took a long time to get clients from was every six months I would send letters introducing (or reintroducing) myself to the ob's and family practice doctors in the area that did births. Like I said it took a long time (probably 1 1/2-2 yrs before I saw a return on this). I had one ob tell me that since doulas come and go so quickly he never would refer since when he did the doula was most likely not doing the work anymore. By me sending him letters every six months he knew I was still working. I actually had a few hand out my business cards that way. I know of at least one who after a good amount of time put my cards in his waiting area (this was only after we worked together and there was a good outcome).

At this time I am not looking for clients anymore so not actively seeking anyone out. Might take a client here or there if they work with my schedule, but for me I am focusing mostly on nursing school.

Btw - the above advertising was for doula work. I never got anywhere with childbirth education so I gave in and now work for a hospital system. I have a great boss who is understanding and open to what I want to teach and as long as I get in the stuff they deem as necessary I can teach my stuff too.

[courtenay_e]

I bartered with a client whose husband does web design to improve my website. That bumped visability a lot. Otherwise, I mainly work from word of mouth. I've been pretty busy lately!

I have done things like go to all the chiropracters in the area to let them know I am practicing (the only one who refers to me is my own), done ads in the valu mailer (not one client).

However, I am pretty well known in the birth world around here, and there is a ton of referring that does go on between practitioners in our area. I have a couple of midwife groups who refer to me (one of them are the ones who caught my babies) for hospital births and childbirth ed classes (the classes are most often referred by the OTHER group, who like clients who are active participants in their care...), homebirth midwives will refer to me if their clients are looking for doula care or classes. I have also started to take my own clients as a midwife under supervision, and hiring senior midwives if my preceptor isn't available...I am getting those clients from former clients, from hypnobirthing instructors, yoga teachers, and cranio-sacral therapists...many people in the alternative health world who know me, to whom I have referred in the past, and who know my work.

I guess...that really is my best referral system, word of mouth! That said, again, my web site and the "free" referral sites on line have brought a decent amount of traffic, as well.

[MsBlack]

Thanks, women--

You've given me some fresh ideas. I've found word of mouth to be among the best of things...but it does take time to build a large enough client base for that to be enough by itself. I seem to attract a high proportion of somewhat private, more introverted families--a good match for working together, not so good for them telling tons of people about how much they liked my work, KWIM? Not being the 'tons of socializing' kind themselves. Various people are telling me 'website', so I guess I better learn how to do that now...been meaning to for years.

[completebeginnings]

My preceptor and I use word of mouth and websites primarily. One other thing that has worked but was not necessarily set up for this purpose was my preceptor runs a local attachment parenting group. We have gotten a lot of referrals from that. Also as a midwife I would find a doula and cbe you like and work extensively with them. I swear in my childbirth classes I teach I usually have about half planning hospital births the other half home and the majority of those planning hospital births were also going to hire me as their doula only to change to a hb. So yay for them but crappy financially for me.

[MsBlack]

I've been looking into the pre-exisiting local groups...AP, ICAN...that are open to the public, also considering starting a support group of some sort, myself, around empowered birth/informed choice. But most of my families don't hire a doula--and only a small % use a cbe (I encourage both, but don't insist)--still, it's a good idea to try to get friendlier with doulas/cbes for mutual support purposes. Thanks for your input, it sounds like I've got the right idea when it comes to attending local group meetings and maybe starting one of my own.

[Peppamint]

Most of my clients find me by my website (google search or facebook, generally) and or word-of-mouth. Since my practice has only been going for a year, I don't have tons of former clients to give referrals yet so most of my word-of-mouth referrals have come from doulas and CBEs!

[phathui5]

I've had several people find my through my blog when they searched online for a doula.