Expand Your Business: Offer Marriage Counseling Online

With the increasing popularity of using web applications for just about anything, it would be a good idea for businesses to offer online versions of their services. Marriage counselors, for instance can already offer marriage counseling services online, to cater to a wider audience, and to harness the marketing potentials of online communities.

It’s a matter of marketing and logistics. If you’re running a counseling business, most probably you already do some form online marketing campaign, like ads on Google AdWords, listings on craigslist.org, or a professional profile on social networking sites like LinkedIn. Since you already have an online presence, why not conduct counseling online, too? Here are a few ways you can service your clients online.

Voice Over Internet Protocol.

Marriage counseling is usually best done with face-to-face visits. However, for returning clients, you might also be taking follow-up consultations via telephone also. With VoIP, you can now take calls from people around the world at virtually no cost.

Video conferencing.

VoIP also has the added advantage of video calling. Software like Skype and Yahoo! Messenger both have video capabilities, which enables you to teleconference with clients from around the globe. Even Google’s Gmail has a built-in application that lets you video conference from within the Web browser.

Email.

Email is as old school as online communication can get. But it also has the added advantage of being able to leave a document trail. And email correspondence allows both the counsellor and the clients to organize thoughts and write them down in meaningful notes and points before hitting the send button. That way, confrontations that might occur in face-to-face encounters will be minimized. This also lets you give advice to clients as couples or individually, since email is considered a private activity.

Have a web presence.

Aside from directly engaging in client work over the internet, you can offer your marriage counseling service at-large by running an email newsletter or a weblog, where you can regularly publish advice on relationships and even financial matters for couples. This will prove to be effective in marketing your services both in the physical and online aspects.

Charging clients.

Online payment facilities like PayPal.com make it very easy for businesses to invoice and charge clients for services rendered online. Clients can pay you from their PayPal accounts if they have one. If not, they can simply submit their credit card details and PayPal will act as your credit card processing facility. These services are done for a minimal cost (about 3 to 5% of the transaction amounts), but will prove to be very convenient for any online business.

Another salient advantage of online marriage counseling is that you can partner and affiliate with other counsellors who may be situated in different parts of the country or the world. If you cannot manage all your clients on your own, then going online would help make the logistics easier. You can pass on client calls, emails or teleconferences to your colleagues who are also online. Going online is a good business move, because the costs are minimal, and the marketing and logistics benefits are great.