Strategies for Productively Growing Your Doula Practice
As a new doula starting out, it’s easy to spend too much time on non-essential tasks instead of focusing your efforts on effective doula marketing strategies that will acquire new clients and expand your doula service offerings. Endless social media posting and filming videos in the hopes of going viral can be distracting activities that don’t necessarily move the needle for your doula business.
The truth is, many of the common activities doulas spend hours on each week aren’t always the most strategic uses of limited time as solopreneurs running a doula business. Since time is one of our most precious resources, we need to ensure we’re strategically allocating our hours to the tasks that will directly lead to client referrals, grow partnerships with local professionals, and help scale our doula practice over time.
Some questions to ask yourself include:
- Am I prioritizing client referrals and relationship building over social media post drafting? While social media is important for doula marketing, talking to current clients and building your referral sources network is often more effective for getting new doula clients.
- Have I spent more hours this month filming videos with minimal views instead of partnering with childbirth educators on collaborative classes and workshops? Partnering with related professionals can expand your doula services offerings more reliably than viral video campaigns.
- Did I spend my afternoon tweaking my company website rather than calling OBGYNs about offering doula services at their practice? Offline relationship building is key to doula referrals and requires dedicated time.
What should a doula do about it?
By identifying where you could redirect efforts from less impactful doula business activities to those with clearer ROI (return on investment) metrics like potential client calls, interviews, referrals, and professional partnerships, your doula practice is sure to see strategic growth over time. Take some time this week to evaluate:
- Activities you could spend LESS time each week on, like endless website and paperwork tweaking or low-ROI videos.
- Activities like relationship-building calls or promotional content creation where you can dedicate MORE focused hours.
Commit to finishing “less” tasks quickly and prioritizing your “more” list – it will help productively grow your doula business through efficient time management.
