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93. Going All In on Intensives? Your Marketing Needs to Match. (Alumni Check-In #8)
Episode 93 • 29th September 2026 • Marketing Therapy • Anna Walker
00:00:00 00:23:36

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Adding intensives to your private practice—or transitioning to an intensives-only model—isn't the same as simply adding another specialty. You're introducing a different offer and, in many cases, a different business model. That means your marketing needs to change with it.

In this alumni check-in, Anna answers a Confident Copy graduate who's moving toward an all-intensive practice. She breaks down three important shifts to consider when marketing intensives: more psychoeducation, a more premium presence, and more organic marketing. You'll learn how to help potential clients understand an unfamiliar therapy format, create a website experience that supports your pricing, and build awareness and demand for intensives in your market.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

1️⃣ Why marketing intensives requires more psychoeducation—and how to help potential clients understand what makes this format different.

2️⃣ How your website and overall brand experience need to support the premium price point you're asking clients to invest.

3️⃣ Why relationships, referrals, and other organic marketing efforts can be especially important when you're offering something clients may not already know to search for.

4️⃣ How getting specific about your intensive offer can help you communicate its value and build demand for this model of therapy.

Resources & links mentioned

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The Walker Strategy Co website: https://walkerstrategyco.com

About Marketing Therapy

Marketing Therapy is the podcast where therapists learn how to market their private practices without burnout, self-doubt, or sleazy tactics. Hosted by Anna Walker, a marketing coach, strategist, and founder of Walker Strategy Co—each episode brings you clear, grounded advice to help you attract the right-fit, full-fee clients and grow a practice you feel proud of.

Transcripts

Speaker:

Hey, hey.

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Welcome back to another

episode of Marketing Therapy.

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I'm really excited about this one.

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It's very, very relevant to a lot

of you who I've been talking to.

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Now, this is an alumni check-in.

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If you've been around here for a bit,

you know that our alumni check-ins are

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opportunities for our Confident Copy

alumni, folks who have graduated from

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our signature program, to ask follow-up

questions about their marketing.

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So they may have launched their

website and are now revisiting

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another part of their marketing.

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They might be adding to their

website, working on improving

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it, whatever that might be.

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And this month's question came

from Jean, and jean said to

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us, "Things are going well.

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I'm moving toward an all-intensive

practice and would like to shift

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some marketing toward that."

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She's asking here what she needs

to do on her website and beyond to

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shift to an all-intensive practice.

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Now, this is a really exciting transition

and something, as I mentioned, I've

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been talking to a lot of you about.

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Some of you do have the goal of

moving entirely to intensives.

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It's a really fantastic model.

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It can free up your time.

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It presents a lot of opportunity

as it relates to revenue and

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flexibility and scaling your

practice, all really wonderful things.

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Many of you, even if you're not

planning to go all intensives, are

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interested in adding this model.

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So in addition perhaps to your weekly or

bi-weekly clients, you're interested in

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adding on a handful of these per month or

per year to, again, offer some additional

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revenue, but also to meet your clients

at a different point of need, right?

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There are certainly clients who can

benefit from a more concentrated,

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in-depth, accelerated experience than

those who might be interested in weekly

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therapy throughout the course of the year.

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So if you're thinking about

intensives, you're in the right spot.

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I think you're gonna get something

good here, 'cause we're gonna be

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looking at what actually needs to

happen if you're gonna go all in here.

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Because this is not the same as

adding on a different specialty.

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Like, oh, um, yes, I used to do anxiety

and trauma, but now I'm doing grief.

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That's not how this goes.

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Adding on intensives it's

adding on a different offer.

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It's actually changing

your business model,

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And it requires something different

of your marketing in order for

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clients to say, "Hey, yes, that

is actually what I'm looking for."

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Okay?

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Now, here's the thing

about intensives right now.

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They're still new enough that

not everyone knows it's a thing.

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Even some therapists are

like, "Wait, what's that?"

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There's…

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You can do extended sessions, you can do

multiple days, whatever that might be.

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They're still new enough that

therapists are still learning about

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it, which means clients definitely are.

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How do you market something

that not everyone knows exists?

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That's why intensives is an

interesting thing right now.

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Now, that tells us that right now,

literally today is the best time

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to start trying to get this right.

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Right?

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So, yes, it might be a little bit

of a scary time to try, but it's

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also the best time to get this right

because you are getting in early.

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You are getting in before this is

the primary way, perhaps, that people

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seek out therapy, or at least one

of the m- most popular ones, right?

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You're getting in on kind of the ground

floor as people just begin to learn

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about the transformation available to

them in the form of intensive therapy.

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Now, let me tell you about a client

of mine who figured this out, and

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it was really interesting to watch

her do this, and she did it before

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anyone, like, told her she needed to.

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She's a incredibly experienced and

highly trained EFT clinician, and she

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started offering intensives back when

they were just starting to catch on.

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Like, this was a brand-new

kind of baby concept.

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Barely anyone was searching for them.

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And she had every reason because

of that to stay really, really

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broad, to offer intensives for

literally anyone, and she didn't.

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She knew what she wanted to do, so she

went specific, into couples intensives.

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But then she did another

layer of specificity.

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She does couples intensives specifically

for professional couples who are

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navigating really demanding careers

and dynamics related to that.

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Then more specific still, because of

her expertise in EFT, she does EFT

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couples intensives for professional

couples in demanding careers.

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Ultra specific.

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And every decision there, every

layer of specificity, was a

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chance for her to play it safer.

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She could've been like, "No, I'm

gonna stop here," and she didn't.

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She leaned in, and I've really respected

that confidence and that boldness in

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her marketing, like I said, early,

early on, when this is just a brand-new

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baby concept out there in the market.

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So we built her a website really helping

her expertise shine and speaking to the

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value of what she offers, and guess what?

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It worked.

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This was about two to three years ago,

and today people find her on Google.

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People find her on ChatGPT.

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People travel to the small coastal

town where she lives to engage

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in these intensives with her.

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Her packages run 4,500 to $5,000 plus.

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They're booked off her website.

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People who know they want

her, they acknowledge the fee.

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They're ready to go because

she leaned in and she did it.

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So that's where we sit

today, is not waiting until

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intensives get popular, right?

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Not waiting for that reason to get

specific, but to go ahead and get

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specific now so that you can be the one

people find as this grows in popularity.

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What this client did on purpose,

what I got to watch her and support

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her in doing, is exactly what

everyone moving to intensives needs

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to be doing on purpose as well.

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Okay?

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So there's really three things that I

see change when you are planning either

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to add on intensives, but especially if

you're wanting to go intensives only.

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Okay?

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Three things.

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One, more psycho ed.

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Your marketing has to incorporate more

psycho education than when you are doing

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standard traditional one-on-one therapy.

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When someone says therapy, you

automatically think of sitting in a

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room with one other person for fifty

minutes or whatever that might be.

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That is the model, that is the

default that most of us think about.

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You know if you've ever pitched intensives

to anyone, that could be a past client,

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that might be a colleague, that could

be a random stranger at, you know, a

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dinner party, whatever that might be.

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You already know often the

question that comes back, "Wait.

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Wait, what?

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What is that exactly?

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What's an intensive?"

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So you're not just describing

a service anymore, right?

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You are introducing a format that most

people haven't encountered before.

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What's your marketing

gonna do in that case?

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It's not just, "Oh, I'm adding on

grief, and now I do grief therapy.

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Okay, let's talk a little bit about grief.

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You know what that means.

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Off we go."

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No, this is a brand-new format and

for that reason, we have to do a lot

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more education in your marketing.

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Now, this isn't gonna be a lecture, right?

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We're not writing a

workbook about intensives.

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But it means that we need to be

really, really thoughtful about

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how your marketing positions this.

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It means walking someone through

things that a weekly session, you know,

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website or marketing doesn't have to.

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So what actually happens in an intensive?

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There's the intake, there's the

intensive itself, there's the

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integration, the workbook, the

prep, whatever that might be.

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You're gonna have to make a case, not

directly, but you're gonna have to make a

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case for why the per hour cost is probably

higher than your standard weekly therapy.

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And you're gonna have to

really communicate what

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the experience feels like.

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So sometimes when you introduce a

new format, you are really inclined

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to talk about what they get.

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"Here's what's included, and you

get snacks, and I have a workbook,

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and then we have a session."

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Those things are important.

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They need to understand that.

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But more than that, they need to

understand, "Why is this experience

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the one that I need out of therapy?"

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Especially contrasted with the

default that I think about,

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which is weekly sessions.

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So you have to be prepared to make

that case and to communicate what that

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experience is actually going to feel like.

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Now, we know that marketing's whole entire

job anytime, whether we are marketing

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traditional weekly therapy, intensives,

or something entirely different, it's

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really all about reducing confusion.

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The less confusion, the more likelihood

to buy, always, across every industry.

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Nobody reaches out about something

that they are still confused by.

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Absolutely no one.

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So as you are thinking about adding

intensives, and I hope you're planning

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at the very least to add a intensive

specific page to your website, that

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is the bare minimum here, you need

to be thinking about how you're

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going to be reducing that confusion.

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So if you have presented this to someone

before and they've said, "Wait, what?

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What is that?"

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Y- your website's job, your marketing's

job is to answer that, to reduce

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that confusion, to communicate the

value, and to invite them to see why

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this is the model that they need.

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Lindsey is another client of ours

who chose to add on intensives as she

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started her practice and she describes

an intensive as dedicated, uninterrupted

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time to do the deeper work of therapy

in a more focused format, rather than

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spreading it across weeks or months.

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She says it's intentional space to focus

on one challenge, experience, goal, or

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pattern without the pressure of the clock.

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Now, this is of course copy that

we wrote for her as we worked

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together in our done-for-you setting.

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But that is boiled down what

her clients need to hear.

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Notice what that does.

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Notice what that information does.

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It doesn't just define the format.

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It's not just you get

this, this, and this.

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It makes the format sound like

a relief, like a breath of fresh

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air, like something that I need.

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Past just the definition of this

service, you have to be clear on

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why you're offering the intensives.

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Why does your client, your ideal

client, not someone else's, why does

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your ideal client need this service?

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Is it expedited healing?

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Is it deeper healing than

the weekly sessions allow?

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Is it more of the time?

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Is it built for the busy

professional who literally cannot

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fit weekly therapy into her week?

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Is it for someone with a specific

event on the horizon that they need

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to prepare for and need to move

through in order to proceed with?

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Is it for someone who's stalled

out in traditional weekly therapy,

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needs to shake things up before they

get back to their other therapist?

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Why does your client need this service?

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You need to get really, really clear on

that so that you are resonating with them.

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Like I said, not someone else's,

'cause there's a lot of different

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ways that intensives provide value.

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Your ideal client is going to appreciate

it for a very specific set of reasons.

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So define which ones are true

for your ideal client, and then

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position that front and center.

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Again, we're gonna talk about format

here, but we're also gonna talk about

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the experience that we provide in order

to ultimately communicate the value of

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why this is the model that they need.

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Remember, with where we are in

the market, with intensives still

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being relatively new, people

are not going to reach out about

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something that they don't understand.

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And so this additional psycho-education,

this first thing that needs to

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change in your marketing, is

not just a nice-to-have, right?

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It is going to be the thing that

gets them to the consult with you.

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So Jean, our Confident Copy alumni,

anyone else who is listening, you can jump

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in back into the Confident Copy vault.

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You can work through our intensive

specific workbook and get really,

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really clear about the best

way to communicate this, right?

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Format, psycho-education, experience.

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How are we communicating those?

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How is it structured?

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And how are we gonna get

these folks to book, right?

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If you're a template customer of ours, or

you're a Squarespace user at all, we also

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have an intensive specific add-on page.

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That add-on page is structured using

the same model we recommend for our

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done-for-you clients and for our

Confident Copy students, and you can

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install it into any Squarespace website.

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If you aren't aware of those, jump

over to walkerstrategyco.com/add-ons,

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add-ons pages, and you can

see what that page looks like.

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You can choose a style, and then you

can actually install that into your

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website in order to start communicating

this front and center and highlighting

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the value of what it is that you offer.

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Okay?

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All right, so that's the first

one, is more psycho-education.

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The next thing that has to change

as you add on this service is

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you need a more premium presence.

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So first was more psycho-education,

now it's more premium presence.

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Now, here's a question I

want you to sort of sit with.

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What's actually going to prompt

someone to spend four thousand dollars

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and a few days of her life with you?

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What's it gonna be?

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Now, the thing is, it's not going

to be because she ran a spreadsheet

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you know, built out an Excel

doc of every EFT-trained couples

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therapist around you, right?

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People make decisions based

on perception, not reality,

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unfortunately, or fortunately,

depending on how you look at it.

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It's not a knock on them,

it's literally how we work.

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It's how buying works, especially

when trust is the product.

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Trust in you is the product.

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Trust in what this intensive is

going to offer is the product.

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And the higher your fee, four thousand,

six thousand, we have a client right now

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charging twelve thousand per intensive.

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The higher your fee, the more

trust that perception has to carry.

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So your website at this price point

is building trust on contact before

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anyone's heard your voice, talked to

you, even learned what's included, right?

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It is conveying professionalism and

competence through perception alone.

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Because again, we're making decisions

based on perception, not reality.

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And it's priming someone to believe

that your fee, whatever it is, is fair

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before they even ask what it is or

scroll down to that section of a page.

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Okay?

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So when you get these things wrong, then

your website stops being neutral, and

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it actually begins working against you.

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It plants doubt.

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Is she actually worth four

thousand, five thousand dollars?

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And the hard thing about doubt is

that it doesn't announce itself.

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You don't know what's happening.

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It shows up as a I'll think

about it," or clicking out,

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just not booking the consult.

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You don't get that feedback.

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So that's why if you are planning to

charge premium fees, you need a premium

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presence, and this is especially true in

the intensive model when people are taking

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a little bit more of a gamble since it's

a newer format, since you are charging

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more than a standard weekly session.

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And so sometimes that dated or DIY-looking

website next to your five thousand

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dollar price tag actually reads as a

legitimate mismatch and those mismatches

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are exactly where the doubt creeps in If

you are planning to put together hours,

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days of your expertise, package them up

into an, an intensive model, you need to

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be delivering a more premium presence.

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We actually talked about this just

last week, When we talked about what

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it takes to de-panel from insurance.

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Your website needs to match the fee

you are now asking people to pay.

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That is especially true when you

are at these types of price points

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The way that I see it, this is where

your brand and your practice kind

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of split into two different things.

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Your practice is what you do.

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Your practice is your expertise.

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Your practice is your time.

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Your practice is your intensive model.

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But your brand, your brand

is why they choose you.

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Your brand is why they pick your

practice and not someone else's.

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And if your brand does not feel in

alignment with the experience that

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you are saying you can offer, that's

where we create that friction.

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That's where we create that doubt.

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Your brand is what is going to prime

someone for a higher price point.

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It's the thing that's going to convey the

quality of the experience they're about

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to have, and I would believe that the

quality of the intensive experience you

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have designed is pretty dang high, right?

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We need your website and your

marketing to say, "What you see

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here is what you're going to

experience when you work with me."

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Your website should be going

before you, going ahead of you

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into the search result, right?

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Into the referral conversation,

the inbox, whatever.

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Making the case on your

behalf, making the yes easier.

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This is why DIY Or dated websites

can tend to fight against you at

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this price point Premium pricing,

$4,000, $5,000 plus, and DIY my site

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don't often send the same signal.

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That is not to say…

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Please let me pause here.

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That is not to say you cannot DIY an

absolutely killer and beautiful website,

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because I know people that are doing that.

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Jean's website is gorgeous.

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She used one of our templates,

and obviously things are going

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really, really well for her.

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But we have to be really mindful

about the quality of the presence

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matching the quality of the experience

you're asking people to pay for.

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So is your website feeling as premium as

the fee you're charging and the experience

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you're going to offer these folks?

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As I see people move from standard

weekly sessions into intensives, I see

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also the need for them to uplevel the

experience that you're creating for people

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on your website and in your marketing.

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All right.

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Finally, the other thing

that needs to change.

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So we've had more psycho ed, a more

premium presence, more organic marketing.

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Friends, because intensives are

still new, most of your growth right

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now isn't gonna come from Google.

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It's probably not gonna come from AI.

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It's likely not going

to come from Google Ads.

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It's going to come from

the boots on the ground.

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Because not enough people know to

search for this yet, and this episode,

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at least that statement from this

episode, is probably going to be

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outdated in six months or a year

because I really do see this growing

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and growing and growing as we go.

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But right now, not enough people know

to ask Claude for an intensive, right?

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They don't have that language yet.

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We know that networking is

still the number one driver

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behind premium fee success.

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This is going to grow relationally.

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This is going to grow by talking to your

own clients about this option directly,

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by building adjunct relationships with

therapists doing weekly work who could

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refer someone in for a focused intensive.

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This is going to grow relationally.

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This is going to be a

boots-on-the-ground effort.

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Okay?

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So listen to me.

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Come in close.

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If you wanna add intensives, especially

if you wanna go all intensives in

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your practice, this is not a set it

and forget it situation, my friend.

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Now, it can be incredibly fruitful and

profitable and whatever that might be.

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It is not going to be passive.

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None of your marketing is passive,

but especially not this, okay?

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The very cool thing about getting

in on this now, the very cool thing

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about creating a really well-optimized

page for couples intensives, a really

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well-optimized page for grief intensives,

whatever that might be, is that you

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are creating something that's going

to be ready when demand catches up.

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When people know to search for this,

you will have been out there already.

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You will have been well-optimized

building this relationship, building

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this experience for people before

they even knew they needed it.

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This is only going to serve you

better over time if you start

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getting it right right now.

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But because of where we sit with this

format of therapy, because we're in its

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infancy, if you wanna grow that part

of it, you need to be more intentional

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about the marketing that you're doing.

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Now, this isn't to say that you can't

be found through Google or ChatGPT.

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Like I mentioned, the client

at the top of the episode,

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she was a done-for-you client.

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We did both her copy and design.

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People are finding her

through both of those things.

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So it's not that you can't, but your

expectation should be to be more

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engaged with this marketing, to be

more boots on the ground, as we say,

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and prepared to talk about this,

to grow relationships, to foster

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those in order to get these clients.

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And then you're gonna get to see the

fruit of that pay off probably for years

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to come as this grows in its popularity.

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Right now, this is gonna grow by

relationship, but it's starting to

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grow by search too, and people who

build for that now aren't gonna

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be scrambling to catch up later.

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That's the beauty of getting

in on this right now.

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So back to Jean's actual question.

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What has to shift in your marketing?

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Well, Jean, y- we know that you

already have a really, really

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incredible website from Confident Copy.

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We know that it's doing well

for you so far, so this isn't

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gonna be a huge overhaul.

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Hallelujah, right?

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All we need to be looking now is,

are there ways in which we need to

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be providing more psychoeducation, a

more premium presence, or preparing

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:

for more organic marketing in ways

maybe you haven't had to so far?

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As you step into a business model

that is more premium and also less

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understood earlier in that adoption

curve, then we need to be looking

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at these types of shifts in order to

prepare you to create demand right

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now, and then to take on the demand

that is only going to grow over time.

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I love working with

intensives-only clinicians.

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It's one of my favorite clients to see

come in for our done-for-you services.

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You know, we'll sit down

in a discovery session.

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I'll ask them what their vision is

for their practice and where they're

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at right now, and whenever they say,

"I'm wanting to add intensives," or,

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"I'm wanting to shift to this," my

eyes light up because the marketing

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potential available to you is huge.

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Okay?

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But we gotta lean in.

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We gotta focus on that psycho ed.

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We gotta be prepared to talk about

and communicate the value that

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this model specifically offers.

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We've gotta create that super premium

presence, which obviously our design

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team does an incredible job of.

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And then you gotta be prepared to get out

there, to talk about it, to share it, in

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order to start booking those, you know,

four and five figure intensives where

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you get to see absolute transformation

on behalf of your clients, right?

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All right.

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If you're interested in chatting about

this, if you're someone who needs help

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figuring out how to do this psycho

education in a way that doesn't sound like

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a textbook, or maybe you know that as you

shift into an intensives-only model, your

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website needs to be upleveled as well.

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I actually have a discussion

with a clinician about that

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very thing in just a week or so.

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In a discovery session, you and I can chat

more about your vision for your practice.

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We can look at your current website,

and I'll let you know if one of

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our services might be a good fit.

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Remember, more education, more premium

presence, more organic marketing.

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If you're prepared to check all three

of those boxes in your marketing, then

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the shift that you're about to make

is bound to be successful, and I can't

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wait to see how it serves you, not just

now, but in the years to come as this

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adoption curve picks up and more and

more people realize what is available

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to them in the form of intensives.

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I hope this one was helpful for you.

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I'll see you in our next episode.

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