Marketing Presentations Secrets For SLPs
Have you ever wanted to give a marketing or informational presentation to doctors, other medical professionals, or parents? Whether it's a Lunch and Learn for pediatricians or a Parent Talk, having a structure for your presentation is essential! Here are my tips for creating a talk that helps other professionals and parents understand what we as SLPs do and how we can help them!
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The Basics
Bring handouts (aka visual aids) for anything & everything! I've listed my favorites below. The papers give you something to do with your hands, & we all know that having a visual to refer to makes explaining difficult concepts like standard deviations & the difference between speech and language easier!
I also try to bring examples of the games, evaluations, and therapy materials that I use (the Throat Scope is especially engaging!) and set them up at a table in the back of the room. If kids are present, this gives them a great way to keep busy so their parents can listen, & it also helps parents & pediatricians understand what we do in our evaluations & therapy sessions.
Bring functional marketing materials for your practice. I LOVE Therapy Marketing Kit and her Milestones Rack Cards (available by themselves or as a part of her kits)
Present your information in a sequence. I usually start with
Speech & Language Development and Milestones (important for both parents and pediatricians!), then transition into
Toys/Games that are good for speech/language development, which is great for pediatricians to have when parents ask them, and for parents to use. Next, give actionable steps with
Home Activities before ending with a Q & A session.
I always include a Q & A session for both parents and other professionals. You can have attendees submit questions ahead of time, or answer them on the fly during your talk (bonus points for using handouts to illustrate your answers!)
Have samples (like nutrition bars and drinks that you can get for free from Orgain) and/or "door prizes" to give away so attendees have something useful to remember you by. Some of my favorite prizes are mini 1-oz Play-doh tubs like these:
These tiny Play-doh tubs can be difficult to open, so you don't have to worry about little kids getting Play-doh everywhere during your talk- and even adults love to play with it! Use them with the excellent Playdough Communication handout from Adventures in Speech Pathology (link in the Home Activities section below).
I put my logo on a circular sticker on the lid- these Avery 1 2/3" diameter labels fit perfectly!)
Remember- if you don't have your name or logo on it, it CANNOT be deducted as a marketing expense! So slap that logo on everything you hand out!
Books and Resources
I also like to give away these helpful books:
Beyond Baby Talk by Kenn Apel & Julie Masterson
Easy-to-Say First Words: A Focus on Final Consonants by Cara Tambellini Danielson, an SLP.
Those books are appropriate for either other professionals or parents, and they are small paperbacks that won't take up too much room in your bag.
As promised, here is my go-to list of handouts and resources to share, organized by those three areas:
Speech and Language Development/Milestones
Bell Curve Explanation handout from Home Speech Home. This is awesome for Evaluation Report meetings and for sending home with parents of children who have multiple disabilities and are tested often.
Communication Checklists for Children by Sublime Speech: these give great age-based checklists for birth-5 years, then grade-based checklists for grades K-12. Also includes How to Find a Good SLP, and Signs of Language Disorders, Speech Disorders, Stuttering, and Voice Disorders, along with tips for helping children with those. FREE.
10 Speech and Language Development Myths from Kiwi Speech and The Speech Dynamic: I like to start my talks off with this, since so many of the myths are things that parents believe (such as "Using flash cards promotes language development"). FREE.
The Linguisystems Communication Milestones Guide: this PDF is amazing, covering everything from pragmatic and speech sound development to Brown's Morphemes and Feeding sequences. FREE.
Parent Handouts from Let's Talk Speech Therapy: these define Articulation, Language, and Stuttering, as well as giving helpful tips for parents. One page, front-and-back forms work wonderfully when printed on bright colored paper! They are available if you sign up for her newsletter.
16 Gestures by 16 Months by the First Words Project: this FREE handout explains how prelinguistic gestures predict and promote later oral language. Lots of pictures for parents to see examples. Excellent for Early Intervention meetings and to give to pediatricians!
Speech Sound Development chart by Mommy Speech Therapy: this FREE handout uses the info from the GFTA-2 standardization sample. I like it better than the charts that have bars for the ages that sounds can develop, because this makes more sense to parents. It's also divided into initial, medial, and final sounds by age, so you can explain why someone's 2 year old doesn't have a speech disorder because they aren't saying initial /r/.
Why Is /R/ So Hard to Say? by Natalie Snyders. It's a FREE handout that you can get by signing up for her helpful email newsletter.
Toys
Mr Potato Head Super Spud Set: It's hard to beat Mr Potato Head for eliciting language out of even the most reticent client, and this set includes a huge spud, two regular-sized "people" spuds, and two small dog and cat spuds. The link is to Amazon but I got mine at Kohl's one Christmas for less than $20, so check Kohl’s sales too.
The Play-Doh I mentioned earlier- you can do SO much with it! The Play-Doh Shape and Learn Letters set is especially relevant and engaging!
Books: any age- and seasonally-relevant book works here, but my standbys are any of the If You Take a Mouse/Pig/Etc... books by Laura Numeroff, The King Who Rained and A Chocolate Moose for Dinner by Fred Gwynne (fun fact: he played Uncle Lester on The Addams family when not writing books about idioms :)) , and any of the Brian P Cleary books about parts of speech.
I also love to have interactive books on hand, whether the nursery rhymes set songs from Speech Room News, my own interactive books about prepositions and social skills, or the What Do You See? bundle from Communication Window.
Home Activities/Resource Books
Themed Early Language Facilitation sheets from Adventures in Speech Pathology. These are awesome for explaining how to expand utterances and encourage functional language through everyday play.
Handouts for Parents of Late Talkers by Speechy Things. These are geared toward early intervention and cover great topics like Creating Verbal Routines and Why Manners Don't Matter (Yet).
10 Language Building Tips for Parents of Children Who Communicate Without Words by The Hanen Centre. Evidence-based tips for parents; the link is to their website, and you can obtain the list by signing up for their helpful newsletter.
It Takes Two To Talk from the Hanen Centre. This is a great book for parents who have late talkers or children with many communication challenges. Very good advice in a parent-friendly format.
An Early Start for Your Child With Autism by Sally J Rogers PhD, Geradine Dawson PhD, and Laurie A Vismara PhD. This is based on the Early Start Denver Model and is helpfully divided into easy-to-read chapters.
Preschool Stuttering: What Parents Can Do by Marla G Raz, SLP. This is a quick read that can help parents understand what stuttering is and isn't during the challenging preschool years, and how to help their child.
Want to save these resources on Amazon to browse later? I made a shoppable list for your convenience.
My Private Practice Essentials course from Northern Speech Services is a one-stop guide to starting your private practice, including an entire section on Marketing.
Do you have any other resources that you love to use when you're giving presentations about speech-language pathology? Let me know in the comments!