Building an Integrated Marketing Ecosystem for an Ottawa Mental Health Practice
MindSpa Mental Health Centre is an Ottawa psychotherapy practice founded by co-owners Tina Wilston and Michelle Massunken. Media Combustion has been its marketing partner since December 2023 — roughly four months after the clinic opened — building a connected marketing ecosystem across local SEO, practitioner authority, content production, podcast distribution, and reporting.
At a glance
Client
MindSpa Mental Health Centre
Industry
Mental health / psychotherapy
Confirmed locations
Ottawa, Ontario — Kanata and Gloucester
Website
themindspa.caEngagement
December 2023 – present
Primary challenge
Turning a new clinic with strong clinical expertise into a recognizable Ottawa mental health brand with a coherent digital presence across locations, practitioners, and channels.
Key areas of Media Combustion’s work
Brand and website foundation, practitioner authority building, local SEO across multiple locations, podcast production and distribution system, content pipeline, and integrated reporting.
A strong clinic that needed a marketing system to match.
When MindSpa opened in 2023, the co-founders had significant clinical experience but were starting a new business identity from zero. The practice had a brand and a website in progress, but the surrounding marketing ecosystem — the pieces that turn a website into an actual acquisition and authority system — did not yet exist.
Several structural challenges were visible from the beginning:
- •A new clinic name with no local search history and no established citations across directories.
- •Two co-founders with meaningful expertise but limited public-facing content presence.
- •A hiring plan that would bring on additional practitioners, each of whom would need their own positioning, bio, and search presence.
- •An intention to grow beyond one location, which would multiply the number of local SEO surfaces requiring consistency.
- •Ambitions around thought leadership, media presence, and eventually a podcast — none of which existed at kickoff.
The underlying problem was not a lack of expertise or ambition. It was that MindSpa needed a marketing system capable of scaling with the practice: adding practitioners, adding locations, and adding content channels without fragmenting the brand or diluting the search foundation.
Five findings that shaped every decision.
Media Combustion\u2019s early work with MindSpa was grounded in reviewing the practice, its market, and its founders — not in producing content immediately. The review showed several things that shaped every decision that followed.
Practitioner-led search demand
Ottawa mental health search is practitioner-led as much as clinic-led. Prospective clients frequently search for therapists by name, credentials, or specialization. A clinic-only marketing strategy would leave meaningful demand unaddressed.
Co-founder authority
The co-founders were the strongest available authority signal. Tina Wilston and Michelle Massunken had clinical depth, teaching experience, and media potential that had not yet been translated into public-facing assets.
Local-search consistency
Local search consistency would break as the practice grew. Adding practitioners and locations without a controlled naming convention, NAP standard, and profile governance would create conflicting identities across Google, directories, and social platforms.
Sustainable podcast and content production
Podcast and content ideas needed a production system, not a launch event. Sustained content requires transcript correction, anchor-plus-derivative publishing, and a media library — otherwise volume collapses within months of launch.
Tiered practitioner marketing
Practitioner marketing needed to be tiered. Not every clinician has the same demand, credential fit, differentiation, or willingness to participate in marketing. Treating all practitioners equally would waste effort on lower-yield work while under-investing in higher-yield opportunities.
Deliberate choices, made from the findings.
Build the clinic brand and the practitioner brands in parallel, not sequentially. Each new practitioner receives person-specific positioning (Google Business Profile copy, web and LinkedIn positioning, local keyword research, and recurring collaboration content) at the point of hire, so authority compounds instead of being retrofitted later.
Prioritize local SEO consistency before scaling volume. NAP, Instagram handle, and practitioner profile changes wait on one authoritative clinic spelling so that local and social surfaces do not reinforce conflicting identities.
Publish the anchor before the derivatives. A full YouTube podcast episode is released before quote-card Reels, TikToks, and Shorts, so every derivative has a destination.
Tier practitioner marketing investment. Support is allocated by demand and fit, differentiation and credibility, and participation willingness — with documented specialty training and resolved multi-clinic disclosure as hard gates before Tier 1 support.
Separate channel roles and approvals. Tina Wilston owns clinical and referral authority. Michelle Massunken owns warm, practitioner-facing content. MindSpa owns evergreen local SEO and booking conversion. Clinical claims flow through clinical review; podcast derivatives wait on approval of the source episode.
What We Deliberately Did Not Do
Equally important were the things Media Combustion deliberately did not do — a matter of clinical responsibility and strategic discipline, not a criticism of competitors.
- •Did not chase generic mental health keywords with content that could not be defended clinically.
- •Did not publish symptom checklists framed as diagnostic proof.
- •Did not make evidence-thin claims (for example, unproven Canadian sex-gap or menopause-and-ADHD causal claims) even when they would have driven traffic.
- •Did not launch podcast derivatives before transcripts were corrected and anchor episodes were live.
Research → Intelligence → Strategic Decision → Execution → Measurement → New Intelligence.
Applied to MindSpa, the loop looks like this — the same operating model behind every Media Combustion engagement.
Research
Intelligence
Strategic Decision
Execution
Measurement
New Intelligence
Research
Ottawa mental health search behaviour, practitioner-level demand, competitor clinics, evidence base for ADHD and anxiety content, and CADDRA conference relevance.
Intelligence
A structured account workbook that tracks meetings, content, communications, podcast work, strategy, time, and billable status in one place, so decisions are made from a shared view of the account.
Strategic Decision
Tiered practitioner investment, clinically bounded content, integrated adult ADHD journey, six-door website router, podcast-as-authority-asset.
Execution
Website, service pages, GBP, LinkedIn, podcast production, derivatives, community relationships (for example, the OttawaNPLC evergreen article), and structured practitioner asset production days.
Measurement
Content lifecycle tracking (one row per derivative from Idea → Published or Skipped), monthly dashboard rollups, and location- and practitioner-level performance review.
New Intelligence
Findings feed back into the next quarter’s plan: which practitioners get Tier 1 support, which topics get pillar treatment, which episodes justify derivative investment.
Connected workstreams, not a list of deliverables.
Each workstream below connects back to the strategic decisions above — showing how the system was built, not just what was produced.
Brand and website foundation
Media Combustion helped MindSpa move from an initial brand and website into a structured digital identity that could scale with the practice. The website is treated as a discovery and matching layer — a six-door router that handles service, therapist, location, concern, group, and intake journeys — while Jane owns booking. Rich bios, matching, filters, location content, and insurance guidance stay on the website.
Practitioner authority building
Each co-founder and, over time, each new practitioner has received person-specific positioning work. For the co-founders, this has meant translating clinical and teaching expertise into public assets that support media inquiries, referrals, and podcast credibility. For newer practitioners, this means Google Business Profile copy, web and LinkedIn positioning, local keyword research, and collaboration content produced at the point of hire.
Local SEO across locations
As MindSpa expanded across its confirmed Ottawa locations, local SEO work concentrated on consistency: one authoritative clinic spelling, aligned NAP across profiles and directories, and clean handoffs between practitioner profiles and the clinic entity. Practitioner profile changes are sequenced so that a public name is resolved before profiles are updated.
Content strategy
Content is organized around defensible authority areas rather than volume. The integrated adult ADHD journey — connecting adult ADHD therapy, assessment, neurofeedback, practitioner fit, and intake through one Ottawa pillar and supporting service pages — is one example. Content differentiates through later recognition, symptom overlap, relationships, mental load, and post-diagnosis support rather than generic productivity advice. Masking and “ADHD burnout” are treated as patient language rather than diagnoses. Care-navigation content (for example, a family-doctor-versus-mental-health-professional article paired with a coordinated-care pillar) uses internal links to move readers from general questions into MindSpa’s specific expertise.
Podcast and video system
The MindSpa Podcast is produced as an authority asset with a durable page per episode, connected to clinician profiles, relevant services, transcripts or structured notes, email capture, and YouTube. Buzzsprout transcripts are corrected before quotes, captions, stories, and short-form clips are generated. Podcast derivatives use one row per clip, moving from Idea through Edited, Approved, Scheduled, Published, or Skipped, with channel-specific status feeding a monthly dashboard. Podcast assets are cross-tagged with the clinic while maintaining distinct channel identities.
Production and asset library
Practitioner assets are batched into coordinated production days — headshots, office and lifestyle photography, intro videos, and B-roll — creating a consistent source library for bios, Google Business Profiles, LinkedIn, and short-form content. Original image files live in Google Drive; a subject-organized media-library sheet inventories locations, therapists, group therapy, podcast, and clinic-brand assets and tracks where each item was published.
Community and partnership marketing
Community-facing assets are treated as evergreen. The OttawaNPLC article remains the central page for that relationship and its fundraiser context; channel-specific distribution and authorized post-event updates add value without creating thin event-only articles. Conference participation is scoped by strategic value — for example, CADDRA 2026 is treated as relationship building rather than a sponsorship push, with speaker development shifted to 2027.
Group program marketing
Group programs are treated as reusable acquisition infrastructure: dedicated program pages, facilitator credibility, screening, listings, referrals, content, and measurement feed a repeatable launch SOP rather than a one-off social campaign. Where podcast content supports a program, one episode is recorded as two independent program assets (for example, ADHD and CBT-I halves with distinct guests), with dates, prices, and specific facilitator pairings kept off the recording and the permanent screening consultation used as the call to action.
Reporting and account operations
The account is tracked in one workbook whose action log covers meetings, content, communications, podcast work, strategy, time, and billable status. The Notion client record is being consolidated to a single canonical account page, replacing three duplicate empty-template pages.
Verified operational and strategic outcomes.
These are implementation and operational outcomes — not marketing-performance results. Performance metrics will be added once verified from source systems.
- 01
Expanded from two co-founders to a multi-practitioner team, with a repeatable onboarding process for practitioner positioning at the point of hire.
- 02
Launched and sustained The MindSpa Podcast across Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, now in its second season, with a structured anchor-plus-derivative production system.
- 03
Established a media-inquiry-ready authority profile for both co-founders, translating clinical expertise into public assets.
- 04
Built a consistent local search foundation across confirmed locations with controlled NAP, canonical clinic spelling, and sequenced profile updates.
- 05
Consolidated the content, podcast, and practitioner marketing pipelines into a single tracked system, so work is planned, executed, measured, and reviewed in one place.
- 06
Developed evidence-safe authority content in high-demand areas (adult ADHD, anxiety, CBT-I) that supports both search and referral without overreaching clinical claims.
The engagement continues to focus on established lines.
The MindSpa engagement continues to expand along established lines rather than pivot into new tactics:
- •Deepening the integrated adult ADHD journey with additional supporting service and location pages.
- •Extending podcast episode pages into topic hubs organized around recurring authority areas.
- •Growing the practitioner tiering model as new clinicians are onboarded.
- •Consolidating measurement into a single monthly dashboard that connects podcast, content, local SEO, and booking data.
- •Continuing to build community-facing evergreen assets rather than one-off event content.
No future work is implied as approved unless a current statement of work covers it.
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