About ABA Digital Marketing
A BCBA Who Fell in Love with Relational Marketing
I’m Matt Harrington. I have been a Board Certified Behavior Analyst for five years. I have ran clinical teams, ABA practices, and been on the ground, playing with my clients. Marketing was a responsibility placed on me that I never expected. But I fell in love with it, specifically with relationship-based marketing that mirrors the compassionate, ethical approach we bring to clinical work.
Our Story
Like most clinic directors at small ABA practices, I wore every hat. Clinical director, supervisor, intake coordinator, and somehow marketer. I quickly realized that the generic marketing advice out there didn’t work for ABA. Dropping off donuts and brochures at pediatrician offices is a one-sided relationship. And even if it gets you temporary goodwill, what about the other fifty-one weeks when a pediatrician sees a child who needs services?
That question changed everything. I started studying relational marketing, building genuine partnerships with referring providers, and developing systems that create consistent referral pipelines. Practicing my relationship building, I built the Behaviorist Bookclub community of 15,000+ BCBAs, then launched ABA Digital Marketing because excellent clinician-led providers weren’t showing up online while families chose whoever appeared first on Google.
I’m not trying to take every client. I’m looking for folks to collaborate with who I can really be there for in the long run, helping their practice grow beyond just the billable hours.
What Drives Our Approach
Our Philosophy
Marketing is behavior change. ABA is behavior change. There’s a lot of shared principles there.
Matt Harrington, BCBA
As practitioners, we push for compassionate, assent-based marketing. No countdown timers. No “bro marketing” tactics. No inflated promises. We represent your practice with the same integrity you bring to your clinical work. Our marketing mirrors the noncontingent reinforcement approach: we make engaging with your practice so valuable that referral partners and families want to come back.
We’re particularly passionate about early-stage, clinician-owned ABA startups. Whether you’re a solo BCBA launching from your living room or a small team ready to scale, we’ve been where you are, and we know what works.
The Behaviorist Bookclub
Beyond our agency work, we run the Behaviorist Bookclub, a free community of 15,000+ BCBAs with 50+ continuing education units, weekly live events, and our signature Journal Club over Coffee. Check us out in the ABA Clubhouse- it’s our way of giving back to the field that shaped us.
Why ABA Marketing Is Different
The ABA industry can sometimes feel 7-10 years behind everyone else in marketing. Most healthcare marketing agencies don’t understand referral networks, BCBA credentialing, or why dropping off donuts at pediatrician offices doesn’t work.
Here’s what I realized studying consumer behavior alongside applied behavior analysis: marketing IS behavior change. You need an SD (discriminative stimulus), an establishing operation (motivation), and a reinforcer. The principles we use in clinical work are the exact same principles that drive effective marketing.
That’s our edge. It’s much easier to teach a BCBA to understand marketing than to teach a marketer to understand ABA. We speak your language because it’s our language too.
Our Philosophy: The Two-Way Street
Most ABA marketing is one-sided. Companies go to pediatrician offices with brochures and say ‘Give me your referrals.’ A hundred other companies are doing the same thing.
We take a different approach. We ask: What can we do for the other person? Can we offer parent training nights? Can we provide resources to their staff? Can we help their patients navigate the diagnosis process?
When you lead with value, referrals become a byproduct of genuine clinical collaboration. That’s not just good marketing — it’s good ABA practice.
See this approach in action: Our ProviderSpark | Fractional Coordinator | Free Resources
Matt Harrington, BCBA-LBA
Founder, ABA Digital Marketing
11 years in ABA — from RBT to clinic director to training first-year BCBAs. Licensed in Arizona, based in Florida. After years of having marketing responsibilities placed on him as a clinic director, Matt built ABA Digital Marketing to give providers the specialized marketing support the industry has been missing.
Ready to Work Together?
Let’s have an honest conversation about your practice goals and see if we’re the right fit.