Are you a physical therapist (or health professional) looking for physical therapy marketing strategies to get people through your door and more people to know about your business? Then you’re in the right place!
Building a successful health and wellness business can be challenging. It’s downright hard work! You might be tempted to try out the latest marketing trend for your physical therapy marketing, but that’s a risky move, and you might not see results.
Unlike other articles that give you a list of physical therapy marketing ideas and strategies, this blog post will outline the foundational elements of any successful therapy marketing strategy so you can attract more clients efficiently in the long run.
Read on to learn more about using online marketing to grow your business (as a PT, OT, or SLP entrepreneur). This article will help you, whether it’s boosting your PT practice or should you decide to pursue a different niche.
Why use digital marketing for your physical therapy marketing?
It’s no secret that physical therapy is a vital part of the healing process for many people.
But you may not know that millions of people could greatly benefit from your services but have never even heard of what you can do to help them feel better and live healthier lives.
That’s where digital marketing comes in as an adjunct to your traditional marketing techniques. You can reach more people with information about physical therapy’s benefits using online marketing strategies, tactics, and tools.
The Importance of Physical Therapy Marketing Plan
Starting a Physical Therapy practice is one of the ways to make money as a doctor of physical therapy. However, many physical therapists who jump into entrepreneurship don’t have a PT Marketing plan to guide their physical therapy marketing efforts to get new patients.
The importance of a marketing plan can’t be overemphasized. And a well-executed plan will help you achieve your business goals, while a poorly planned effort can lead to wasted time and money.
What is a Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan is a document that outlines your business goals and how you will achieve them.
Your PT marketing plan should include a description of your target market, marketing budget, what methods and marketing strategies and tactics you will use to reach them, and how you will measure success.
A good marketing plan for your physical therapy clinic will help you stay focused and organized while allowing enough flexibility to respond to changes in the market.
There are many factors to consider when developing a physical therapy marketing strategy. Some key factors to consider when creating a plan for your health and wellness business or therapy marketing include:
- Defining your target audience:
Who are the prospective patients you want to reach with your services? Are they past patients, potential patients, existing patients, or new clients who have never heard of your practice before? How will you reach a potential patient and convince them to choose your business over your competitors?
- Establishing measurable goals:
What do you hope to achieve through your therapy marketing efforts? This can be anything from generating leads, increasing social media followers, acquiring new clients, communicating with previous patients, and getting online reviews such as Google reviews. Whatever it is, make sure that it’s specific and attainable.
- Choosing the right online platform:
In today’s digital world, there are many different channels and social media platforms through which you can reach your target audience.
When choosing which platforms to focus your marketing campaigns and strategies on, you must consider where your customers spend the most time and their demographic characteristics.
Some great options for health and wellness businesses to get seen online include Google maps, local SEO, Facebook page, email marketing, video content, physical therapy website, blog, and more.
- Determining your budget:
How much marketing dollars can you realistically allocate to your marketing materials and efforts? Once you determine this, it will be easier to set realistic and attainable goals on how much business growth you can expect from your physical therapy marketing plan.
How to Market Physical Therapy Services
Are you a Physical therapist (perhaps an Occupational Therapist or Speech-Language Pathologist) who wants to get more patients for your private practice or cash-based business?
As a practice owner or a health entrepreneur, you want to ensure you save time, energy, and money on marketing efforts.
Most private practice clinics focus on marketing their physical therapy services to physician offices to get as many patients as possible; just one example is visiting medical offices and dropping off brochures (and lunch for the staff, too!). With this physical therapy marketing approach, it can be challenging to attract new clients and create brand recognition on a broader scale.
Instead, you can focus your physical therapy marketing strategy on marketing directly to potential patients, current patients, and past patients as referral sources. This approach comes with several benefits, including increased visibility and recognition in the community of your targeted patient population, building a following of loyal patients, as well as a higher likelihood of patient retention.
So rather than relying on your PT marketing solely on getting patient referrals from physicians, why not try other physical therapy marketing strategies for your business, such as creating a robust online presence to get more patients?
FTC Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which I may earn compensation when you click and purchase through my links, at no additional cost to you.
Foundational strategies when using digital marketing to attract more clients
Now that more and more businesses are using digital marketing in their marketing efforts, it’s essential to use these tools in your physical therapy marketing strategies if you want your PT marketing to keep up with the competition and attract more new patients and clients for your business.
One of the most effective ways to use digital marketing in your physical therapy practice is through social media marketing, especially when you’re a new business with zero audiences and want to build your credibility.
Create a Facebook page or other major social networking sites where you can connect with prospective and new patients in your area.
However, for a social media marketing strategy to work, it’s vital to be consistent by using a tool to preschedule your posts, update your services, offer discounts, share positive reviews or patient testimonials of patient experience, and special offers to followers.
Social media can be a cost-effective way to reach many people. And because social media can also be time-consuming and, if not used correctly, can negatively impact your business. So, when using it for marketing purposes, you need to know the social media pros and cons and find ways to maximize this free online tool based on your time, efforts, and business goals.
Other digital marketing strategies that you can use in your PT marketing include email marketing. You can send out regular newsletters or e-blast information about your physical therapy business, share online reviews, and announce special offers and free training. Also, create attention-grabbing designs Canva for visual and infographic content that will interest your target customers.
Email marketing strategy can help physical therapy practice direct access and improve patient retention by building trust and loyalty with your current patients, new patients, and past patients.
As practice owners, the marketing budget can be a concern, but you can get your email marketing started at a low cost using ConvertKit FREE plan and use these scroll-stopping email subject lines to increase your open rates.
And if you have a blog on your website, consider utilizing a content marketing strategy by writing article posts regularly to promote your services and engage with potential clients in an ongoing way. Make sure to incorporate search engine optimization so that your physical therapy website appears on the search results page which would help get web traffic.
Using digital marketing tools like social media and optimized search engine content, you can attract more new patients and get more web traffic to your practice.
Furthermore, you can use online marketing without ads or with ads to help build your brand and boost your visibility in the local community.
With the right approach to your PT marketing campaign, you can significantly increase your client base and grow your physical therapy practice or health business.
Tips for creating a successful physical therapy marketing campaign
Here are some tips for creating a successful marketing campaign; these tips will help you in building your foundation to turn strangers into loyal clients, so you can stop hustling for new clients:
- Make sure you target the right audience.
- Have clear, concise, and consistent messaging.
- Make sure your campaign is well-funded and properly executed.
- Stay focused on the customer value journey, the most crucial aspect of your marketing strategy.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts and identify areas for improvement along the way.
Physical therapy marketing using Customer Value Journey
Most people think that to be successful in physical therapy or any health and wellness business, they need to be able to do a million things at once. But the truth is, you must focus on creating value for your clients.
Creating value for your clients means doing everything you can to help them achieve their goals and provide a great patient experience. It means providing excellent service, exceeding expectations, and always putting the client first.
People do business with those they know, like, and trust. It’s as simple as that.
And if you want your physical therapy business to thrive, you must focus on building relationships with your clients. But how do you go about doing that?
Marketing is one of the best ways to create trust and develop relationships. But not just any type of marketing—you need to focus on customer-centered marketing strategies that put the client first.
By having a customer value journey as the roadmap for your physical therapy marketing strategy, you can map out the entire patient experience that a customer has with your brand, from the moment they first learn about you to the time they become loyal. This will help you build trust and credibility with potential and current clients.
If you can create value for your clients and focus on patient satisfaction, they will keep coming back and recommending you to their friends and family members.
So how do you get started on creating a customer value journey? We’ll discuss that in this masterclass, “The Proven Roadmap For Turning Strangers Into Loyal Clients.”
CONCLUSION:
Digital marketing is an essential part of any business. It can help you reach more potential patients, retain existing customers, and build your brand.
Ensure you target the right audience, have a clear message, and stay focused on the customer value journey to create an excellent patient experience.
Evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts along the way to identify areas for improvement.
Using these tips, you can significantly increase your client base and grow your physical therapy practice or health and wellness business.
