Now that you have opened your PT practice, it is time to work on generating a stream of new patients. It comes down to ensuring that your schedule is as full and that you emphasize the unique value of each and every one of your patients. Grow your profits by incorporating a variety of services. It will take ingenuity and innovation to incorporate marketing strategies to increase business.
The following steps are provided to guide you in growing your PT practice.
- Create a Unique Selling Proposition
- Create a Logo
- Create a Website
- Go Social
- Create an Irresistable Offer
- Direct Mail Marketing
- Get a Google Listing
- Get Google Reviews
- Update Online Listings
- Search Engine Optimization
1. Create a Unique Selling Proposition
Before going straight into a marketing strategy to increase brand awareness, you should create a unique selling proposition.
Identify how your practice, your services, and your approach to patients differs from that of other physical therapy practices.
This means that you will need to research your competition and examine their business model closely.
In taking the time to do this, you will be able to separate your practice from others and stand out. This unique selling proposition should outline how your practice, your services, and even YOU are different – and truly better – than what is already out there.
2. Create a Memorable and Professional Logo for Your Practice
In order to successfully build your physical therapy practice, you must create a logo that aids in creating recognition of your practice and lends to the fact that you are credible, trustworthy, AND professional.
The logo should be memorable.
When individuals go to look for a physical therapy practice, YOUR logo should pop into their head. It must communicate that you are the best and ONLY physical therapy practice that any patient should even consider.
Remember, all of your marketing items will contain your logo. This image is essential to creating awareness of your practice and increasing the amount of trust individuals have in your practice.
3. Create a website
In a world where everything – well, just about everything – has gone digital, it is an absolute must that you create a website to showcase your practice, those that work at your practice, and the services that you offer.
Before choosing a physical therapist, many patients will search for those in and around their area online. If you do not have a website, interested patients may simply skim over your practice and choose another.
Make sure the site that you create includes plenty of graphics, images, and information. It should be optimized for search engines. Remember to include your address, phone number, and other relevant information so that you are picked up by local searchers.
4. Go Social
Once you have your website in place, it only makes sense to go social; that is, set up accounts for your PT practice on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
If you are able to integrate videos into your marketing campaign that outlines information about your practice, you could create a YouTube Channel, too! Once you go social, do not forget to interact with potential and current clients on the platforms.
If your practice is friendly, approachable, and you take the time to cultivate online relationships, you are sure to find that you get more in-person visits!
5. Create an Irresistible Offer for New Patients
If you want to attract new clients to your practice, it is imperative that you make an offer that will entice them to set up an appointment.
This offer should stand out above offers that are provided by your competition. It should build trust and encourage people to try out your services. You may even offer rewards to those that you currently serve who make referrals to your business and general offers that help to ensure that your current client base remains loyal.
These offers could include discounts, free consultations, and more! Remember, offering something FREE now will ensure loyalty later. It does not matter if it is a fall risk assessment, a balance screening, or just a neck massage. All offers have the potential to lead to long-term patients.
6. Harness the Power of Direct Mail Marketing Campaigns
Yes, it is true that online marketing is highly beneficial for building physical therapy practices, but you should never underestimate the sheer power associated with direct mail marketing campaigns. This form of marketing has been found to get up to 500% more responses than other marketing strategies.
Over 90% of all consumers prefer to have a physical piece of mail when in search of a product and/or service. When using direct mail, remember to instantly grab the attention of your recipient, outline your unique selling proposition, highlight your offer, including contact information, and create a sense of urgency to “act now”.
7. Get a Google Listing
If you have a Google listing, it will help your practice in generating absolute FREE and nearly instantaneous leads directly from Google. You must start by signing up for a Google Business Profile.
You will then enter your business name, your physical address, the phone number to your practice, your hours of operation, and the category that your business falls into.
This will list you in Google Maps, and help you in obtaining Google Reviews.
By taking this step alone, you will be instantly discovered by prospects that are in search of a physical therapist in and around the location of your business. This will drive a lot of traffic through the doors of your practice.
8. Take Advantage of Google Reviews
It is a known fact that today’s consumer depends heavily upon information that is listed in Google Reviews. This is especially true when deciding to use a certain service or when attempting to purchase products.
85% trust the reviews that they read on the internet as much as they trust personal recommendations. Nearly 70% said that reviews that are positive made them more likely to use the product and/or service being reviewed.
You should take full advantage of Google Reviews when it comes to building your PT practice. You may succeed in this endeavor by doing the following:
- First, ask that all of the staff members that deal with your patients face-to-face ask those patients to leave reviews.
- Provide patients with the information on how to leave the Google review.
- When you send emails, be sure to place a link that goes directly to the reviews associated with your physical therapy practice.
- Once you see a patient, follow up with an email that states your appreciation for their business and kindly request that they leave a review.
- Once a review is left – whether it is positive or it is negative – be sure to respond. This will show to prospects, other patients, and even healthcare personnel that you care enough to provide a response to each individual review. Many will actually look at how you handle the negative reviews just to determine if they want to contact you and possibly make an appointment.
9. Update ALL of Your Online Listings
According to professionals, nearly 95% of all experiences that take place on the internet initiate with a search engine. This means that many of your prospects will find your PT practice by typing in certain keywords in search engines, such as “physical therapy practices near me”. Then, information will be returned from sites such as Google Maps, Angi, Yellow Pages, Yelp, and more.
You should make sure that you are listed on these sites and that all of the information is as current as possible. If you are not carrying updated listings, you will lose all of those potential prospects that you want to your competition, which you do not want.
Remember, upload pictures regularly, obtain reviews, and keep all information current.
10. Search Engine Optimization is Critical
Next, you should ensure that you incorporate search engine optimization (SEO) into your website and throughout your blog. This means that your content should be high in quality, written for people (not bots), and include a variety of keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to your PT practice.
Each of the titles of your pages should be different, there must be a contact page, your business information should be listed on other popular websites, and you should have the Google Business Profile all set up. SEO is a great way to capture leads and increase the number of clients that you attract to your business.
Contact Us Today
If you want to increase the amount of people that you see at your physical therapy practice, you should contact us here at Colorado Physical Therapy Network today. Not only does your membership mean that you will get access to a wide variety of resources and tools to improve your PT practice, but you will have the capability of networking with like-minded individuals to help increase the number of clients that you service. If you would like to learn more, we recommend signing up today at: https://coloradophysicaltherapynetwork.com/
