For physical therapists, marketing for physical therapy may not be their area of expertise. Far removed from the world of health, rehab, and manual therapy, physical therapy marketing strategies aren’t exactly taught in the typical physical therapy program. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t learn them! Below, we offer up 13 physical therapy marketing ideas to help you reach new patients and grow your physical therapy practice.
How can I grow my physical therapy practice?
Growing your physical therapy practice all comes down to your marketing efforts. As a physical therapist, this likely doesn’t come naturally. However, a bit of time learning the tricks of the trade and implementing marketing strategies can help you bring in a predictable flow of new patients.
On top of this, the right physical therapy marketing strategy will showcase your services, reaching potential patients and even bringing back past patients when they need physical therapy services. And today, a lot of this is done online, such as through search engine optimization.
How do I market myself as a physical therapist?
There are many ways for marketing physical therapy. From a physical therapy website, search engine optimization, and showing off patient testimonials through your website, Google, and social media marketing, anyone can market themselves online nowadays (more on exactly how to do this below!).
Create personas for your physical therapy clients
Marketing your physical therapy practice starts with envisioning the type of physical therapy clients you want your clinic to attract. Do you specialize in helping athletes? Are you more angled toward the senior population?
When determining your personas, consider their activities, hobbies, where they hang out online, age, sex, pain points, and goals. Creating a spreadsheet to fill out different personas that you want to attract to your physical therapy clinic is a great place to start laying out your marketing plan. This way, you can angle your brand, website, and marketing strategies to target these specific individuals.
Create your brand
So, how can you go about creating a brand? What is a brand anyway?
A brand helps people identify a concept (such as recovery for athletes or improved performance for athletes) with your business. Below, we outline what your branding should consist of.
Stand out with a professional, unique logo
As a physical therapist, you want to ensure you have a logo specifically for your clinic. It should be relevant, unique to your business, and recognizable. Working with a logo designer might be the best way to go about this, which you can find and hire on various online platforms.
Optimize your physical therapy website
If you don’t have a physical therapy website, this is your sign to get one! Your website should outline and explain the physical therapy services you offer, state the clinic’s values, and show off patient testimonials (these are always important!).
Physical therapy marketing strategies
Besides a website, what else should you know when creating a marketing campaign for your physical therapy clinic? Here are many more physical therapy marketing tips and strategies.
Grow your reviews on Google Maps
Google is king when it comes to reviews. When scouting out a new place, most people turn to Google Maps and go down the rabbit hole of checking what previous clients or patients have said. At the same time, you want to be collecting these reviews continuously. If the last review you had is from five years ago, this could be deemed irrelevant by potential new patients.
Gather patient testimonials for your physical therapy website
Your website should have a clear section for patient testimonials, showcasing the great work your clinic has done! These can be from Google Maps (some plug-ins will allow the Google reviews to show on your website) or a custom-made section, showing off the best ones!
Gather patient referrals to get more clients
Encourage your past patients and current patients to refer their friends and family. This is one of the best ways to get your ideal clients.
Build your Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram pages
The idea here is to be everywhere. If someone wants to look you up on different platforms, they can. These platforms can also provide a space where you can offer advice and other value tidbits, which may motivate people to book a visit.
Start using social media advertising
In the past few years, social media marketing has taken off. It’s all about adding value and being seen. Plus, you can easily put money into these platforms which get you new clients in return! However, how much you put into ads may depend on your physical therapy marketing budget.
Market consistently year-round for more leads
Switching your marketing campaigns on and off may lead to confusion for the algorithm and also may lead you to have a bit of a rollercoaster ride when it comes to new clients. Instead, get in a rhythm and stick to a year-round strategy. Most strategies, once implemented, take much less effort to maintain than they do to set up!
Create a valuable eBook or product
E-books and similar products can act as lead magnets to get potential clients’ feett in the door. It offers another vehicle in which they can “interact” with you before booking an appointment. It also showcases your expertise, providing advice before they even physically meet you.
Use internal marketing to your current patient base
This is similar to referrals but involves promoting your physical therapy clinic and its services to the individuals within your organization, such as the receptionist, accountant, PTA, and more.
Grow your patient email list
This should be ultra-easy thing to do! With any new patient, make sure you get their email address when they fill out the patient intake form. You may also ask for email addresses when you provide an eBook or similar product, which, when bought, gets sent to their email. This will help grow your list and can lead to ongoing email marketing strategies.
Start a physical therapy newsletter
As part of your email marketing strategy, you may want to consider sending a monthly or weekly physical therapy newsletter. This can be a core piece of your physical therapy marketing plan, keeping you top of mind for potential patients.
Create high quality blog content
Blogs can act as points of discussion within your physical therapy clinic, as well as help you show up in search engines, like Google. If you intend on creating blogs for Google, make sure you follow basic search engine optimization (SEO) practices so that your blogs get seen!
Create a video of your services
With online marketing, you want to build relationships before the patient even sets foot in your clinic. This can easily be done through video content, where potential patients can get to know you and your practice before even meeting you! There are also rumors that video content tends to get prioritized in search engines and other algorithms.
Improve your Google ranking with search engine optimization (SEO)
Blogs, service pages, and more can help you rank in Google. Although, it’s always a good idea to partner up with someone who knows the ins and outs of SEO and who can help guide you on keywords and best practices.
Host a webinar or Facebook live event
Similar to e-books, webinars and Facebook lives offer value to potential patients, keeping you top of mind and showcasing your skills and expertise.
Utilize Google Analytics
Google Analytics can help you determine what’s working and what’s not on your website. You can use it to see how written content is performing on your website, from which channels your patient sales are coming from, how traffic is performing, and more. Google provides free training online to better understand Google Analytics, which is highly recommended for getting set up with the basics!
Improve the patient experience
Do patients often have to stand to wait for their appointment? Add chairs in the waiting room! Can they call and book an appointment or do they have to wait for a call back? It’s always better to have someone ready to answer inquiries and able to book appointments.
These touchpoints all add up to how well the patient experience is. Consider the entire experience for your patients from start to finish. Do they often come back and ask when they need to return for a follow-up? Make sure you let them know before their appointment ends. Small adjustments can make big (and lasting) impressions on your patients as they come and go.
Host a free workshop at your practice
This can get patients involved and help them better understand how to prevent and rehabilitate injuries or improve performance, depending on what your area of expertise is. Some examples of free workshops include yoga classes, recovery routines, and foam rolling.
Personalize messaging to your patients
As far as physical therapy marketing ideas go, sending birthday messages via email or emails updating your patients on their recovery (or even discharge notices) can help solidify those relationships and make it more likely they will return or refer you to family and friends.
Offer and promote best in class technology
Devices, like the Halo digital goniometer for ROM measurement, can not only help you gain accurate insights during patient assessments but also give your patients peace of mind that they are getting the best of the best. A mention here and there on your website about the high quality technology and devices you use can go a long way in building your reputation and credibility. Read our blog on innovations in physical therapy for some ideas!
Halo digital goniometer
Widely used traditional goniometers and inclinometers are over 40 years old and provide issues with measurement discrepancies. Finding the right tools and technology to help improve accuracy of ROM measurement is important in a physical therapy practice.
Halo is a digital solution that improves reading accuracy within 1 degree. Our digital goniometer measures range of motion in 3 easy steps, making accuracy available for everyone. The Halo has a triple sensor chip that allows you to measure the planes our bodies move in. Save your last 5 measurements so you don’t need to remember, or interrupt your assessment to write down the result.
Now you can provide your patients a superior level of care that distinguishes you from competitors. Halo is available to buy now on Amazon USA.