Physical Therapy Patient Marketing Archives - Page 2 of 2

Three Tactics for Physical Therapy Online Marketing

physical therapy online marketing

Creating a comprehensive marketing strategy is easy when you have a big budget. But when you’re a small private practice and just getting started in the online space, you need a strategy that costs time, not money to boost your physical therapy online marketing.

By learning how to produce the right content and where to publish it, you can better position your practice on the search engine results pages, which will help you capture more web traffic.

Here are three physical therapy online marketing tactics that will catapult your web presence:

1. Link Build with Other Sites

Whenever a credible outside source links to one of your web pages, Google counts it as a vote of confidence for the content on that page. The more links to your website’s content, the more credible your website appears to Google, which subsequently leads to a higher search engine results page rank. [pullquote1 align=”left” textColor=”#000000″]The more links to your website’s content, the more credible your website appears to Google, which subsequently leads to a higher search engine results page rank [/pullquote1] But how do you get other sites to link to yours?

When you’re just getting started online, finding an audience can be difficult, especially when it’s as niche of a field as physical therapy. Luckily, you’re not the only one trying to build an online presence in this space. Start by contacting your service providers and business partners and ask for them to link to your site. Many businesses are happy to display work they’ve done for past clients on their website in order to attract new business. Linking to each others’ websites in this manner creates a great opportunity to link build.

Another way to build links is to search for any mentions of your practice that are not directly linked to your website. A quick email to the author of the post can score you another link back to your site.

2. Utilize Blog Writing

When you’re asking for links to your website from partners, you’re going to need something for them to link to. Hosting a blog on your website is a great solution for finding a place to publish more content. While this is definitely a time-consuming task, it’s actually quite vital to your overall physical therapy online marketing strategy.

Publishing more content to your website using a blog will help you capture some of that all-important search traffic. [pullquote1 align=”right” textColor=”#000000″]Publishing more content to your website using a blog will help you capture some of that all-important search traffic [/pullquote1] A good place to start blogging for a physical therapy clinic is to produce content that answers some of the most common questions your patients have about your practice. How-to blogs, reviews and top tip lists can answer those questions in a timeless fashion so they are always relevant to your readers.

Another way to leverage blogging as a tool to drive traffic to your website is to be a guest blogger for a blog that’s already established in the online space. If you’re an expert in the field of physical therapy, this can be a great opportunity to show what you know while also earning a link back to your website. In a similar way, you can ask someone else to guest blog on your site and promote it through their online channels.

3. Produce Engaging Content to Improve Your Physical Therapy Online Marketing

When you’re just starting out with your physical therapy online marketing strategy, you need to produce content that sets you apart from the rest of the crowd[pullquote1 align=”left” textColor=”#000000″]Focus your efforts on producing content that sets you apart from the rest of the crowd[/pullquote1]. One way to accomplish this is to publish certain pages that are more engaging to your audience than straightforward text posts.

Infographics, pictures and videos are great examples of engaging content, but they can be intimidating to make for new users. Lucky for you, creating engaging content doesn’t have to be difficult. Start by looking through your existing online content, specifically the evergreen posts that are always relevant. You can recycle those posts into more creative ways of displaying the same information.

[squeeze_box3]Learning how to market your practice online can be intimidating if you don’t have any experience in the field. For more information about how your clinic can benefit from physical therapy online marketing, contact us today, and we can help you every step of the way.[/squeeze_box3]

How to Enhance Video Marketing for Physical Therapists

video marketing for physical therapists

How do you spread the word about your physical therapy practice? For many therapists, this is a difficult question to answer. Limited resources and time often means having to rely on word of mouth from current patients to attract new visitors. But as it turns out, there are plenty of cost-effective ways to help patients find your practice, and one of the most underutilized tools to accomplish this is video marketing for physical therapists. Below, we break down some of the best ways to tackle your video marketing campaign, so that you can get the word out about your practice and watch as more patients flock to your clinic.

Develop a Plan

Here’s an example of what you don’t want to do when it comes to video marketing for physical therapists: one day, you decide the medium is right for you, so you buy a camera at the local super market and shoot some footage around the office. Then you upload the video somewhere, and hope people find it. Well, aside from the potentially serious HIPAA violations, chances are strong that no patients or potential patients will see this video if it’s posted like this. This means you’ve just wasted money on a camera and time on putting the footage together.

Instead, the first thing you should do is come up with a plan. To do so, ask yourself the following questions:

What are you able to shoot in and around the office?
What should and should not be filmed?
Who would be willing and able to be a part of the video?
How can you promote your video once it’s finished?
Most importantly: what type of video would be most effective?

Coming Up with the Right Content

That last question is an interesting one. Your first thought is probably to go toward a promotional, commercial-like video that showcases your practice, staff and patients in 30 to 60 seconds. But in reality, there may be better alternatives to help your marketing.

Here are three examples that will likely perform better than a basic promotional video:

Feature an array of patient testimonials that highlight all the great attributes of your practice, which will automatically improve your reputation.
Create a “behind-the-scenes” video of your front desk staff and therapists, which will convey a personal atmosphere.
Make educational videos about common patient concerns and ailments that don’t directly promote your practice, but establish your physical therapists as thought leaders and experts on relevant content.

Promoting Your Videos

Of course, even the best video will not help your physical therapy practice if nobody ends up seeing it. That’s why you should promote the video, both on your website and your social media channels. We’ve covered the ideal social media networks for physical therapists in a past blog post; videos make for perfect content to enhance your presence. You may even consider playing your videos in the waiting area and patient rooms to increase engagement with your current and new patients.

To Get the Most of Video Marketing for Physical Therapists: Listen

Finally—and this may sound counterintuitive—one of the most important aspects of video marketing for physical therapists is not only giving out a message, but listening in response. By that, we mean hearing feedback about your videos from your patients, which will help you improve your video marketing efforts in the future.

It’s important to keep this in mind: successful video marketing for physical therapists is not a one-time deal in which you produce an amazing video and can rest on your laurels for the next decade. Instead, it requires regular updates and new videos that keep your patients invested and coming back. [pullquote4 textColor=”#dbe308″]Successful video marketing for physical therapists is not a one-time deal in which you produce an amazing video and can rest on your laurels for the next decade. Instead, it requires regular updates and new videos that keep your patients invested and coming back. [/pullquote4] By listening to their feedback, you can ensure that your videos continue to improve and help your practice gain patients.

Of course, this type of strategical video marketing for physical therapists—from developing a plan to coming up with the content and promoting the video all the way to adjusting your strategy based on feedback—requires significant time investment. And we completely understand that running a physical practice generally does not leave this kind of time available!

[titled_box title=”We’re Here to Help” bgColor=”#000000″ textColor=”#000000″]This is why we want to help. Contact us at E-Rehab to learn more about how we’ve helped other physical therapists like you spread awareness about their practice using video marketing, and start talking to us about how we can do the same for you.[/titled_box]

Physical Therapy Reputation Management Made Simple

physical therapy reputation management

For many private practices, physical therapy reputation management may seem like a vague process. Physical therapists specialize in knowing their patients, dealing with injuries and building back strength, but when it comes to creating a proactive plan for a healthy reputation, you may not know where to start. If this sounds familiar to you, the following short primer will show you how a reputation management firm like E-Rehab can help your physical therapy practice establish authority in a digital age.

Physical Therapy Reputation Management: What it is and is not

In the most basic sense, [highlight3 textColor=”#000000″]physical therapy reputation management is creating content that matches your goals and standards so that patients know what they are getting from you.[/highlight3] If your practice specializes in spinal rehab, but your marketing information makes it sound like you’re the best place to go for arm injuries, this can create a disconnect with visitors. In this case, patients expect one thing and get another. This can lead to your patients writing negative reviews about your practice on various review sites (Yelp, Angie’s List, etc.), which will in turn hurt your reputation, even though you’re an expert at spinal care.

Reputation management seeks to establish in people’s minds what you do and don’t do well, so they know what to expect. It does not seek to create false reviews, attempt to get poor reviews taken down (this doesn’t include patently false, libelous reviews), or otherwise take pushy actions to establish your reputation.

Walk the Talk

[highlight3 textColor=”#000000″]The most important part of physical therapy reputation management is that you have information out for people to access: newsletters to subscribers, blogs to the public, and targeted marketing to the right patients and referring physicians. [/highlight3] This information must match what people actually experience from your practice.

With proper information designed and marketed to the right audience, your business reputation will increase consistent with your desired goals and specialties. Walking the talk is the foundation for all other aspects of reputation management. With it, patients will give you great reviews and build your reputation with minimal effort on your part. Without it, your patients will feel confused and let down because they did not receive the service they expected.

Marketing Materials

In physical therapy reputation management, the next essential step after establishing a clear connection between your actions and your message is creating the right marketing materials. [highlight3]From your brand to your planned content, your marketing material needs to reflect your business in both quality and content.[/highlight3]

Much of physical therapy happens at a level people cannot see, so at first they will judge you less by the results of your actions and more by the materials they see. Your marketing material therefore needs to be designed in such a way that it catches the eye of potential patients and referring physicians and displays that you do what you advertise.

Promotional Design

Much of the marketing in physical therapy is specialized and therefore needs to be done by specialists. For example, if you offer therapy that helps address the symptoms of insomnia and narcolepsy, you do not want your advertising materials for it to be bright yellow, orange or green. When marketers want to communicate sleep-oriented products, they create a dark blue color scheme to communicate peaceful sleep. This is one of the many tricks-of-the trade which marketers use to communicate to the public beyond just word. Style matters, and it pays to have experts in style design your marketing materials.

[highlight2 textColor=”#000000″]Simply put, reputation management is producing the right materials to let patients know what your practice offers and the core values you hold as a physical therapist. This is accomplished by using modern marketing and networking materials and techniques with a goal to educate your audience and establish your authority in the physical therapy field.[/highlight2] [squeeze_box4]If this all sounds overwhelming and you feel that you need some extra assistance with your physical therapy reputation management, have no fear: we can help. At E-Rehab, we specialize in all aspects of online marketing strategies that can help your reputation improve and your practice prosper. Contact us today to find out how we can help you develop an online reputation that reflects the quality of your business.[/squeeze_box4]

Why You Need a Blog to Improve Your Physical Therapy Reputation Marketing

Are you struggling to create a successful physical therapy reputation marketing approach? If so, you should strongly consider writing blogs if you’re not already doing so. Although blogs are often treated like an afterthought by many businesses, they can be a powerful tool for boosting the reputation of your physical therapy practice.

Why You Should Blog to Improve Your Physical Therapy Reputation Marketing

Business owners often neglect the importance of a blog when it comes to reputation marketing, but that is a huge mistake: [highlight4]blogs are actually one of the most effective ways to spread your brand and reach a potential audience.[/highlight4]

This is even true of a physical therapist like you: a well-written, fun, and informative blog can provide your patients with information about common physical problems, easy self-fixes, unique personal stories, and treatment angles they would have never considered otherwise.

Build Your Authority

By way of illustration, marketing expert Steve Olenski of Forbes magazine delved deeply into the world of blog-based marketing and found that it offered a unique approach to the following: content strategy; demographic marketing, and authority building.

The latter point is especially important: if you come across like a true expert on physical therapy (by offering well-researched and engaging blog content), your reputation will grow by leaps and bounds.[blockquote align=”center”]Blogging also offers a unique way for your patients to interact with you via the comment section found in most high-quality blogs. Here, they can praise your blog content and your services, which will create a positive feedback loop that will continually enhance your reputation for years to come.[/blockquote]

Even if they come to your blog to complain, you can still turn that into an advantage by directly addressing their concerns and soothe their fears by offering a free examination. You will come away looking humble and willing to fix your mistakes: a major reputation boost.

Researching Blog Topics

Consistently updating a worthwhile blog requires finding topics you want to write about. That’s actually much trickier than it seems, especially as a physical therapy expert, since you already have an extremely extensive understanding of the subject matter. On the other hand, the audience of your website doesn’t have this same understanding, and figuring out what they’d like to learn about can be a struggle.

In this circumstance, it’s best to step back and think about an industry or service which you know little about, such as auto repair, and consider what confuses you about it. Then, you should brainstorm similar topics for your blog, such as:

Common injuries or painful conditions
Relevant treatments used to address these issues
Other techniques and services you may use during treatment
How long each treatment session takes, and how many sessions may be needed for certain injuries

Next, try to center each of your blogs around these ideas, such as ACL tear rehabilitation, to create a plethora of possible blog topics. If you get stuck trying to find a good topic, use a tool like Google AdWords to pinpoint commonly searched keywords that are relevant to physical therapy.

For example, keywords and phrases like “torn ACL” and “did I break my ankle?” commonly show up in Google searches. Pitch your blog around these keywords, adding a unique twist, such as “home remedies for a broken toe,” and you have a potential blog topic.

Always Utilize a Reputable “Author” for All Content

Creating a blog without a reputable author is one of the biggest ways you can destroy the effectiveness of your physical therapy reputation marketing. Don’t farm it out to just anyone: either write the blog yourself, find a skilled intern willing to do it for some extra cash, or find reputable physical therapists willing to occasionally guest blog for you.

Focusing your blog on truly informative and knowledgeable writers creates a sense of “author authority” that will make your blog stand out in an over-saturated market. People will immediately trust what you have to say and, as a result, your blog—and your reputation—will grow exponentially.

[squeeze_box5]By now, it should be apparent that you simply can’t avoid setting up a blog for your physical therapy practice. The boost to your reputation will be too immense for you to ignore. However, if you’re still struggling to set up a good blog or come up with a great reputation marketing strategy, please don’t hesitate to contact us at E-Rehab right away. Our physical therapy reputation marketing experts will help fine-tune your marketing approach, help you design an eye-catching and memorable blog, and get you on the road to success. After that, the hard work of keeping up with your blog should be a heck of a lot easier.[/squeeze_box5]

The Importance of Reputation Marketing for Physical Therapists

Running a successful physical therapy practice is about more than just knowing how to help patients rehabilitate from their injuries. As the owner of a private practice, you’re not only marketing your expertise as a physical therapist. You are also marketing yourself.

This is why reputation marketing for physical therapists is such an important component of running a successful business. The reputation you create in your community will be the biggest reason why your practice thrives or fails. You need to make sure that your patients are happy, and that they’re telling people about their positive experience at your practice.

If you’re not sure how to go about marketing your reputation, here are a few tips you can use to keep the word-of-mouth regarding your practice positive:

Be Proactive

You might think that your reputation is something that just “happens,” without requiring any effort on your part. And in a sense, this is partly true: you will develop a reputation eventually, one way or another.

But if you don’t stay committed to shaping and guiding that reputation, then you may lose control over it. This can mean that your side of the story won’t be heard, and your satisfied patients might never get a chance to tell their stories and attract other patients.

This is why it’s so important to take a proactive role in shaping your reputation. Here’s how:

Before doing anything else, it’s essential that you ensure all patients coming to your practice are in fact satisfied with the treatment they’re receiving. If they’re not, then this should be your first priority, and you should make any necessary changes to address this problem right away.
Once you are certain that all your patients are pleased with their treatment, give them an incentive to tell other people about it. Offer a discount or bonus for referring a new patient, or ask them to leave you a review online. Most patients will be glad to help if they are happy with their outcomes.
Also be sure to stay up-to-date on what’s being said about your practice, both good and bad. If a patient is not satisfied, don’t take it personally. Instead, use it as an opportunity to show others how you respond to criticism, and professionally address any issues that patient may have with a comment. This is the true heart of reputation marketing for physical therapists: knowing how and when to engage in order to polish your reputation.

Give Them a Reason to Brag

Your patients come to you to overcome injuries and pain. You might think that if you help them do that, you’ve done your job and that’s it.

However, that’s exactly what’s expected of you. It won’t necessarily knock anyone’s socks off, and it won’t necessarily build your brand.

It doesn’t take much to set yourself apart. All it takes is something unexpected that shows you have each of your patient’s best interests at heart. For example, a study was performed that showed that waiters could improve tips by 23%, simply by providing extra peppermints after the meal.

A few extra peppermints is nothing – but it’s truly the thought and effort that counts. Try to brainstorm on how you can make the rehabilitation process a 5-star experience for patients. It could be something as simple as warm towels, a glass of lemonade, or just taking a few extra minutes to get to know your patients.

[pullquote1 align=”center” textColor=”#000000″]Give your patients more than the minimum that they would expect, and they won’t be able to stop telling their friends about you. [/pullquote1]

Make Sure Your Online Presence Captures Your In-Person Experience

After you’ve taken the time to make sure everything is perfect in your office, make sure this all translates to your online presence. Here are a few ways to make this happen:

Go through your website and see if there’s anything clunky or frustrating. If you’ve found any negative reviews, this is a great time to learn from them.
Make everything as painless as possible, from setting an appointment online to getting in contact with you, so that visitors don’t have to hunt around.
You can also use your website to provide service outside of regular hours. Consider hosting a few videos showing simple exercises for pain relief, or blog about sports injuries and other topics that will interest your patients.

Many physical therapists view their online presence as a hassle that they have to deal with. That’s why so many have ugly, plain websites that do nothing for them.

If instead you view it as an opportunity to set yourself apart, your reputation will improve and spread in no time.
[titled_box title=”Start Focusing on Reputation Marketing for Physical Therapists Today” variation=”red” bgColor=”#000000″ textColor=”#000000″]If you’d like to learn more about powerful reputation marketing for physical therapists, contact us today. We can help you harness the power of the Internet to make you the go-to authority in your area – guaranteed.[/titled_box]

Put the Best PT Marketing Ideas to Work for Your Practice

Is your PT practice struggling to get new clients, losing clients, or just lacking the consistency needed to keep your therapists busy? If this sounds familiar, it might be because you aren’t taking full advantage of all the effective PT marketing strategies that are available to you. To help you make better use of these essential tools, here are the best PT marketing ideas that you can start utilizing at your practice today:

Overcome the POPTS dilemma:

Many orthopedic doctors refer to their own physical therapy (POPTS), which can leave your PT practice hanging, especially if the majority of your patients come from orthopedic physician referrals. If this is your practice’s problem, then it’s time to overhaul your marketing strategy, which will help you rely less on orthopedic physician referrals and more on referrals from GPs, internists, returning patients, and patient referrals. When it comes to marketing, it’s best to re-order your priorities to the following groups:

Referrals from GPs & internists,
Returning patients,
Referrals from returning patients,
Walk-ins.

How do I do that?

Start with a budget for marketing. Many practices don’t worry about marketing because they’ve been reliant on orthopedic physician referrals to drive their business. With your new priority list in mind, develop a realistic budget to determine how much you can spend on marketing.

How much should you budget for physical therapy marketing? My standard answer is as much as it takes to grow the practice and meet your goals, and not a penny more. That said, it’s not uncommon to budget 20-30% of your profits or 4-10% of your gross revenue for marketing.

Once you’ve established a budget, focus on formulating a game plan for how you will market your PT practice.

Online marketing is the fastest growing promotional channel, and this is for a good reason: It’s quick and cheap, and also gives you access to a wide audience.

Types of Online PT Marketing to Consider

So now that you have a budget and are committed to online marketing, it’s time to get started. Here are the basics for any PT online marketing campaign:

Search Engines: the search engines are where a vast majority of your patients or prospects start the process of getting to know you. It’s important to put some time, effort, and money into ranking your practice on page one for:
1. a search for your business name,
2. a search for physical therapy in your city (e.g. physical therapy Los Angeles),
3. a search for niche services you provide (e.g. vestibular therapy, women’s health, TMJ treatment, etc.).

Website: Your practice needs a good website that gives visitors the information they need to decide that you are in fact the right practice for them. While you can make a website on your own, it’s a better idea to have it created by professionals instead. A company that builds websites will know the right way to create a design so that it attracts attention without annoying your visitors. You want your website to look polished and professional, and unless you have experience designing business websites yourself, you will will need a professional to get the look you’re going for.

Your website should include basic contact and location information, your hours, and your practice’s specialties. Include bios and pictures of each physical therapist that details their experience, certification, and specialties. This will help you with Internet searches, since many people use it as their main tool to find a therapist who can help them with a specific injury.

Newsletter: An email newsletter is a great way to reach new and returning patients who can subscribe using their email address. These newsletters should detail news about your practice (new equipment, a new therapist, special holiday hours, etc.), along with some information about physical therapy in general. The options are really quite wide open here. Stay conscientious of the fact that your newsletter readers are interested in staying healthy, recovering quickly, and preventing future injuries. Use your newsletter as an opportunity to demonstrate that you are the experts in your field by highlighting educational and informative articles and adding in your own expert voice.

Social media: Your practice should also have a social media campaign as a way to reach existing patients who will refer your practice to their friends. Encourage your existing patients to follow your social media accounts to keep up to date with your practice. Your social media campaign should be informative and interactive. Follow and post content that relates to health and physical therapy in general, rather than topics that are only specific to your practice. Also be sure to respond to any comments you receive, both positive and negative. Having a strong social media presence will make your practice stand out within your community and will also lead to more walk-in patients.

Ratings & Reviews: online reputation is the second most trusted form of advertising. Establishing yourself as a leader in the community, via patient ratings and reviews, will definitely drive business. Having a systematic process in place to capture the 5-star satisfaction your patients’ convey to you in the practice and then getting that message out on Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Healthgrades.com, is another great way to drive new business in the door.

[squeeze_box]If an online marketing campaign seems daunting to you, don’t worry. You don’t have to be in this alone. For more information on PT marketing ideas for your practice or to find out how we can develop a campaign for you, contact E-Rehab today![/squeeze_box]