Physical therapy marketing is the element of building your practice that most PT’s don’t usually consider when they “hang out their shingle.” But it’s the lifeblood of your New York or Connecticut based business, and, in reality, how you can help more patients.
Earning a DPT is a long process, usually lasting 7 years before you can pass the NPTE. The day you open your own PT practice is the day you realize that there’s more to achieving success than the immense knowledge you’ve gained, and the patience and support you bring to each patient. Your practice is a business, and marketing is what brings in the patients who need your help.
For a valuable overview of the process of taking your PT skills and succeeding in your own practice, consider reading “The E-myth” by Michael Gerber. It details the essential components a business needs to survive and succeed. The subtitle says it all: “Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What To Do About It.”
Physical Therapy Marketing can’t be an afterthought
While healthcare is the main focus of exceptional physical therapy, a physical therapy practice is also a business. Even if you “build a better mousetrap” the world of patients who need you will not “beat a path to your door.” Businesses communicate with the world…with your potential patients…with Marketing. If you ignore marketing, do it at your own peril.
5 Standard Physical Therapy Marketing Tools That Every PT Practice Uses
- Website: Just about everyone uses the internet to search for, and to research, just about everything we want or need. Most businesses rely on (or hope) their website will be noticed by everyone who needs them, and attract more new customers (patients) every day. Unfortunately, every physical therapist uses this same tactic, and there are some pretty eye-catching websites for offices in New York, Connecticut, or in your area, attracting your potential patients.
Three keys are “content, content, content” and filling pages with information that your patients want, and that you want them to have.
- Social Media: The next step in the evolution of online presence, everyone hopes to create a following, and engage in conversations with patients in this “free” marketing tool.
Creating great content is the key. Get people interested by offering valuable ideas.
- Keep in touch: experience has revealed that there are “seasonal” injuries…skiers hurt their knees in winter, runners and other athletes “pull muscles” in spring, golfers have back, shoulder, and wrist injuries in summer. Why not send out seasonal e-newsletters about how you can help?
- Reach future patients before they actually need you, with direct mail. Sending post cards to the surrounding community at large.
- Mobile Marketing is helpful, especially in keeping current patients coming back for the entire treatment needed to attain the best possible recovery from injury or condition.
If you’ve been in practice for a while, and you understand the value of marketing, you’re probably working on most or all of these ideas. If not, it’s time to get started.
The one Physical Therapy Marketing Tool you’re missing
There’s one marketing tool that you’re probably not taking advantage of, because you never thought of it: Informer Messages on hold. Informer Marketing Messages give your patients information that they want, and that you want them to have, in the time your telephone callers now spend on hold.
#holdhappens. Every time your patients call your office, there’s a good chance they’ll have to wait on hold for a while. Most phone systems have muzak or VoIP music playing on hold. Some just have “dead silence.” Why not replace that hold music with professional phone greetings and a high quality telephone message on hold? With a professional voice over, and the best hold music in the background, you can educate your patients about the value you offer them, and more of the ways that you can help them.
Specialized Physical Therapy Marketing Technique
Specialized advertising techniques can make the time that your callers spend on hold interesting and valuable to them. And can make your telephone a better marketing tool with targeted on hold advertising. Call us today for a free 15-consult, and we can talk about how on hold marketing can make all you marketing more effective, and your practice more successful. In New York call 212-355-6980. In Connecticut call 203-655-3920. And nationwide call 800-862-8896. Or click here to schedule your consultation.
