Facebook has become a powerful advertising platform for small businesses including physical therapy practices. The combination of being able to reach people by their interests, social connections, pages that they’ve visited, as well as by their location makes this ad platform a very effective option for PT clinics. Practices can reach potential new patients, grow their following, and increase revenue.

Facebook has four primary location targets available that allow you to create locally-focused ad campaigns.

Facebook’s Help articles define them as the following:

1. Reach everyone in this location

‘Reach everyone in this location’ is  the default option. This option allows you to reach people whose home or most recent location is within the selected area.

You set the parameters for the location.  Let us say, everyone in Encinitas, CA. It will automatically advertise to everyone in Encinitas.

2. People who live in this location

The second option is people who live in this location. This includes people whose home is within the selected area.

You might want to advertise a retail business. For example, to people who live in a specific location, perhaps, a real estate agent would want to advertise only to people that live in a certain location.

 

3. People recently in this location

People recently in this location, is the third option.

With this option, you’re reaching people whose most recent location is within the selected area to which you are advertising. You may want to advertise to people that visited health clubs or sports complexes.  For example, to people who are recently in the location that you choose, say, ‘People who are in CrossFit’.

4. People traveling in this location

Finally, people traveling in this location, is the fourth option.

This includes people traveling in the selected area who are more than 125 miles from their home location. This is determined by the device and connection information that Facebook collects.

This would be a powerful option for people that have “snowbird” populations or large college campuses.

Facebook is Very Powerful

That’s four different options that Facebook gives you for creating very powerful, targeted local advertising campaigns. Depending on your target audience, you should consider those four different options. Think about how you may use them creatively to reach the ideal prospects  with the ideal offers, while they’re in the ideal location.