Physical Therapy Newsletters Can Help You Earn Loyal Patients

physical therapy newsletters

If you’re not already creating and distributing effective physical therapy newsletters, it’s high time that you start. Newsletters have the power to transform new and possibly reluctant patients into loyalists that support your physical therapy practice with their repeat business and spread the good word regarding their positive experiences with you.

Establish Your Expertise

Using newsletters, especially when they are coupled with a strong online presence, will make you look like an authoritative expert in the field of physical therapy. The more you build this sort of presence, the more patients will come to you to learn about the latest treatments and solutions to their physical problems.

[highlight4]Newsletters are one easiest and most effective ways to establish your expertise. [/highlight4]The average web user is bombarded with advertisements and white noise on a constant basis, but you can break away from this buzz by utilizing effective and engaging newsletters on your blog or website. Newsletters are not only a means to encourage patients to come back to your clinic, but they are also an opportunity to educate, inform and advise. Here are some tips to help you implement attractive physical therapy newsletters to keep your patients engaged:

Many Recipients Open Emails Because of Catchy Headlines

Emailing effective newsletters does not have to be complicated or obtrusive as a busy physical therapist. Action words, verbs, and catchy headline can bring about positive results. Try to incorporate these in each of your headlines and ask yourself if it sounds like an email you’d want to open if it arrived in your inbox. If the answer is “no,” you should change the headline to something more appealing.

It’s All in the Name

Email marketing agencies and software allows you to create highly-personalized emails with each patient’s name and information. Studies have shown that click-through rates are actually much higher when your patient’s name is in the subject line. This sort of lead generation is a powerful way to keep patients coming back in the long term, which is much easier to do than reeling in new patients. As a form of lead generation, email newsletters are a highly effective form of patient retention.

Newsletters Allow You to Segment and Maintain Relationships with Your Patients

Segmenting is the process of breaking up your subscribers into smaller subgroups, creating highly engaging newsletters with a relevant call to action. Email marketing agencies can help you build and create sign-up forms that allow you to monitor who signed up to your newsletters, which can effectively track their interests. You can use segmenting and specialized subgroups to create highly appealing emails pertaining to recent news, upcoming events or the impact that you have in the local community.

[pullquote2 textColor=”#000000″]You don’t want to be the type of business that reaches out to patients only in times of need; instead, you want to bet he omnipresent physical therapist that is willing to advise and is the go-to person for the latest in your medical community.[/pullquote2] As a physical therapist, your focus should always be on maintaining relationships and underlining the importance of physical health. You don’t want to be the type of business that reaches out to patients only in times of need; instead, you want to bet he omnipresent physical therapist that is willing to advise and is the go-to person for the latest in your medical community. The key is to providing email newsletters that are valuable and different than other written content. Newsletters should be unique and related but a separate identity from your blog and website.

Importance of Mobile-Optimized Email Physical Therapy Newsletters

The amount of emails opened on smartphones has jumped from 8% in 2011 to 53% in 2014, and that ratio increases every year. It’s important to consider the mobile friendliness of your newsletters. Email-responsive designs will future-proof the promotional aspect of your career. With only 19% of marketers utilizing a responsive email design, it’s integral that you utilize this sort of technology. Make sure to work with an agency that understands the importance of using mobile-friendly newsletters to distribute informative content.

[info_box]To learn more about how E-Rehab can jump-start your website SEO, physical therapy newsletters and social media marketing, contact us or follow us @erehab.[/info_box]

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]

Physical Therapy Clinic Marketing: Using Social Media to Learn About Prospective Patients

physical therapy clinic marketing

If you haven’t already noticed, we’ve reached a point where the process of physical therapy clinic marketing now has to include social media, almost by default. While this should hopefully be clear to you, what it means may be a little different from what you might expect.

Why You Need Two Accounts in Physical Therapy Clinic Marketing

Many experts are now recommending that if you own a physical therapy practice, you should create two separate accounts. One is a personal account for yourself that connects to another account, which is designed specifically for your clinic. You can see the logic in this, even if places like LinkedIn consolidate both of these onto one page. [pullquote3 align=”right” textColor=”#000000″]Nurturing relationships online is a growing way to generate leads on social media so you have a more targeted audience for your later marketing content.[/pullquote3] Nevertheless, you give yourself an advantage by having a personal account because it’s there where you can start conversations with prospective patients. Nurturing relationships online is a growing way to generate leads on social media so you have a more targeted audience for your later marketing content.

But when you start conversations on places like Twitter, how do you approach talking to someone? Instead of trying to hard-sell your physical therapy practice, the best approach should be a more natural conversation that simply proves your expertise in the field of physical therapy. At the same time, you can use these social media conversations as a way to create a patient persona so you understand what they’re looking for in doctors providing the best physical therapy techniques.

Where Should You Start Your Social Media Conversations?

Conversations can take place on any social media platform, though Twitter is one of the best places to search for discussions and join in. Through a simple hashtag search, you can find conversations underway related to physical therapy.

Because Twitter has discussions underway about virtually everything, you likely won’t have trouble finding numerous people discussing physical therapy issues. When you join in on a conversation, make it a natural progression without mentioning how you’re a physical therapist or own a clinic. Any hint that you’re trying to sell yourself could risk you being blocked.

This is why it’s important to write a compelling Twitter bio so those who click on your profile can see that you already have credibility. As you start a conversation, you can start to learn some things about the type of patients you want to connect with. Here’s some things to find out about prospective patients so you can further target your marketing toward them.

What You Can Determine from General Information

Once you become friends with the above people on Twitter, they’ll start following you. Don’t let the conversations end, though, because you’ll be surprised at how much you’ll get to know about them as you continue talking with one another.

You’ll want to know a few things outside of general points like their age and what they do for a living. Here are some areas to focus on:

1. Pain Points

Finding out the pain points of a prospective patient is essential because you determine exactly what kind of physical pain they’re experiencing and how you can help solve it. Once you get to know your followers, you can find out what kind of physical pain they’re having and how it affects them during their work day.

2. Is Pain Stopping Them from Reaching a Goal?

As an adjunct to pain points, is the physical pain in any person above preventing them from accomplishing something? Find out what that pain is, because your marketing content can hone in on this to prove your techniques. You can do this later by showing past examples of solving pain problems so patients could function physically again in their careers.

3. What They Expect from Physical Therapy

Try to find out what physical therapy techniques these prospective patients are looking for in particular. Can they wrap their busy schedules around yours? Finding out what they expect can help you tweak things further in your physical therapy clinic marketing content so you attract like-minded people to your social media accounts without seeking them first.

[info_box]If this is a new pursuit for you and your practice, it may sound a bit daunting at first. This response is normal, but that’s exactly where we can come in to help. Contact E-Rehab once you’re ready to take control of your physical therapy clinic marketing, so we can assist you by finding unique social media marketing tactics for your physical therapy practice.[/info_box]

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:

  1. Feature an array of patient testimonials that highlight all the great attributes of your practice, which will automatically improve your reputation.
  2. Create a “behind-the-scenes” video of your front desk staff and therapists, which will convey a personal atmosphere.
  3. 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]

Reputation Management for Physical Therapy: Important Tips to Implement Today

reputation management for physical therapy

Maintaining a good reputation is important for any business, but it’s particularly important for anyone in the healthcare industry. To keep your private practice at the top, it’s critical to focus on reputation management for physical therapy right now.

Don’t Wait for a Problem before Taking Action

Physical therapists often focus on the importance of prevention, and this very same concept should apply to your reputation. This is why you shouldn’t wait until your physical therapy practice has a bad reputation before you do something about it. By being proactive now, you can help ensure that people find good things about your practice when they search your name.

Hiring a good reputation management firm, such as E-Rehab, can be a great approach to tackling this issue. However, there are also some steps that you can take on your own to help boost and maintain your practice’s reputation. Below are some useful tips that will help your practice earn a reputation that reflects its high quality.

Post Your Own Positive Content

To improve your online reputation, it’s helpful to first think about how your practice will appear to a prospective patient. With this in mind, try to address the following:

  1. First of all, if you want people to find positive things when they enter your practice’s name into their favorite search engine, then you have to ensure that these positive things exist. This means that you should be creating online content that relates to your practice.
  2. For example, if you haven’t already started a blog, you should definitely consider doing so. A blog can help with your search engine optimization, show the world your expertise, and it can be the first thing people find when searching for content related to your practice.
  3. You should also build social media profiles on all of the big social media sites, including some that you might not have thought about using in your industry, such as Pinterest.
  4. Lastly, it’s helpful to build profiles of yourself and your practice on physical therapy-related websites, upload informative videos to YouTube and build a profile on all of the local review sites.

Don’t Ignore Negative Content

It’s easy to ignore negative reviews and posts from others, but doing so can actually be quite harmful for your practice. [pullquote4 bgColor=”#000000″ textColor=”#46c0e9″]Regardless of whether someone’s post is true or not, those who see may often change their opinion regarding your practice. This can obviously pose a problem and cause potential patients to go to your competitors for treatment instead of you.[/pullquote4]Regardless of whether someone’s post is true or not, those who see may often change their opinion regarding your practice. This can obviously pose a problem and cause potential patients to go to your competitors for treatment instead of you.

If you make an effort to communicate with the person who has complained, however, in most cases you can improve the situation. If you address the negative comment, the person who posted the negative review might be willing to delete it or amend it. Even if they don’t take either of these actions, those who see this communication will at least know that you and your practice made an effort to respond to a problem or concern that a patient had.

Gather Testimonials and Reviews

Over time, have probably had quite a high number of patients that were satisfied with the treatment they received at your practice. So, why not use their satisfaction to your advantage?

  • The best way to do this is to gather testimonials from satisfied patients and post them on your website
  • You should also encourage your patients to post their feedback on the major local review sites and directly on your website
  • If people who are seeking physical therapy see that your previous patients are happy with the care that you have provided, then they might be more likely to give you a call for their physical therapy needs

Don’t Overlook Your Reputation Management for Physical Therapy

As you can probably see, reputation management for physical therapy isn’t necessarily easy, and it may require a lot of work. But if you look at the big picture, you’ll see that building and maintaining a strong online reputation is critical if you want your physical therapy practice to be successful.

[info_box]Along with tackling some of these steps yourself, it’s a good idea to work with a reputation management firm that understands your practice and wants to make it a success. To find out more about reputation management for physical therapy, as well as search engine optimization and marketing, contact us at E-Rehab today.[/info_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

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]

Physical Therapy Mobile Marketing: Capturing First-Time Patients with a Compelling App

physical therapy mobile marketing

Physical therapy mobile marketing has grown to become an essential process that all private practices need to take advantage of. This is the result of more people spending more time on mobile devices, as well as the increasing competition of the medical industry.

In the world of physical therapy, evidence has shown that the industry is continually growing in demand as the population ages, especially baby boomers. With awareness of this reality, your own physical therapy practice may be starting to feel the pain of local competitors taking away your old patients and not know how to react.

Why Your Practice May be Struggling

If you’re beginning to feel like your practice is struggling or slowing down, there may be good reason for this. You possibly have dozens if not hundreds of competing physical therapy clinics within your city or state. With that in mind, you may be realizing how much more marketing you need to do in order to stand out above the rest of the herd.

Marketing physical therapy can sometimes turn into an uphill challenge because some believe that marketing content can only be general. If you think you don’t offer anything different from all of your competitors, try analyzing your practice a little more thoroughly.

Rather than focusing completely on you and your physical therapy practice, it’s worth remembering that paying more attention to the patient is now more relevant than ever.

[pullquote2 textColor=”#000000″]Rather than focusing completely on you and your physical therapy practice, it’s worth remembering that paying more attention to the patient is now more relevant than ever.[/pullquote2]

This is where physical therapy mobile marketing can work well in capturing a prospective patient. Much of this comes in integrating technology with marketing so they coalesce into something different and informative. At the same time, you want more direct communication with future patients to make your marketing a more personalized experience.

Integrating Apps into Your Physical Therapy Mobile Marketing

There isn’t any denying that using apps in the medical community has the potential for exponential growth. Apps are used in a variety of ways, some of which involve usage directly in the medical facility itself. However, they’re just as useful as a form of marketing on mobile devices.

A perfect way to provide both information and personal connections with your future patients is to provide a free app on your website. When people search for physical therapy on their mobile devices, they want information immediately. A free app is one way for those people to find that information and to refer to later for details.

[highlight3 textColor=”#000000″]The key here is to make your app as simple to use as possible. Simplicity in app design is peaking now for good reason. [/highlight3] A case in point: mobile users want info in seconds before moving on. Here are some other tips to keep in mind when creating your app:

  • In your app, provide the most essential information users need, including content about your practice and what services you offer
  • Analyze all of your procedures and find something different from what your competitors are doing
  • Incorporate some educational content into your app so users get a sense of worth after downloading it
  • Another advantage of an app is that you can even integrate contact methods, including some in real-time; if possible, provide this through your staff so you can answer questions in real-time if a patient needs an answer to something they didn’t find on the app

Having a portal to social media through your app also allows conversations with users in a more personal way. Natural conversations that don’t use hard-sell tactics are the best way to prove your expertise without looking like a spammer.

Providing Directions on How to Find Your Facility

Another huge benefit of physical therapy mobile marketing is the ability to have GPS-like maps available so that patients know exactly where they are in relation to your clinic. By incorporating this into mobile ads on your website or app, patients who need to find a place in a hurry can do so in seconds.

More localized marketing is worth doing on the mobile platform to help you move to the top after possibly losing business to a physical therapy practice in your local area.

[note_box]For additional guidance on physical therapy mobile marketing, contact us here at E-rehab.com, where we can help you find new marketing strategies for growing or recharging your practice and attracting new patients.[/note_box]

Tips for Writing SEO Friendly Blog Posts to Boost Web Traffic

SEO friendly blog posts

Are you keeping your search engine optimization (SEO) in mind with each post on your website and making sure that all of your content is “SEO friendly?” If not, it’s time to make some changes: SEO friendly blog posts increase the chances of your posts being indexed and ranked by the search engines, which is essential for attracting new visitors.

To do this, you need to first focus on writing helpful and informative blog posts. However, it’s also important to write for the web crawlers used by the search engines. In order for readers to find your blog posts, your posts need to rank well in the search engine results. Even if you’re not an expert in SEO, there are some things you can do right away to optimize your blog.

Here are some useful tips on how to optimize your physical therapy blog for the search engines:

Include Keywords in Your Title

The title of your post is one of the first things that search engines will crawl on a page. It is also the first [pullquote1 align=”right” textColor=”#000000″]It’s important to include keywords that are commonly searched for in your blog titles. When coming up with your titles, consider what a user may type into the search engine. [/pullquote1] thing web users will read after typing in their search terms in a browser and receiving their search results. Therefore, it’s important to include keywords that are commonly searched for in your blog titles. When coming up with your titles, consider what a user may type into the search engine. A good example for physical therapy blogging would be a topic like chronic neck pain. Someone with chronic neck pain may search for information related to whiplash. A title such as “How to Treat Chronic Neck Pain From Whiplash” is an effective blog title in this case.

The key is to include the keywords without it reading awkward to human readers. Also avoid keyword-stuffing your titles. Stay on topic with one search term and try to make it sound natural.

Write Compelling Meta Descriptions

Another major component of creating SEO friendly blog posts is to focus on your meta descriptions. A meta description is an brief snippet that describes a web page’s content. When you read the search results page from a search engine, the preview text located underneath the titles are meta descriptions. Although it’s important to include keywords in your meta descriptions, their main purpose is to get the web user to click-through to your page. They serve as advertising copy to promote your page. By writing compelling descriptions, you can help improve the click-through rate to your page.

Optimize Your Post Content

It is also essential to include the keywords you wish to rank for within your post’s content. Search engines use keywords within each page of content as a ranking signal. However, it’s important to be cautious about how often you include them within the text. It’s better to write naturally for your blog audience and to avoid writing strictly for the search engines. Over-optimizing your content with multiple occurrences of keywords is known as keyword-stuffing. If a search engine detects keyword-stuffing, your page will likely be penalized and drop in ranking.

Optimize Post Images

Optimizing the images of your blog posts is something that’s often overlooked in making SEO friendly blog posts. It’s a good idea to include titles and descriptions in your images that feature keywords and are SEO-friendly. The use of image search has also increased in recent times, so it is yet another way for users to land on your website if they see something relevant to what they’re looking for.

URL Structure

Check that your blog’s URL structure is set-up to use your blog post titles. Avoid URL extensions that use the date of the post or the post’s ID number. Web users are more likely to click through to your page if they see that the URL extension is the same as the blog title.

[highlight2 bgColor=”#000000″ textColor=”#000000″]Optimizing your website so that you have SEO friendly blog posts takes some extra effort. But it’s well worth it in the long term for improving your search engine rankings. By writing regularly updated content that helps to inform the readers of your website, you increase the chances of gaining new patients for your practice. Remember to write for people first and search engines second.[/highlight2] [squeeze_box2]If you need more assistance with the process of optimizing your practice’s website and don’t know where to go, contact E-Rehab today. We specialize in physical therapy website development and online marketing, and we can help guide you every step of the way when it comes to mastering SEO and reaping the rewards of more new patients.[/squeeze_box2]

How the Future of Physical Therapy SEO Will Change (And Why You Need to Pay Attention)

physical therapy seo

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)—the never-ending quest to fine-tune (or completely gut) your website so that it performs better in search rankings—can be a tiring race to run because the rule-makers (i.e. Google) are always changing the rules. This can be especially frustrating for your practice when it comes to physical therapy SEO.

But as we push further ahead into 2016, the picture of what the SEO rulebook will look like in the future—and what physical therapists will need to do to keep up—is now starting to come into focus.

Some marketers have predicted that there are three certainties in SEO that will affect all web traffic in the future. By understanding and addressing each of these now, you can prepare your practice for the changes ahead and be ahead of the game:

1. Mobile Searches Will Triumph

As Huyen Truong, the SEO Manager for the SEO Agency in Sydney, points out: “mobile search will soon reach the tipping point—the stage at which the majority of time spent, organic traffic and paid clicks comes from smartphones and tablets rather than the traditional medium of desktop and laptop search.”

Every decision you make, whether it’s web design or social media posting, should come from a mobile device mindset. Before you begin any project, big or small, get in the habit of asking: “How will this look on a mobile phone?” [pullquote3 align=”left” variation=”red” textColor=”#000000″]Before you begin any project, big or small, get in the habit of asking: “How will this look on a mobile phone?” [/pullquote3] In addition, having a website that uses scrolling more than clicking is gradually becoming the new standard for website design. The old system of pages, where your journey through the site’s content involves clicking through layer after layer of pages, is dying. Web designs now leverage the easy scrolling motions of smart phones to place all (or most) of the site’s most important content into a single page that unrolls before the mobile user with a swipe of the thumb. The other mobile-centric practice is, when clicking is necessary, make the buttons large and easy to hit. That helps users overcome the primary weakness of smartphone navigation: it’s hard to accurately click on small targets. And Google knows all of this. (It feels like it knows everything, doesn’t it?) One recent algorithm update specifically looks for mobile-friendly designs and gives them preference over others.

2. High Quality and Great Visuals

Some of the recent Google algorithm updates have also removed keyword optimization from the top of its priority list, and the search engine now looks at the quality of your content—especially whether it’s contextually relevant or not—when it assesses your website.

It also likes visual content, especially when paired with high quality, thorough, well-structured written content.

As the blog Keywords and Jargon explains: “Search engine results page (SERP) rankings show that images, infographics, video and other visual media are much more engaging and relevant than plain text. It’s assumed that a user is more likely to find information that is relevant to their search query.”

3. Voice Search Will Become More Important

With the entry of the oddly endearing (or not-so-endearing) computer personalities of Siri, Cortana from Windows, and Google Now, voice searches are now beginning to influence SEO.

Jason Tabeling of Search Engine Watch made some telling observations about the voice search trend:

  • 55% of teens use voice search daily
  • 56% of adults like using voice search because it makes them feel “tech-savvy”
  • Phrases that begin with “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” and “how” increased by 61% year-over-year

This spike in these phrases correlates with the increased use of voice search. When people do a voice search, they tend to begin their question with these words. Keep this in mind for your physical therapy SEO keywords or even your FAQ pages.

And in case physical therapy SEO still makes you feel overwhelmed, let these parting words from Keywords and Jargon remind you why SEO is worth the trouble: [blockquote align=”right”]”[With SEO,] instead of disrupting a user’s schedule or activity, you’re paving the road for them to easily find you when they’re ready to buy what you’re selling. Instead of having to convince them to buy a product or service, you’re establishing in advance that you are the best option to buy it from.”[/blockquote]

If you’d like some more helpful information on physical therapy SEO, contact us at E-Rehab, where we can put you on the path of capitalizing on these upcoming changes so you can stay ahead of the curve and keep your website in top shape.

The Importance of Reputation Marketing for Physical Therapists

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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

pt-marketing

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:

  1. Referrals from GPs & internists,
  2. Returning patients,
  3. Referrals from returning patients,
  4. 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]