David Straight, Author at E-rehab

These Mistakes Can Scare Physical Therapy Patients Away Online

Here we are sharing some common mistakes that practice owners make online.

While it’s easy to think these aren’t that big of a deal, they’re actually scaring new customers away.

1. Having a Website that’s Not Mobile-Optimized

Almost everyone and their grandma is using a smartphone or tablet these days. If your website is not optimized for mobile, it can be nearly impossible to navigate.

While you may get a teeny percentage of patients who will switch to a computer, most will get frustrated, close your site, forget all about you and move on…likely to your competition who does have a mobile friendly site. As a result, you’ll miss out on potential new business.

2. Not Updating Your Social Media Accounts

More and more people are validating, cross-checking, and learning more about PT practices on social media platforms. It’s obvious that not having a social account can hurt your practice, but few realize that having a poorly updated page can cause damage as well.

For example, if a patient searches for physical therapy in your city on Google, clicks on the link to your Facebook page, and sees that you haven’t posted in months or even years, there’s a good chance they’ll assume you’re not organized, not up-to-date, and aren’t a quality practice.

Simply having these accounts is not enough. Make sure you post regularly so patients can clearly see you’re still in business and are using social media to communicate.

3. Getting Defensive while Responding to Negative Feedback

It’s hurtful when patients leave negative feedback. Especially when it’s a particularly difficult patient (you know the ones I’m talking about) who was the main cause of the problem.While it’s our first instinct to protect ourselves and our good name, getting defensive and causing an online argument for all to see can really hurt your reputation.

Instead, acknowledge the patient’s frustration and invite them to take the conversation offline. This will demonstrate your commitment to good service and will make future patients more comfortable doing business with you.

4. Not Responding to Positive Feedback

Just as it’s important to have a thoughtful response to negative feedback, it’s equally important to respond to positive feedback.

Think of it this way, the patient has taken time out of their day to share their thoughts with you and refer future clients. By not responding, it gives the impression that you don’t care.

By taking the time to respond, it not only makes that patient feel appreciated but also, it’s another way to demonstrate your commitment to good service.

Why This Works…

The Internet has revolutionized the world of marketing for PT private practices and completely changed how we, as business owners, need to manage our reputation and marketing.

Taking care to ensure you have an active presence online will not only help patients discover your clinic(s) and also get a sense of what kind of service they can expect.

A practice that is responsive, available, and ensures patients have a friction-free experience will be much more appealing.

What do you get out of all this?

By caring for your online reputation and making sure you’re easily accessible, patients will be drawn to your practice.

As a result, you’ll have a much easier time attracting new clients, keeping long-term patients, getting more referrals, and growing your business.

4 Steps to Create the Perfect Elevator Pitch

What is an elevator pitch? An elevator pitch is defined as a succinct and persuasive sales pitch.

Elevator pitches are also known as a talking logo by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing or Your One Liner by Donald Miller of StoryBrand.com . Each of these marketing experts have their own take on what makes up a quality elevator pitch; however, at the end of the day, there are far more similarities than differences between the three.

Why is an elevator pitch necessary?

Well, let’s say you are at a networking event, an industry event or you happen to bump into someone who requires your service. An elevator pitch is designed to entice people to stop, listen and develop an interest in your service. It’s an excellent way to connect with important contacts and potential clients.

Here are 4 important steps to creating the perfect elevator pitch:

Keep Your Elevator Pitch Brief

You don’t need to deep dive into your extensive work history and experience. An elevator pitch should be a quick recap. Ensuring your audience can quickly grasp who you are, what you do, and most importantly, how you can benefit them. You should keep your elevator pitch to under 60 seconds.

Understand Your Target Audience and Identify their Pain Points

The easiest way to grab someone’s attention is to identify something that they’re struggling with. By demonstrating that you understand the problem, you’re instantly placed in a position of credibility.

Can everyone on your team answer the question, “What do you do?” A great way to answer is to with a question. “Have you ever had any pain in your muscles or joints?”

An orthopedic physical therapy practice most certainly deals with patients that have pain – it’s their number one concern in most cases. Pain is what your patients want to avoid, get rid of, and learn how to prevent from returning.

Highlight the Biggest Benefit of Your Physical Therapy Service

Your elevator pitch should highlight the biggest benefit of your PT service. It may be difficult to limit which benefits you share. However, it’s a good idea to base it on the pain point you’ve identified as well as the features that make your business stand out from the competition.

At this point, I suggest you create some curiosity. After you’ve asked the question above, respond to their “yes” answer with something that creates curiosity. You might say, “So many do, that’s why I learned how to alleviate pain with my hands.”

This should inspire the person you are speaking with to ask the question, “How do you do that?”

The response could be something like this – “As a physical therapist, I’ve learned a number of manual therapy and therapeutic exercise techniques that addresses the underlying cause of pain and helps people avoid unnecessary drugs, expensive tests, & surgery.”

Finish with a Call to Action

Once you’ve completed your pitch, what action do you want them to take next? For example, should they call to book an appointment?

At this point you need to read the person you are speaking with. If they follow up with more questions, ask them this, “Would like to come by for a quick free exam? I might be able to help.”

If they say they know someone with pain, ask them if they are nearby – offer them a free exam.

Don’t leave anyone up to their own devices. Be very clear about what action they should take next to secure your PT services.

Why This Works…

More often than not, PT practice owners are incredibly passionate about their care and the opportunity to help. It’s easy to get caught up in conversation and launch into a long-winded explanation about how wonderful their care is, etc. Though well-intentioned, this often loses the attention of the audience. Even worse, it decreases the chance of them doing business with you.

An elevator pitch keeps your explanation concise and direct. Getting right to the important key points that will motivate them to take action.

What do you get out of all this?

Having an elevator pitch ready to share who you are, what you do, and how you can benefit the potential client is a quick and easy way to get your business on their radar. It tells them what they need to know so they can make an informed decision on your services.

As a result, it allows you to successfully generate more new business and book more clients.

An Elevator Pitch is a Sales Tactic…For PT Marketing, You Also Need These Strategies

An elevator pitch is important and especially useful if everyone in the office is using one to communicate your practice’s value. However, when it comes to online marketing, you want to do these things first:

Create a great website that tells a compelling story and funnels viewers to your call to action.
Email marketing to retain your past patients.
Rank on as well as you can on Google – Google is where almost everyone starts their online search for a physical therapy clinic.
Have the best reputation in town – trust is the number opportunity for small clinics to differentiate themselves from the big corporations. There’s no better place to show your community that you can be trusted, than with ratings and reviews on Google and your website.

If you would like to learn more about how E-rehab.com can help you get your online marketing right, click here to schedule some time with David Straight, DPT and co-owner of E-rehab.com

Physical Therapy Blog Posts that Make Patients Take Action

Blog posts are an excellent tool for providing value to your audience. They convey expertise, authority, and passion for your profession of physical therapy…not to mention, the posts are great content to publish on your social media channels like Facebook.

But, if you want your blog posts to motivate your audience to take action, such as booking an appointment with you, this is how you should structure your posts.

Opening Paragraph: Identify a Key Pain Point (& use keywords for Google)

In your opening paragraph, you need to identify a common pain point that your audience may be having. This is how you grab their attention.

Be sure to go into detail about the problem. By showing you have a genuine understanding of their struggle, they will be much more likely to believe you are the person capable of solving it for them. As a result, they’re much more likely to listen to you and follow your instructions.

Body Paragraphs: Share a Simple Solution or Steps to a Solution

After you’ve explained the problem in detail, transition into discussing the solution. This section is all about providing value.

You can make it easier to read by providing 3-5 bullet points that discuss multiple solutions. You can also lay out a single solution into easily digestible steps.

In addition to providing value, this section will give your audience a taste of your expertise. By proving that you are able to solve their problem, you’ve positioned them perfectly. Increasing the likelihood that they will take action in the final section of your blog post.

Closing Paragraph: Call to Action

This is where you ask them to book an appointment with you. To seamlessly transition into the call to action, point out how your PT services will make their life even easier than if they only follow the solution you provided.

For example, let’s say you’re sharing ways to relieve neck pain and want your audience to book a therapy session. You can share a few simple exercises for at-home relief in your post. Then tell them that if they want to maximize their healing, a personalized care plan that’s tailored to their specific needs will drastically improve their results.

Why This Works…

This structure provides a natural flow that first builds trust, provides value and then seamlessly transitions to a soft, but effective pitch.

Empathizing with the reader’s pain point early on is key. If you’re the person who knows the problem they’re having even better than they can understand it themselves, you’re immediately projected into a position of authority and established trust.

Putting you in the most ideal position to motivate them to take action with you.

What do you get out of all this?

This blog style will improve the amount of action taken on your posts. Not to mention, it will further establish you in your niche while endearing you to your audience. People will genuinely appreciate the value you provide.

Even if they don’t take action the first time, this gentle blog style will give them enough value to motivate them to come back for more.

Before You Take the Time to Blog, You Should Do These Things

Blogging is one of those appealing marketing strategies that many recommend. Afterall, it’s part of a solid marketing strategy that can help establish you as the go-to provider if you are consistently publishing quality content and (super important) circulating it via social media to your community.

However, we don’t recommend you do this before you get these strategies right:

A great website that tells a compelling story and funnels viewers to your call to action.
Email marketing to retain your past patients.
Rank on as well as you can on Google – Google is where almost everyone starts their online search for a physical therapy clinic.
Have the best reputation in town – trust is the number opportunity for small clinics to differentiate themselves from the big corporations. There’s no better place to show your community that you can be trusted, than with ratings and reviews on Google and your website.

If you would like to learn more about how E-rehab.com can help you get your online marketing right, click here to schedule some time with David Straight, DPT and co-owner of E-rehab.com

Should You be Using TikTok to Marketing Your Physical Therapy Practice?

It’s not an easy question (and if you’d like our short answer, scroll to the bottom for a list of what you should be doing before TikTok).

What many people don’t realize is that Tiktok is the fastest growing app of the decade. The statistics are mind boggling.

It’s rapidly growing to a wide audience. Giving you ample opportunity to grow your customer base and engage with your community.

Here’s the biggest reason your practice should be on Tiktok…

In the digital age where ad blockers are prevalent, your advertising strategy needs to adapt. Users are much more likely to engage with content that feels authentic. Tiktok gives you the opportunity to engage your audience with marketing that doesn’t “feel” like marketing.

Here are a few video ideas that you can share on your practice’ Tiktok account:

Take Your Audience Behind the Scenes

People are curious by nature. That’s why taking your audience behind the scenes is so effective. Show them how your practice runs in a way they wouldn’t typically get to see.

You can walk them through your daily prep process before you unlock the doors. Maybe you and your staff have a fun ritual to kick off the day. You could even share some “day in the life” videos that reveal a typical day for someone in your profession.

Share “How-To” Videos and Provide Physical Therapy-Specific Advice

Users love helpful content that will show them how to solve a common problem. Not only does this provide genuine value to your audience, but it also endears them to you. Giving reason for them to follow you and regularly check out your content.

Take Part in Fun TikTok Trends that Relate to Physical Therapy

Tiktok trends are a fun way to engage with your audience and build some steam behind your account. They’re also an excellent way to show some personality behind your practice and allow customers to truly connect with you.

It’s important to only jump on trends that relate to your niche. You don’t want to post videos just because they’re popular. Be sure to stay on brand and consistent with your Tiktok approach.

Why This Works…

Many aggressive advertising styles are falling short, especially with younger generations, forcing practice owners to find less invasive ways to attract customers and grow their practice. Creating content on the Tiktok platform will help market your practice in a much more organic way.

What do you get out of all this?

Tiktok provides an opportunity for customers to truly get to know you. In the long run, this approach will build a much stronger and long-lasting connection with your audience.

Before Social Media Marketing, You Should Do These Things

Social media marketing is appealing. So may use social media on a daily basis and with the rapid adoption of TikTok there are compelling reasons to use this marketing channel. However, we don’t recommend you do this before you get these strategies right:

A great website that tells a compelling story and funnels viewers to your call to action.
Email marketing to retain your past patients.
Rank on as well as you can on Google – Google is where almost everyone starts their online search for a physical therapy clinic.
Have the best reputation in town – trust is the number opportunity for small clinics to differentiate themselves from the big corporations. There’s no better place to show your community that you can be trusted, than with ratings and reviews on Google and your website.

If you would like to learn more about how E-rehab.com can help you get your online marketing right, click here to schedule some time with David Straight, DPT and co-owner of E-rehab.com

Stages of the Buying Journey and Physical Therapy Retargeting

Patients are at Different Stages of the Recovery Journey

Stage 1 – This is the group of people that are earlier on in the quest for recovery. Looking at our diagram at the top of the page here, these patients are suffering with symptoms. Another way to put is is these patient are higher up in the funnel, have a pain or problem and are looking for a solution. For example, they have radiating pain in their arm or leg. They don’t know what their diagnosis is, what their treatment options are, or who they should see for treatment. They are searching Google or Bing for a solution.

Stage 2 – This group of people thinks they know what their problem is, they received a diagnosis from Doctor Google or Doctor Bing. Now they need to confirm it and seek out treatment options.

Stage 3 – This group has a diagnosis and it often comes from a healthcare provider, e.g. a medical doctor. The medical doctor may recommend pills, diagnostic tests, injections, or surgery. Often dissatisfied or seeking alternative treatments, patients at this stage will search Google or Bing for treatment options for their diagnosis.

Stage 4 – This group understands their condition, diagnosis, treatment options, and is now seeking out a particular provider in a given business category…i.e. a physical therapist or as it’s known in Google search results, a physical therapy clinic.

So, the fundamental question is: how does a PT practice owner get their name in front of patients that are in different stages of their journey?

Option 1: Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing (check out the definition on Google/Hubspot) https://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing . The way I like to describe this is having valuable content that ranks on the search engines with a link to your website, when someone is searching on Google or Bing.

An example of this can be seen when you search for “lower back pain treatment in Visalia” . Having a link to your website when that search is done brings “inbound” traffic to your website. Pay Per Click Ads (PPC Ads or Google Ads formerly Google AdWords) is also a form of inbound marketing https://blog.nextinymarketing.com/inbound-marketing-vs.-pay-per-click (note that PPC ads for conditions are expensive, competitive, and often hard to track).

Creating Content for Leads that Don’t Know PT is an Option Yet

A content marketing strategy is used to define the types of content your patient prospects may one to consume. Depending on the the buying process stage the consumer is in, dictates the type of content that is created.

Let’s say a potential lower back pain patient is in Stage 2, as defined above. They have a diagnosis they derived from Dr. Google or even a diagnosis from a physician…but they aren’t sure what type of treatment to pursue. You might want to create a blog post about 5 reasons why you don’t want to have an MRI if you have lower Back Pain.

If someone does a search for why lower back pain patients don’t need MRIs, they might find your content…if it ranks on Google. This would be inbound marketing.

Option 2: Outbound marketing.

Facebook ads are an example of outbound advertising. The practice owner or marketing agency pushes a message in front of a targeted group of people in the community, hoping several of this group have pain, are looking for a solution, will click on the ad. Contrast this with Segment 1 that was actively searching for a solution on Google or Bing.

If you wanted to “push” this same message, 5 reasons why you don’t want to have an MRI if you have lower Back Pain, out to your community, then you could advertise this content on Facebook. It can be delivered on your Facebook page timeline and boosted, or advertised with the Facebook ad platform.

Similar to above, a link on a Facebook ad should go to a dedicated lead magnet landing page where the prospect is asked to make a micro commitment…in most cases entering their name and email address, to get information about how the therapist can help. A follow up sequence is implemented usually via email to nurture the prospect to the next step in the funnel which might be an invitation to a workshop, or educational session, or free assessment.

Keeping Your Business Name in Front of the Lead with Retargeting

Physical therapy retargeting is an advertising method that keeps your brand solution (e.g. PT for lower back pain) in front of your leads.

Let’s continue with the marketing example above. The prospective patient visits your website because they searched for a solution, clicked on a Google link that took them to your blog post, or you blasted a Facebook out to your community about lower back pain and why patients don’t need an MRI right away. In either case, the lead has visited your website. At this time, a cookie, or small piece of code is placed on the lead’s browser. Second, this cookie is read by Facebook and the next time the viewer visits Facebook and potential patient is presented with an ad and an offer. Here we are using inbound or outbound marketing in combination with retargeting or remarketing.

Note: as of the writing of this blog post, Google doesn’t allow PT practices to retarget their users…they consider this a violation of the Google users’ privacy.

Retargeting Visitors by First Driving Them to Your Website with Offline Ads

Another form of retargeting can occur when patient prospects visit your website directly from an offline ad, a person or doctor who referred them to your website, or when the prospect clicks on a link somewhere else on the web or from a link on a search engine and visits your website. Again a cookie, a small code file is placed on the prospect’s browser, indicates that the prospect visited your website and should be presented with an ad or offer on Google, Facebook, or both.

Depending on the lead’s stage in the buying process would dictate the types of Facebook retargeting ads that you might try. See below for more about this.

Vary Your Retargeting Ads to Match Your Lead’s Buying Stage

If someone visits your website, how do you know which stage of the buying process they are in? Often times you don’t. Therefore, your retargeting should account for this by presenting the lead a variety of ads over time. Since the sales cycle for physical therapy isn’t that long, maybe you run each retargeting ad to your prospect on Facebook for a few days each.

The first of the retargeting ads might suggest physical therapy for back pain. In this case the lead isn’t sure which healthcare provider is best for their problem. Your ad addresses this.
Another ad, one for patients that are actively seeking a physical therapist, is designed to make your practice stand out. The retargeting ad might include featuring your five-star reputation.
Finally, for patients that are aware of you, but are sitting on the fence, yet another might be an offer for a free exam or a discount.

Is Part of Your Advertising Campaign Retargeting? Retargeting is an advanced advertising strategy that some of asked us about, so we have presented a high-level summary of what it is and it’s potential uses.

In Summary

Above, we outlined some basic concepts around the stages of the buying process of physical therapy.

Then we described two different methods that you can use to get your name in front of leads – inbound marketing (creating content that ranks on Google), and outbound marketing, which usually takes the form of an online ad (e.g. a Facebook ad) or an offline ad (an ad someone might see on a postcard, in a newspaper, or magazine).

Finally, we described how you might be able to keep your name in front of a potential patient using a marketing method called retargeting/remarketing. When you retarget, you need to try to match your ad with the stage of the buying process your potential patient is in; therefore, your retargeting ad message should vary.

Want to Know Which Marketing Method is Best?

Schedule some time with us by clicking here. We’ll discuss your objectives, current marketing strategies, and share some thoughts on how we might be able to help.

Physical Therapy Ratings & Reviews – Don’t Ignore Good Reviews – Do This Instead

I want to share something with you that I see so many physical therapy practices failing to do – respond to good reviews.

Many business owners falsely assume that a good review means their job is done, and leave these reviews unanswered. Huge mistake!

People who’ve taken time out of their day to leave feedback are the ones most likely to return to your business. Responding to every review increases the likelihood of a return customer because it makes them feel cared for. Not to mention, it’s an opportunity to show off your customer service skills to prospective patients.

Here are 3 steps to effectively respond to a good review:

Thank the Reviewer for their Time

Everyone’s time is valuable. That’s why you should open by acknowledging how thoughtful it was for the person to take time out of their day to share their feedback. This is an excellent way to show appreciation and make the patient feel like a valued customer.

Respond to Any Specifics Shared by the Reviewer

If the reviewer shares specifics about how you or an employee helped them, be sure to reference this in your response (but keep HIPAA/PHI in mind).

This demonstrates that you’ve truly listened and digested their feedback. Plus, it’s an excellent opportunity to boast about how great your team and service is!

Finish with a Small Call-to-Action

A small call-to-action or invite to return is an excellent way to end your response. You don’t want to come across as ‘sales-y’ so make it feel as natural as possible.

It can be as simple as an invite for another appointment. For example, “We cannot wait to see you again. Be sure to get in touch with [receptionist name] at [phone number] when you’re ready for your next [service]!”

This is Why You Should Make a Habit Out of Responding to Good Reviews

Responding to positive reviews is such a simple way to make your patients feel valued and cared for. Remember, they do not owe you a review. That’s why it’s so important for you to acknowledge their feedback and show appreciation.

By doing so, it increases customer loyalty as they are much more likely to return to a practice that they feel connected to.

How Will This Help Your PT Practice?

It costs nearly 7 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain one. If you’re not taking time to practice simple retention techniques like this, your marketing costs will be a whole lot higher than they need to be.

By responding to your customer reviews, you will encourage current customers to continue doing business with you.

As an added bonus, responding to positive reviews will attract new patients as well. We had this experience reported to us several times – i.e. a response to a review was reported by a new patient. A business that only responds to negative reviews runs the risk of leaving a poor first impression.

By showing appreciation to everyone, you can easily demonstrate your commitment to excellent service for all. Making you much more appealing to prospects as they decide who to do business with.

Need Help Building Your Reputation?

You can reach David Straight, DPT, co-owner by setting up an appointment – just click here. We have a large number of clients that have well over 100 Google reviews. We can help you achieve this goal as well.

Don’t Make This Mistake – It Will Cost You New Evals

For over 19 years we’ve been helping PT private practices market their services online. We’ve seen a lot of silver bullet, online marketing, promise you riches marketing companies come and go because:

They extract all they can out of the PT private practice and move on,
They don’t adapt to the changing market,
Most Important – they don’t have any idea how patients buy physical therapy services.

Here I want to review some information to help you, the practice owner, better understand how your patients buy and better yet, help you avoid paying for a marketing service that doesn’t work…but costs you a lot of money.

Physical Therapy Marketing – Is it a Bad Word to You?

Many clinicians underestimate the effort, time, and money that is required to succeed in their local market.

When things don’t go as planned, they follow this predictable pattern:

I don’t know enough – I have to learn.
I have learned but I never executed what I have learned.
I need an outside company to save me.
I bought the silver bullet solution – the one that promised me riches, and nothing happened.
Marketing sucks and I can’t trust marketing companies.

We see this regularly. In fact, I just had two conversations with clients yesterday – one tried Facebook ad funnels and it cost him five figures. Another was told by their marketing company that they had over 100 new leads. When I asked how many converted into patients, they had no idea. They received a lot of data, but had no idea if it had any impact on their bottom line (i.e. generated more revenue).

Neither one of them made a profit with these fly-by-night marketing companies.

80% of PT Marketing Strategies Sit on the Shelf and Nothing Happens

You’ve probably heard this before – if you want to succeed, know your market.

Define your ideal target market, your ideal clients, etc., etc.

These exercises often leave small practice owners with a piece of paper, the start of a strategy, but no action, and no results…no new patients. I’d invite you to step back, just ask a few of your patients, and look at some of the basic numbers that you most likely already have right in front of you.

Good Marketing Starts with Knowing How Patients Buy Your PT Services

Ask yourself these questions:

A. What is the age of the patient population I want to serve? Usually it’s 40+ years of age…this is when orthopedic injuries become more common.

B. How do 40+ year olds buy? They use Google, they look at clinics’ reputation, some visit the PT website, and then they call or request an appointment from the website.

C. What percentage of patients do a search before they visit a physical therapy practice? The answer is astounding – 84% as reported by LSA (which is localogy.com).

D. It gets better. The research results also noted that that percentage of healthcare consumers of physical therapy, contacted a physical therapist 100% of the time after they did a search! Of course this behavior doesn’t happen 100% of the time across all communities, but most follow this pattern.

E. Finally, take a look at your website visitors – how many do you get each month?

Quit Missing Out on Easy Opportunities – Focus on the Low-Hanging Fruit First!

I just shared with you how a large percentage of consumers buy PT services – Google first, some visit your website, then they call. So, you simply want to optimize/focus your time and energy on this. The good news is this is what E-rehab has known this for some time and it’s what we do everyday for our PT private practice clients.

The bad news is that newer PT business owners, don’t know this yet. They focus on media channels that often times don’t matter much – Instagram and social media for example. If you don’t believe me then consider these survey results.

When PT Practice Owners Don’t Consider Their Market’s Buying Process, They Lose

We looked at 100 PT private practice websites in the greater Los Angeles county area, and here’s what we found:

48% of PT websites have basic mistakes with their addresses.
45% of PT websites don’t even have a phone number that’s easy to find or above the fold.
67% of PT websites don’t even have an address above the fold

The Take Home Messages – Focus on GMB, Your Reputation, and Your Website (design, imagery, and the copywriting [copywriting is the words that persuade website viewers to take action])

Focus on Fast, Easy, Friction-Free Mobile and Desktop Website Experience
Make It Painfully Easy for New Patients (and existing ones too) to Contact You
Put Your Energy Into Your Google Business Profile – that means get those reviews too!
Put Your Time, Money, and Energy Into Your Website!!!

There’s no need to struggle. There’s no need to get lost in pages of irrelevant data. There are no silver bullets – successful practices will master the basics and knowing how your target audience buys from you is one of those basics.

You Can Avoid All of These Problems, Execute Your Marketing Strategy, and We Can Help.

Contact us and we’ll provide you with all of the online marketing services you need at a price that any practice can afford.

We Guarantee It!

You can reach David Straight, DPT, co-owner by setting up an appointment – just click here.

Your PT Marketing Mix – Use This Framework by Answering the 7 P’s

A marketing mix is the marketing strategy of a physical therapy practice that includes the main components that the owner(s) should consider to generate more business for the practice.

Another definition from Wikipedia.org is as follows:

The term “marketing mix” is a foundation model for businesses, historically centered around product, price, place, and promotion[1] (also known as the “4 Ps”). The marketing mix has been defined as the “set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market”. Reference

Another way of stating it is that the 7P’s provide a framework to develop a practical marketing plan for satisfying patients’ wants and needs and generating more referrals/new business to increase overall revenue and profit.

Here’s a Classic Framework to Create Your Marketing Mix

Practice owners and their supporting marketing staff can use this simple framework to outline their business’ 7Ps before executing the marketing plan.

The 7Ps Marketing Mix graphic noted above at the top of this blog post represents the following:

Product – the physical therapy products (more accurately the services), are the offerings of the practice. Examples are a spine rehab program, a vestibular rehab program, a pelvic floor program, sports therapy, wellness/fitness programs, etc.

Place – the place is where the services are delivered. It may be within the walls of the clinic, the services may be delivered at home, perhaps at a patient’s place of employment, on a sports field, etc.

Price – this is the fee you are going to charge for your services. Often the maximum fee a practice can obtain for the delivery of service is capped by an insurance contract. However, by working with your billing company/team, you can maximize your reimbursement for the delivery of services to the marketing you are choosing to serve.

Promotion – the promotion of the 7P’s framework is the offer and the channel that you are going to make to a given target audience. For example, if you are going to offer discount exams to shoulder patients through the Facebook ad platform, that would be the Promotion.

Process – these are both the internal processes and the barriers to delivering the best patient care possible. For some, the process might be one-on-one care. For others, it might be efficiently seeing 2-4 patients in an hour. There are many processes in a marketing mix. If you improve on your processes (examples might be – how to answer phone calls & convert them to initial evals, or questions to ask new patients, or consistently reaching out to doctors) then you can significantly improve your marketing outcomes (sometimes called your conversion rate).

People – the people are the members of the organization that deliver the service. This includes everyone that is involved in the delivery of clinical care. Your receptionist, scheduler, billing staff/outsourced vendors, and of course your licensed clinicians. Good people are at the heart of any successful physical therapy practice. Providing them with good marketing, sales, clinical, and communications processes, will go a long way to helping the business succeed.

Physical evidence – your physical evidence, in a service business like physical therapy, is what people see before they buy physical therapy services from you. It’s your website, the photos on your Google Business Profile, your business cards, your referral pads, your brochure, they way your clinic looks, the way you dress, and any/all of your marketing materials. Your logo, your signage, the color scheme and design are all types of physical evidence that can/should be aligned with your marketing and brand. In a service business like physical therapy, people judge what they can’t see based on what they can see. This is why a great website, as an example, is so important for your practice.

Get your “physical evidence” right and you can convert prospects into physical therapy patients. Get it wrong and you’ll never know what you’ve missed.David Straight, DPT, E-rehab.com

Think of the Graphic Here or Save It to Recall the 7P’s

Each component of this market mix(the Ps) is denoted with appropriate graphic icons, e.g., price tag symbol for Price, package box icon for the product, etc.

The 7Ps Marketing Mix and graphic can provide practice owners with a roadmap on to what to pursue and optimize to serve a given market. Clinic owners can thus define their product, pricing, selling location, promotion & offers, physical evidence, workforce, and processing techniques buy thinking through and documenting their own specific 7 P’s for their individual marketing plan.

How E-rehab.com Can Help

When it comes to defining your 7 P’s, E-rehab can provide essential components of just about any marketing mix. From great physical evidence in the form of a website, helping you promote a service with online ads, to helping you craft a memorable story that funnels viewers to your call to action (i.e. good promotion of a service), E-rehab has the knowledge, skills, experience, and team to help you, the PT practice owner out.

To Learn More Call Us Now at 760-585-9097 or click here to schedule a time on our calendar.

Physical Therapy Ratings & Reviews – E-rehab 2022 Update

If you follow our blog, you know that we are huge fans of reputation marketing for physical therapy private practices. It’s one of the few ways small practices can differentiate themselves and compete with the large corporations and hospitals.

Sometimes practices, and in this case E-rehab.com, are victims of fraudulent reviews though. Below is a case study from a recent experience of ours and some thoughts on how you can turn lemons into lemonade 😊 .

Rarely is a Business or PT Practice Immune to Fake Reviews and Spam Bots

Recently, we were the target of a fraudulent, negative review from someone by the name of Javelle Avant. If you’d like to read my previous post on the value of negative reviews, click here.

Here’s the rating and review:

Readers See Through Fake Reviews

One look at this review and you can tell it has no merit, but why would I say this? Well, let’s break down a rating and review into its components…all the different parts that consumers assess when judging the value of a rating and review.

There’s the rating – a 1-star rating, as it stands on its own, gives a reader a negative first impression. However, the negative rating is an opportunity for the reader to gather a different perspective from someone that may have had a bad experience. How do they do this? They read the text of the review.

The Review – The review is the written feedback provided by the consumer. In our case, this one says, “Don’t know anything”. Does this really provide any information that would help a prospect make a better buying decision? I would contend that the feedback of this review is no help at all…which isn’t surprising because it’s fake/fraud.

What You Should Do First

The first thing you want to do is report the review to Google. Don’t get your hopes up though, Google rarely takes down negative reviews. There’s no reason you can’t report it a second or third time either and choose a different reason. In my experience, Google will not respond.

To report a negative review, go to the negative review, click on the 3 dots to the right of the reviewers name and click Report Review.

Next, you want to choose why you are reporting the negative review to Google. In my experience, there isn’t one that’s better than another.

After you report the review, Google should get back to you within three business days. Again, unless it’s an obvious, egregious violation of their terms and conditions, they are unlikely to remove it. If you’d like to learn more about their review policies, you can click here.

Next, There’s The Opportunity to Respond and Educate

Here’s a quick video on how to respond to Google Reviews:

One of the best things you can do to combat a negative review is the following:

Take it seriously – a quick look at your Google Business Profile Insights demonstrates that your Google business listing (where positive & negative reviews are displayed) is seen hundreds if not thousands of times per month. For this reason, it’s important to respond to negative as well as positive reviews.

Sleep on it so emotions play a lesser role in your response – it’s normal for hardworking small business owners to emotionally react when they get a negative review ESPECIALLY WHEN IT IS FAKE! When we received this negative review, my partner and a team member immediately asked, “Do you know who wrote this negative review?”

Respond professionally – in most cases, people that write negative reviews aren’t going to change their mind. The people that are going to read this review and your response, are prospects that want to do business with you. That being the case, you need to respond and keep it professional.

Offer to make things right – since you can never be certain that a negative review is from a real person (perhaps under a pseudonym/false identity) or it is a spam bot, you need to offer to make things right. If it is a real person, there is a chance that they will take you up on the offer. Add your name and phone number to the review if you want to make it easier for the person to contact you. In my experience and working with hundreds of other practices that get physical therapy reviews, they almost never will call you.

Use it to educate others and show other readers that you care about what customers think…if it’s a legitimate review – as I mentioned above, and in my previous post about negative reviews, you might choose to reply and educate others that are reading that reply.

This is how I replied to our negative review:

When a Negative Review Makes You Sour – Make Lemons Out of Lemonade

It’s a fact that sooner or later you are going to get a negative review. I feel for PT practice owners that work so hard to provide great care only to experience a fraudulent review.

Take a day to let the frustration wane, then report that negative review to Google and follow the advice above, and respond to it through your Google Business Provide

It’s what I had to do and you might have to do it in the future as well.

Need Help with Physical Therapy Marketing?

Call (800) 468-5161 or Click here to book a time on my calendar

Thanks for reading – David Straight, DPT, Co-owner, Marketing Consultant

Physical Therapy Website Design for 2022

Here are five features that your physical therapy website developer must include in 2022.

1. Define your offer above the fold.

This means that you should state clearly what you are going to provide a viewer of your website (i.e. prospective patients). What kind of offer to we recommend? It depends on the type of patients you serve. For the orthopedic practice, we suggest you include something about pain relief. 90%+ of the patients that come into your practice have pain, so you want to let them know you can relieve it.

2. Repeat Your Calls to Action.

Why is it that department stores have cash registers throughout their location? They want to make it fast and easy for your to check out. On your PT website you don’t know when someone has read enough to take the next step. Make sure you include your calls to action frequently as the reader progresses down your homepage.

3. Add an Outcomes-Oriented Image.

Patients are more likely to work with you if they can see themselves as a successful patient in your clinic. Include pictures of happy, smiling patients on your website so patients can see themselves in the story that you are telling.

4. Stack Your Value.

There are a number of factors that can persuade a patient to choose your practice. Make sure that you list your value propositions clearly on your website. Make them short and easy to read as well for mobile viewers.

5. Make Sure You Have a Click-to-Call Button

Take a look at your website analytics and in particular, the number of visitors to your website that are using smartphones. You’re likely to see that half of your traffic or more are seeing your website on their smartphones.

If that is the case, then you need to make it easy for them to call you right from your website. While most phone browsers will recognize your phone number and enable this. you can use the <tel> tag to make sure this is happening. Then make sure you test this.

Add in These Features to Better Convert Website Viewers to Patients

Too often PT practice owners are more concerned with how their website looks rather than how they communicating with potential patients. If you include the following features in your PT website design, you’ll increase your conversion rate without spending any additional money on marketing.

Need help with Your Physiotherapy Website Design in 2022?

If us a call at 800-460-5161 or you can click here to request an appointment.

Google’s Vicinity and Physical Therapy Private Practice SEO

Physical Therapy SEO – A Big Hit for Some in December, 2021

Back in end of November/early December of 2021, Google made some significant changes to the Google Maps ranking algorithm. Search Engine Optimization companies (SEO’s) termed this Google algorithm change – Vicinity. Sterling Sky was one of the first to write on this Google Vicinity update.

The update primarily impacted the proximity of the person searching for a particular business. For example, if someone is searching for physical therapy clinic south San Diego, Google Maps results favor businesses that are within/closer to south San Diego.

In other words, the Vicinity algorithm update was engineered to not only make it harder for physical therapy practices to rank when searches took place far away from their office’s physical location, but was also designed to penalize practices that were blackhatting, keyword stuffing, or adding in keywords into their Google Business Profile’s name.

Here’s an example of a hypothetical clinic that has an office in South San Diego. If your business name is Acme Physical Therapy and you entered the business name (in your Google Business Profile) Acme Physical Therapy South San Diego, chances are you would be penalized (i.e. your Google Maps ranking would drop down lower on the list).

In other words, Google has now given PT practices that are newer/less-established and closer to the searcher, a greater potential to rank higher than the older, more established physical therapy practices that are further away from the searcher.

How the Vicinity Algorithm Update May Have Impacted Your Business

Here are some examples reports of local SEO graphic reports. Each place you see a pin on this map represents where the practice ranks on Google Maps for a physical therapy search.

Here’s how this practice ranked before the Vicinity algorithm update.

Here’s how this practice ranked after the Vicinity algorithm update.

You can see that the PT practice isn’t ranking as often in the top 5 spots on Google Maps.

Not All Physical Therapy Practices Were Negatively Impacted

Here’s how this practice ranked before the Vicinity algorithm update.

Here’s how the practice ranks after the algorithm update – this PT practice actually improved.

Interpreting These Graphics

Note, that the further away the searcher is from the practice (represented as a pin on the map), the lower the practice ranks on the Google Maps results page (represented by the number within the pin). In other words, the closer the searcher is to the business (i.e. in the vicinity or proximity of the practice), the higher, in general, the practice ranks on Google Maps.

What Can be Done if You Were Impacted by Vicinity?

Right after major algorithm updates, many businesses (understandably so) end up in a panic.

Typically, you’ll see a flurry of ads and social posts from some SEO company(ies) advertising “the solution” to Google’s algorithm changes. Often those SEO techniques are blackhat methods. As Hubspot puts it:

Black hat SEO is a practice against search engine guidelines, used to get a site ranking higher in search results. These unethical tactics don’t solve for the searcher and often end in a penalty from search engines. Black hat techniques include keyword stuffing, cloaking, and using private link networks. ReferenceDebbie Millman

Try to Compose Yourself and Look at the Bigger Picture

There is always an element of uncertainty when it comes to search engine traffic and the numbers you find in your Google Business Profile Insights and your web analytics. Here are six things you can do to combat the Vicinity update:

Update your business name in your Google Business Profile – if you were one of the many that keyword stuffed your business listing, it’s probably a good idea to change it so it more accurately reflects your business name without the keywords.
Give it some time – if you were negatively impacted by the Vicinity update, it may not have as big an impact as you may expect. When searching for physical therapy, people use different search phases, different devices (mobile, tablet, desktop), and are searching from a variety of locations. While you may have fallen on Google Maps, it may not change the number of new patients that come into your office.
Take a look at your natural listings – even though you may have dropped in the Google Maps rankings, you may still rank well in the organic listings. If this is the case, you’ll still get some significant traffic from this search results page ranking. If you don’t rank well, consider hiring a company like us – E-rehab.com a physical therapy SEO company.
Don’t forget your Google Business Profile Insights – even if you did drop in the rankings, take a look at your Google Business Profile rankings for a quick reminder of how many people still see your business listing each month.
Stick to the core principles – no matter where you rank, you always want to continue to work on your Google ratings and reviews. Consistently obtaining Google ratings and reviews may help you recover your search rankings and will undoubtedly help convert some of those people that are already viewing your Google Maps listing.
Consider running Google Ads – yes, this is ultimately what Google wants you to do. If your maps listing has plummeted, there is always the option to run Google Ads. Yes, it’s a new cost to the business buy for some, it can still be fruitful.

As Things Unfold, We’ll Provide More Information

Having been in the SEO business for over 15 years, we here at E-rehab.com can tell you that algorithms will continue to change, Google will make modifications to the algorithm that may be in your favor in the future, and you have to move on.

As we discover new insights and strategies, E-rehab.com will continue to follow these new and best practices to improve the search rankings of our clients.

Hang in there for updates.

Were You Even Aware of the Vicinity Update?

If you were not aware of the update, chances are the changes in your Google Maps rankings didn’t negatively impact your new patient volume and/or you were too busy to notice.

If you were negatively impacted, you need a PT private practice marketing company that’s keeping an eye on these kinds of things and can offer you insight and solutions.

Need Help with Physical Therapy Marketing?

Call (800) 468-5161 or Click here to book a time on my calendar Thanks for reading – David Straight, DPT, Co-owner, Marketing Consultant

New for 2022 – This May Be the Best Way (and By Far the Cheapest) to Generate More New Initial Evaluations

Have you heard of conversion rate optimization? It is the practice of increasing the percentage of users who perform a desired action – hotjar.com

“How does this apply to a physical therapy practice, and does it really matter?” The answer is a resounding “yes”.

To clarify the above definition as it applies to you, the practice owner, conversion rate optimization is the practice of converting more patients that are considering you to initial evaluations.

Three Ways to Improve Your New Patient Conversion Rates

Again, to give you some context, we are talking about converting more prospects (warm leads that are one or two steps away from booking an appointment) into patients. Here are three fast and easy ways to improve this, with one of them, in my experience, being the very best.

Tell a better story that is consumer centric, not company centric. Take a look at the copy (the words on your website home page that are meant to funnel viewers to your call to action), on your website home page. Is it about the patient, their pain, their desires? Or, is it mostly about you, how good you are, & details about services that may never matter to the reader?
Take a look at your mobile website experience. Does it follow Google’s golden rules of being fast loading, super easy to read, and friction-free? Too many PT websites have long paragraphs that prospective patients don’t want to read. Moreover, it isn’t easy to scan, which just so happens to be the way many read websites, i.e. they scan them.
Finally, the Best Way to Increase Conversions – Add a tracking phone number, record your calls, and improve communication. This is by far the best thing that you can do. Do you know what your receptionist (who gave the first impression of your practice to a caller) is saying to patients?

Quick, True Story

I recorded calls for a practice once, and a prospect called with a TMJ problem wanting to know if PT was right for them. After they finished the call, the prospect undoubtedly hung up and was wondering if they had cancer. The caller went from pain in the TMJ to I might have a problem that could kill me. The receptionist had so badly mismanaged the communication that it undoubtedly hurt the practice’s reputation.

Quit Wasting Money on Expensive Marketing and Examine How Well Your Existing Marketing is Doing

Therefore, Take a look at your conversion rates.

Action Items:

Look at the text on your homepage – is it telling a memorable story that funnels people to a call to action (do you even have a call to action)?
Check out your website on your smartphone. Is it fast loading, easy to scan, and there are easy ways to take the next step in the buying process?
Get a tracking number and put it on your website and Google Business Profile (add it as an alternate number). Record some calls and use them as teaching moments.

If you need help with your conversion rates, and your online marketing, let’s connect.

Click here to request an appointment or if my calendar doesn’t have something available just call (800) 468-5161.

Thanks for reading – David Straight, DPT