David Straight, Author at E-rehab

Physical Therapy Content Marketing – Creating a Budget

For most physical therapists, their expertise in having a successful practice is not linked to their personal knowledge of business or physical therapy content marketing. It comes from their passion to deliver solutions to their patient’s physical needs. Clinic owners have invested years into their physical therapy education, and it is this knowledge, patient care, and exceptional customer service that will ultimately set them apart from all other competitors.

The question is how will your community know you are the best? Regardless of how special you make your patients feel when coming to your clinic, you need to get the word out. This is where as a business owner you need to grasp the reality that you must have a PT content strategy. Here are some tips on what you will need to plan for your marketing budget, which ultimately will determine your marketing plan.

Defining your available funds

Setting your sites on a specific dollar amount is unfamiliar territory for most owners, about ⅓ of small business owners have no idea how much they are spending on content marketing. Knowledge is power though, and if you can keep to a focused marketing budget and plan, you will be able to track your progress and execute on necessary changes as you see what works and what does not. Practice owners want to spend enough to compete in the local market, but not so much that they become financially over extended. There are a few must haves and a few should haves in today’s marketing budget; how you decide to fulfill these needs will help you set your budget.

#1 Must Have… a physiotherapy content marketing creative writer and editor.

Whether you hire an outside source or delegate the duties to an in-house employee, their time spent on creating content will be portioned into your budget.

For in-house employees, including yourself, the time spent compared with salary/wage should be factored into your expenses. If you should decide to hire an agency for creative content, keep in mind that their expenses will cover more than just intellectual property, it will also include their taxes and overhead.

#2 must have… a graphic designer that understands physical rehab content marketing

Content is the wording created by your writer. How you envision the delivery is decided upon conversations you have with your graphic designer. Premium content is packaged nicely with eye candy surrounding it. Pictures, logos, color schemes all play an important part in capturing the attention of your future patient. This allocation of budget can also be fulfilled by an in-house employee or outsourced to an agency for a higher level of customization.

#3 Must Have…. A Physical Therapy Content Publisher

Without someone to push all your content out to online sources, all your efforts won’t do you much good. According to eMarketer, 84% of all businesses will use digital content marketing in 2018. Content publishing can again be managed by an in-house employee, but keep in mind the hours spent per week to keep your social media sites lively and your emails, blogs, and newsletters interesting should be taken seriously, and considered to be a part of your employees job description. The time spent compared to wages/salary should again be taken into account, and not thought of as something to only do during down time.

#4 Should Have…. Content Promotion Expenses.

The greater your budget, the wider net you can cast. Your content audience is heavily determined by how easy your potential patients can find you online. In this case, a set amount should be determined for paid social media presence and retargeting ads. On average you can figure approximately $1000 should be allocated to this need with ¾ of that budget geared for social promotion and ¼ for retargeting ads.

#5 Must Have…. A Marketing Strategy Manager.

Your marketing plan needs to be thought out, so that every bit of content hits an intentional target. Unstructured content will not define your practice or deliver a deliberate message that you are the best in your community. You will need someone to create and calendar out the messages you want to deliver through the year. Start with an overall theme for a period of time like 6 months. Make it simple. For example, the them could be “natural care.” Then take one month at a time with a specific goal. For example:

January could focus on how your physical therapy practice provides natural care for the KNEE.
February covers the area of neck pain, and so on.
March might be about the natural care of physical therapy compared to medications.

Each month gives you the opportunity to prove your expertise in the focused area, showing your patients you are the leader in your industry. Your marketing budget will determine how much attention you can allocate to this focus, but even on the slimist of budgets do not underestimate the importance of creating a plan.

So how much will this cost me?

It is truly difficult to establish what the industry standards for physical therapy marketing content will cost you. There are so many variables for each practice, and how much that practice can afford to delegate. Here are two working budgets that may give you an estimate of what you can expect.

The Bare Bones Budget- $500 per month, plus 20 hours of employee time.

15 hours of your time dedicated to content development, planning and writing
5 hours of content management for social media and emails.
$200 for tools such as graphic design software, email manager, SEO measurement, and other content publishing/management tools.
$800 for paid content promotion for paid social media and $200 for retargeting ads.

The Cutting Edge Budget-$2000. Per month but read below to learn more about how E-rehab.com can help.

$1000. For an agency enlisted for content development, planning and writing, or the option of a full time paid employee to be your marketing director.
$200 for necessary software tools
$800. For paid content promotions and $200 for retargeting ads

A few last thoughts to consider when planning your content marketing budget

It is often hard to spend money on things we cannot physically touch. In a way it’s like buying new pipes for your house. You know they are there and provide security from old busted pipes, but you don’t really see them and you certainly can’t drive it around like a new car. Your reward for following a well thought out marketing budget and plan, will be in the return of investment (ROI). Your practice will benefit with new patients being able to find you.

Keep in mind that every community has its own unique needs and characteristics, by understanding what your potential patients are looking for will help you financially plan with purpose. Be flexible and monitor your different campaigns, knowing what worked and what did not is vital to moving ahead. Modify the marketing campaign calendar to include more of what works, and drop ideas of what did not work. The decision of how to implement your content marketing budget with either in house talent, hiring an agency, or a combination of the two sources is entirely up to you. Just be honest of what you or your staff is truly capable of producing with both talent and time.

Why You Don’t Have to Spend $2000/mo in Content Marketing

E-rehab.com has spent that last 15 years providing physical therapy private practices with content marketing strategies. Since we know online marketing and content marketing as well as anyone in the private practice space, this translates into cost savings for you.

We can provide you with the following:

Custom blog posts
News stories
Promotional videos
20+ social media posts
and more.

For a fraction of the cost needed to hire an agency that doesn’t know or specialize in the physical therapy private practice market, E-rehab.com has you covered.

We encourage you to contact us at (760) 585-9097 or email me at dave@e-rehab.com .

Are You Website Converting Visitors to Patients? 7 Thoughts on Physical Therapy Website Development

When a potential new patient visits your website (we’ll call them a visitor) there are seven questions you need to be answering for them. Good physical therapy website development should address all of these and your physical therapy web designer/developer should have experience in and the ability to help you answer all of these questions.

1. Can “You” Solve Their Problem?

Patients are looking for a clinician that can put an end to their pain and dysfunction. Does your website communicate clinical excellence to your visitors?

2. How will Physical Therapy Help Them Out?

Why should visitors use physical therapy versus a pill or an orthopedist? Do you let visitors know they will have better outcomes if they start PT sooner than later?

3. How will Patients Benefit from Going to “Your Practice”?

What makes your practice unique and different? What is your USP? Is it your location, specialties, certifications, education, insurance plans you accept? Can you get them in fast? Boutique/family oriented versus big-box corporate?

4. Do You Convey Social Proof?

Why should a website visitor expect to have a great experience and outcome with your practice? Do you have case studies? Do you have video of other patients with similar diagnoses as visitors that might be considering your services?

5. Are You Trustworthy?

Over 90 percent of consumers consider ratings and reviews when making buying decisions. Do you have a high aggregate rating? Do you have a high volume of reviews? What’s the overall sentiment of the reviews? Are your reviews recent? Do you offer quality, educational, and cutting-edge information to build trust?

6. Is Your Online 1st Impression Credible?

Visitors judge what they can’t see based on what they can see. Do you have a website that accurately reflects the quality of care you provide or is it simply a poorly designed online brochure without any interactivity? Does it load fast? Is it secure? Is it responsive for smartphones and tablets? Is it easy to navigate?

7. Do You Offer Clear Calls to Action?

Once a visitor decides to use your clinical services, what do they do next? Is your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) at the top of each page? Do you tell them how to contact you/a particular location? Is your location information clear? Do you have Click to Call, Click to Map, Click to Review Us options easily accessible? Can visitors request an appointment?

SUMMARY

A physical therapy private practice website serves many functions. Get it right and you can educate, build trust & credibility, and drive more business. Get it wrong and you are certainly losing business.

Need Help? Visit our contact us page and simply request a free, no-obligation consultation or contact us at (760) 585-9097.

Chances are we can help.

Physical Therapy Social Media Marketing Tips

With just a few improvements, your social media profiles could become the crown jewel of your digital marketing strategy. By switching up your approach and committing to a higher level of quality, you could soon be generating more leads, revenue, and interest in your physical therapy practice with minimal effort.

The great thing about social media marketing is that it doesn’t have to take a lot of your time to work wonders. If you plan ahead and use social media to reinforce your other marketing activities, you can achieve huge ROI through both organic and paid social campaigns.

So, to inspire you to improve your social presence and go beyond expectations, try implementing the following five highly effective social media marketing improvements.

Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy Document

Writing down your marketing ideas matters. According to CoSchedule, professionals who document their planned marketing strategy are over five times more likely to achieve success. Also, 88% of people who set marketing goals actually achieve them.

Documenting your social strategy involves both high-level and low-level considerations.

On the high level, you want to include your overarching goals for social. You want to describe how social media fits within your overall digital marketing plan. You want a few guiding pointers for brand voice and the type of values you want to express.

For low-level strategy, consider how often you want to post per week or per month. Plan a budget for the next quarter. Describe publisher sources for shared content you want to write.

Getting all of this down in writing helps you stay focused and consistent. It also makes it easier to communicate your intended strategy to others, such as employees or contract marketers.

Most importantly, it keeps you from approaching your social media activities haphazardly. Having intention and purpose is the key to achieving better results.

Coordinate Social Posts With Specific Campaigns

If you want to push your social media marketing to the next level, try a couple of test campaigns. These campaigns should start with you posting about your expertise and in time and with repetition, branding yourself in your areas of expertise.

Then, you should tie your brand expertise (i.e. clinical expertise) into special events, promotions or campaign pushes so that they can have an express purpose beyond “just posting because.”

For instance, if you have a promotional offer like a free consultation, your social campaigns can convert audiences into leads or customers. If you have an event, like a lower back pain seminar, you will be aiming to increase foot traffic over the seminar period.

Connecting social media activity to campaigns in this way ties them to concrete goals. Your performance can be benchmarked, helping you seek out ways to improve your next campaign based on past data.

For each campaign, create custom graphics and a variety of post ideas. For example, you can plan to develop a few beautiful photo-based posts as a way to turn heads on a platform like Instagram. You can also create a few strong call-to-action posts to generate interest and early signups on Twitter or Facebook.

Creating special, limited time campaigns like these helps you learn quick lessons and improve rapidly with your social media use. The data you generate and experience you gain gives you skills that make you better at using social media, helping you improve and accomplish your goals more consistently over time.

Create Content Marketing Assets and Landing Pages Just for Social

You can significantly upgrade your social media marketing returns by creating assets specifically designed to complement social posts.

For instance, you can create a lead capture landing page for specific target segments to use with targeted promoted social media posts. That way, your call to action can take 18-year-old college students to a different page with different appeals than your page aiming to convert 70-year-old retirees.

You can also create assets that you know will perform well on social, such as infographics. Infographics get around 41.5% engagement, on average, making them the content with the second-best ROI behind video.

Developing assets like these help connect your social media presence to customer actions that actually generate revenue. They also ensure you have a best-fit destination for each outgoing click to your website, as opposed to shoehorning a single “contact us” page link into every post or something similar. Since each asset is custom-made for social, they’re better suited to their individual purpose.

Invest in Professional Grade Social Video

Speaking of developing visual content with high ROI, now is the time to start considering using video within your social media marketing strategy.

Businesses that use video marketing generate 66% more qualified customer leads and earn 54% more brand awareness compared to those that don’t use any video. Even more impressive, 77% of small practice owners who use video report significant benefits and positive ROI.

These assets get attention and shape the way people see your practice. They serve as a form of social proof for the quality of your services when they include live testimonials. They give you something to link to within other campaigns and to embed within your blogs. They also serve as brief sales pitches that can be far more convincing than any chunk of text.

For best results, plan ahead for when and why you want to use your video assets and how you can repurpose them in multiple ways for future campaigns.

Need a Complete Online Marketing Strategy for Your Physical Therapy Practice? We Can Help.

For a free, no-obligation consultation, you can contact us at (760) 585-9097. We will discuss what you are doing know, your goals, and show you how we might be able to help.

Facebook Marketing for Physical Therapy Private Practices – How to Stay Engaged

Woman Clicking Like Button. She Likes It!

No doubt you have already set up a Facebook Page for your practice and hopefully you have a number of fans that have joined your page since then.

Your goal now is to build a relationship with these fans and interact with them. You want to let your fans know that you value them and they are special. By doing so, you will encourage them to continue to read and interact with your posts. You need to consistently give your fans a reason to care about what you have to say.

Here are six ways to make your fans feel special and encourage them to stay loyal to your practice:

Fan of The Month

This is a great way you can make your fans feel special. There are so many variations of this theme. For example, it could be a fan of the month or a birthday of the month. Or if you want to take it a step further, crown a patient of the month for someone who has improved significantly over the past month. You get the idea, but whatever theme you use, your fans will love it.

To make it fair, you could make a random drawing where you pick a name out of a hat. Some people even video it and upload the video to YouTube and then post the link on their Facebook page.

Or it could be a reward for a fan that you think has made the most valuable contribution to your page. Or you could come up with a short-list and encourage other fans to vote and base it on how many “likes” a particular nominee has received.

This type of promotion is very simple but works well by highlighting individual fans on your page and putting them in the spotlight.

Here are some examples from companies who do this well:

The beauty with this kind of promotion is that you don’t have to give any prizes out other than the recognition they get from being featured as a “fan of the month.”

It is a good way to interact with your customers and fans. It shows that you appreciate and value them. It also encourages them to stay loyal to you and your patients as well as interact on your Facebook page.

Ask The Physical Therapy Expert

This can be excellent way to drive traffic to your site and to provide valuable information for your fans.

For an example of a good ‘Ask The Expert’ topics, take a look at this web page: https://csspt.com/ask-a-pro/

Now consider making these topics live events.

Here’s one from PRO PT that we really like:

https://www.facebook.com/PROPTPHYSICALTHERAPY/videos/1855558364473172/

This is how it would work:

Choose a day where you or another physical therapist from your practice shares their expertise about a certain topic. Have another employee (or even a patient, if possible) interview the expert with some general questions about physical therapy treatment, general health or exercise tips. Change the topic a couple times per month and use it as a platform to open a conversation about something you feel patients can benefit from.

This is a win-win situation for everybody involved. Your fans will be happy because they can learn more about physical therapy and have some important questions answered. You win because your fans are happy and more educated, and you may have also managed to draw in new patients.

For this to work effectively of course you will need to have a decent amount of active fans or you will not get enough participation.

All About the Fans Day

This is a similar theme to the fan of the month as it is yet another way to make your fans feel very special and appreciated.

A great way to do this is to allow your fans to promote themselves on your page. So if your fans have a website or a blog, let them post a link.

Create a special day each week or month where your fans can post anything they like about themselves. It can be their site, a picture of their kids, pet, car or whatever they want to post.

Obviously, you will be around to moderate the posts and make sure that they don’t violate any rules or directly compete with what you are offering, but it is a great way to encourage interaction.

Three More Ways to Turn Your Fans into Ambassadors:

Run a Live Event & Feature a Fan
Promote a Local Cause & Increase Their Reach
Use Facebook Live Video to Share a Topic of Interest

Make Sure Your Message is Seen – Boosting Posts

You may have read that Facebook has essentially eliminated organic reach of Facebook Business Page posts (Reference) . At the time of this post, that’s exactly what we are seeing. For example, if you have 100 Facebook Page fans (Likes), and you posted something this time last year, 20-30 of your fans may have seen that post in their news feed. Today, that number has been reduced to single digits.

Side Note: if you do get your fans (hint, hint your staff members for example) to share your page posts, you will still get some organic reach.

To combat your loss of organic reach, you will want to boost your Facebook posts. It’s fast, easy and for a few dollars (i.e. $10 – $20) you can still reach a significant number of people. Therefore, when you do post something of value as described above, make sure you use the boost function to get the message out.

Design & Development of Your Physical Therapy Home Page

We get a lot of questions from our clients about what should be on a physical therapy website home page.

Your physical therapy website first and foremost should be responsive – a website that adapts to or changes its shape and presentation in response to the screen that the viewer is looking for at your website on. A physical therapy website that’s responsive looks different on the smartphone versus a tablet versus a desktop.

Starting from the Top of the Home Page and Working Down

At the top of a physical therapy web site you can include what is called a “hello bar”. It’s a thin row across the top and is typically a different color from the rest of the website. It usually has an appointment request link and a link to your payment page where patients can pay their bills online.

Next is the main banner. In the banner on the left-hand side is where your logo is located and on the right-hand side you usually have your address with your phone number.

Moving down the home page, there is commonly a slider or a “hero photo”. A slider is a series of images that are slide across the home page and are very popular in a modern web design. It’s a graphic feature that is very pleasing and makes a great first impression…especially if you use photos of you, the practice owner. I recommend you have a picture of your team as one of the slider images. Then a photo you or your staff performing special neuromuscular reeducation exercises with your patients. Don’t put a picture of a clinician stretching someone’s hamstrings. Personal trainers do that.

Next consider having a picture of you educating a patient a about a condition. You can be holding a model like a spine or the shoulder, or the knee and talking to a patient about that body part. Another good photo to include is a picture of you performing hands on treatment. People like to go to physical therapy and receive hands on treatment and frankly, manual therapy is one of the things a physical therapist do best. Why not include it on the homepage slider?

It’s important when you have these slider slighter images moving across the page that you also have key messages or text overlying the pictures. You first of all want to get their attention. Include phrases about where you are located, your reputation, your clinical expertise. These should be short 3-4-word phrases on top of the slide images, that encourage people to choose you.

Next, moving down the page, I would suggest you have a row of patient reviews. Today, patient ratings or reviews, in the form of star ratings and testimonial reviews are very common. I recommend you have a row of these across your page. Use slider controls to enable viewers horizontally scroll through a number of these; have perhaps ten, twelve, or fifteen of them.

Below your ratings and review is where you want to have your primary message.

Your “welcome to the practice message” and additional content text goes here. I recommend you have a video that perhaps floats in the right portion of your text. This video should share information about who you are, your expertise, why people should use you, and should be presented by the owner or one of the partners. Make sure you have a call the action at the end of the video. Use YouTube to host this video for you, and of course this video should be on your YouTube channel as well. Use lightbox plugin to allow physical therapy website viewers to click on the thumbnail picture of the video and have it “pop up” over the top of your website’s home page.

Then, I recommend including your location(s) information. Make the photos or city names clickable links that go to the specific location(s) page(s) on your website.

Moving down the page, have a list include a graphic list of your services. Have web cards (squares or circle images) that people can click on to go to individual service pages where they’re described in detail.
Then you might consider including a row of blog excerpts. A blog excerpt is the title of a blog post and then the first two or three sentences.

In the next row on your website you might consider having a link to your store so people can easily clic over to it and buy physical therapy products.

Below the link to the store, you might have the badges of any awards that you’ve received from companies like the BBB, ZocDoc, local top ten awards, etc.

Next, you might have links to your lead magnet pages. Lead magnets are pages that require people to enter their name and email address and in turn you give them a white paper or some information about why they should come to your physical therapy practice.

Then, have a link(s) to your workshop landing pages where people can sign up to attend one of your presentations.

Finally, have a mega footer built for you at the bottom of your home page. Include your PT practice name, your address, and your phone number exactly as it appears on Google (this is called your NAP [name, address, phone number]). If you have just one location, then include your office hours, an embedded Google map, and then links to your social media business pages. If you have multiple locations, then consider linking the locations in the footer over to specific locations like we have done in this example.

A Word on the Text or Copy on Your Home Page

Before I end this post, I want to go into some detail about the text or the words that you should have on your home page. Since the words are present to inspire the viewer to take the action of calling you, we will call this your home page web “copy”.

As people are scanning down your website and most other websites these days, it’s very visual. Therea are lots of graphics and image. But, we ultimately need to have some good text or copy on the home page.

What you want to do first is get their attention. Use text that stops them from scanning down the page. A common question I like to use is, “Did you know that not all physical therapy practices are the same?” That’s going to get their attention.

Then the next thing you want to do is arouse some desire in the viewer to choose you. Talk about the fact that your expert physical therapy services

1. Saves them money,
2. It’s fast and easy to get an appointment with you right now,
3. that your treatment is conservative, natural, hands-on, personalized, and customized treatment for them.

Tell Patients Exactly What They Want to Hear

The next section of the copy should pique the reader’s interest by addressing four important factors that patients are looking for when choosing a PT practice.
These four factors are:

A. Clinical excellence – your board certifications, your doctoral degree, fellowships, and areas of specialization.

B. Empathy – write about your caring staff and the fact that you’re a family-oriented practice and that exceptional customer services is one of your corporate values.

C. No Long Waits – mention that patients are not going to have long waits to get into your practice for their first visit or long waits when they come into your practice for treatment. Patients are busy and they don’t want to wait around for treatment.

D. Shared Decision Making & Treatment – share some information on the page about your treatment approach. Patients want to be involved in the treatment and decision process. they want to know what their problem is, how you are going to help them, how long it is going to take, an estimate of how much it is going to cost, and what their role is going to be in the recovery process.

Money always matters. Have a brief section on your website that might say something like, “We accept a variety of insurance plans, click here for details.” Then link over to a comprehensive list.

End Your Page Content with a Clear Call to Action

Finally, make sure you have a clear call action and don’t just put your phone number at the bottom of the page. Side note, for goodness sakes, don’t ask them to sign up for an e-book. The call the action on your home page should be clear and should be in a large heading, known to web coders as H1 or H2 tags. Consider using some language before the phone number to inspire a viewer to call you now.

Use were phrases like, “Don’t wait, call now.” Talk about a delay in starting physical therapy care may cost them more money. Perhaps indicate that getting into your clinic fast will allow them to alleviate the pain sooner. You might want to create a sense of scarcity by saying something like, “We are now accepting new patients.”

Make sure you give anyone that is browsing your website multiple ways to contact you. What I mean by this is don’t just put your phone on the bottom of the page, but also include an online appointment request form too.

There’s a lot to Consider on Your Physical Therapy Website Home Page

Above we discussed some ideas about layout, graphics, and copy that you might be included on your physical therapy practice home page. It’s important to have a good designer that can create a clean design and layout with responsive technology. Following the above concepts can go a long way to converting patients that are visiting your website.

If you want more information want about how E-rehab.com can help you with your physical therapy give us a call. We’ve been helping PT practices market their business online longer than Facebook or Yelp have been around.

We have the experience, the passion, and great customer care to serve you. Just check out our ratings and reviews and give us a call if you have any questions. You can reach us at (760) 585-9097.

Physical Therapy Business Directories – a Practice Information Checklist

The yellow pages are a thing of the past for most patients. Tens-of-millions of people now use online business directories each year and this applies to physical therapy business directories as well. These directories are designed to help online users locate the websites and information they are looking for. They are also a great way to help practices increase their Internet traffic and improve patient recognition. There are many reasons why a physical therapy practices will want to register with the top directories on the web. Directories serve many purposes, such as:

Categorizing websites so that they are easily found using search engines.
Linking websites to one another for easier access.
Increasing traffic to your PT practice website
Providing an easy way for patients to find out about specialized information about your practice.
Assisting with SEO or search engine optimization. Having accurate business listings increase the likelihood that your practice will rank higher in a Google, Bing, or Yahoo search engine results page.
Helping business websites stand out to potential consumers.

Here is a list of the top business directories you want to submit your practice to:

Google My Business
Bing Places for Business
Yelp
Facebook
Local.com
Foursquare
LinkedIn
Google My Business
Yahoo! Aabaco Small Business
MerchantCircle
Yellow Pages.com
Superpages.com

Each of these business directories requires specific information. Below is a checklist of the information that you need to gather to register your physical therapy practice on these business directories. Not all the information is required but best practice is to fill in as much information as possible.

A Google Account/Gmail address (make sure the practice owner has access)
Business name
User name for the directory
Business owner’s name
Salutation
Job title
Year established
Country/Region
Street address
City
Directions/landmarks/cross streets
State
ZIP code
Is the business inside another location, such as another business?
Main business phone number
Additional phone numbers
Fax number
Website address
Main email address
Preferred method for customers to contact the company
Payment information including credit card, account holder’s name, etc. (for sites that require it)
Accepted payment methods by the company
Business category (physical therapy clinic, physical therapist)
Business description
Featured message, such as a slogan, tagline, etc.
Number of locations
Working hours
Your logo
At least 10 pictures of your clinic
Do you serve customers at your business address?
Are you authorized to manage this business?
Specialties
Languages
Security questions and answers
A document or system like lastpass.com to store each directory’s log in information

It takes a lot of time and effort to register your practice at each of the recommended business directories. However, putting in the time to do this can certainly help drive more patients into your practice. If you don’t have the time to do it yourself, contact E-rehab.com for more information about how we can help. You can reach us at (760) 585-9097.

Why You Need a Physical Therapy Blog…and Some Tips to Get It Done

In this presentation, I’m going to talk about why you need a physical therapy blog.

I’m going to go through a formula for you, and also give you some specifics on how you can get the information out on your website quickly.

So, why should you have a physical therapy blog? Because it helps you build authority in your community. It gives you great content to circulate about your specialty, the things you treat, like vestibular rehab, women’s health, the treatment of musculoskeletal balance, et cetera.

It helps with your search rankings.

If you have regular blog posts about particular conditions, and you use the keywords with respect to where you’re located, it will help you rank for those types of things. For example vestibular treatment in Los Angeles. Keep in mind that 94 percent of people doing business now are going online first, before they go to a local service in the community.

So for all those reasons, you definitely should have a blog post. If you just consider the number of people in pain in your community, and it’s about 50 percent, a lot of them need help.

The problem is, there’s a large supply available for physical therapy services. New practices are coming in and competing with the already existing clinics in your community. On top of that, you have substitute services like chiropractic, occupational therapy, personal training, massage, and medical doctors. You have suppliers, POPS, who are now bringing those in house, as well as hospitals, so there’s plenty of competition in that respect.

There are the more sophisticated buyers, those patients who are looking for alternatives to opioids because they’re hearing the same message you are that opioids are addictive. Because of the competition, it’s a great idea to help you break through the noise by having regular content in the form of blog posts.

When you are writing your blog, you want to make sure you write for a specific audience.

Take, for example, patients in your community with sciatica. This is the audience you are writing for.

Then you can simply follow the:

Who
What
When
Where,
How,
Why formula.

Use slide notes like I have here. This is all I’m doing. You can model this.

Talk about who physical therapists are, the training that we have, the fact that we go to a several years of graduate school, we’re doctoral trained, many of our doctoral trained have fellowship training, internships, and board certifications and all we do is specialize in movement. And then the muscular skeletal system. Talk about the particular condition that you treat, conditions that might mimic sciatica. For example, talk about Sciatica itself. If we’re speaking about people with sciatica in the community… talk about why you should see a physical therapist first.

There are a number of reasons why people should go to physical therapy first. There’s little to no side effects. It’s not addictive, and it’s affordable. You can get right into a physical therapist, who will take the time to explain the problem in detail, which a lot of patients are not getting that personal type of care anymore in the healthcare system. Talk about where they can get physical therapy. If you’re a physical therapy private practice, give them some reasons as to why it’s a good idea to go to a pt private practice.

Talk about when people should get physical therapy. John Childs and Julie Fritz, among other authors, have written good research studies about why you should get physical therapy within the first couple of weeks. For example, with back pain and sciatica can be lumped into that as well.

Talk about how people, can get started with physical therapy and then write an outline like I’m showing you here. I’m using Google slides to do this. But you can just have an outline up there if you like. If you want to use a service like I have here, and captured on video, then do that as well. And just have your outline up there for people to see. You can use something like loom which is at loom.com or go view by log me in to record the video. And then after you get the video, post it on Youtube, you’ll have your blog post with your headline and your video, and then the transcription of your video right beneath it. And you can use a service like Temi.com or Rev.com to get transcribed for a penny per word or a dollar per minute.

All you do is put this transcription on your website under the video like I’ve done here. Then when you’re done with that, you can take the link to your blog posts and you can post it out there on twitter and Facebook. So by following a simple outline, speaking to a specific audience, and having an authoritative blog post that goes out two to four times a month and circulating on social media, you can quickly build authority. You can also use video, so people can see you. And this helps build trust and familiarity and awareness of who you are.

So that’s why I like to use loom or similar services as well. Hopefully these ideas help. If you have any questions about blogging, you can read some of our other blog posts here, or you can connect with us, by phone or email and we’d be happy to show you how we can help.

Thanks for watching and reading.

Physical Therapy Blogging: 3 Steps to follow, when writing catchy headlines.

Your headline is quite possibly the most important feature of your blog post. It is your first impression and you only have seconds to capture your reader’s attention, sell them on your idea, and steer them towards your site.

Keep in mind how much information you are competing with. If your headline is long winded and uninteresting, the impression given is your article will be too. A high producing headline should achieve the following criteria:

• A tickler of information of what’s to come that piques the interests of your reader .
• An expectation of what they will gain by reading on.
• Full story disclosure in as few words as possible.

Here are 3 steps you can follow to achieve writing a headline that drives results.

1. Trim the Fat.
Re-read your article and summarize your main point. What purpose does your information serve to the reader? Once you have narrowed it down to the central topic, add in a couple of subpoints with evidence to support your idea.

Look at what you have written and continue to streamline your main idea into just a few sentences. From there, continue to trim down to a sentence with no more than 10 words. This is when you really need to communicate to your potential reader that your blog is worth investing their time in, and what they will gain by reading more.

When trying to find the perfect pitch for your blog headline, our multitasking brain can take us off course. By using this exercise of rewriting the main point from a paragraph then hoaning it down from a few sentences to just a few words, your headline will be focused on the objective of the getting your reader to “dig into your content”.

2. Learn from the Experts.
Marketing experts have done the studies and crunched the information; it’s been proven there are trigger phrases that catch our attention. These words are known to help the reader make a connection to the blog. This connection can stir an emotion or insight curiosity making the reader want to dive in and find out more.

Here are some examples of catch phrases and how they work.

“Will make you” This phrase when used draws a direct connection to what the blog subject is about and why the reader needs to read it.
Example:
5 core strengthening exercises that will make you have less pain. The reader can expect the blog will show exercises, that will take away pain. exercises= less pain.

“What happened next” when this phrase is used it evokes the reader’s curiosity.

Example: What happened next when this patient did these 5 exercises will surprise you. The reader is interested in how exercising can affect the body and wants to learn the unexpected answer.

“Talking about”, plays on our need to feel connected to what other people know. We don’t want to miss out on the latest news. FOMO or fear of missing out describes this emotion we can evoke with a good headline.

Example: Patients of physical therapy are talking about the latest drug free method of pain treatment. Plays on the importance of being in the know of the latest information, making the reader feel more knowledgeable than others.

“Tears of Joy” plays on the emotions of the reader. This sort of phrase is usually attached to a picture or video which aids in capturing our attention.

Example: This patient had tears of joy when he was able to walk his daughter down the aisle.

You can learn more useful phrases at https://buzzsumo.com/blog/most-shared-headlines-study/

3. Know How Your Headline is Going to be Formatted/Viewed on Different Social Media

Know how your blog is being distributed and the techniques required for different modes of distribution (i.e. ranking on search engines vs. getting a click to your blog from a Facebook post vs. getting a click on Twitter to your blog post).

Writing for the Search Engines
Writing for the search engines and optimizing your blog posts to be found on Google or Bing requires additional work as compared to simply writing an awesome, highly converting headline for Facebook.

Keywords in your blog headline will help your article be found on the Internet. Humans fall for the catchy phrases that help us personally connect to the blog, but computers are machines. It’s important to include your keywords you want to rank for in your headline of your post if you want the post to have any chance of ranking in the search engines.

Writing a Headline on Facebook to get a Click to Your Blog Post
The trick here is to combine step one of providing the nuts and bolts of your blog with step 2. including an enticing hook. Of course you have to be respectful of character limits which vary based on the type of ad you are running. https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/

In general though you want to stick to the formula as described above:

A combination of descriptive + sensational = increase click through rate

Writing for Twitter
Your objective here is different. You have 140 characters (less if you include a link) to get a click. It’s as if Tweets make up the entire headline. 140 characters gives you plenty of space to write a longer headline but again, but keep your objective in mind…it’s to get a click from the tweet to your blog post.

Test if Possible

Regardless of the type of headline you are writing, it’s always a good idea to compare one headline to another. By creating at minimum two headlines with descriptive + sensational information, and measuring the number of clicks or visitors to your blog post, you can see which combination works the best.

The trick is to see if version A works better with your audience, versus version B. Find out if your readers are more interested in knowing what new knowledge they will learn versus the feel good emotional pull.

We hope these tips on how to write good headlines will help you get your physical therapy blogging message read by your community. You have great value to offer. Putting that information in a blog and enticing more to read it with a great headline can help you build authority in your community.

If you need any help with your blogging, we have a number of services that can be of assistance to you. Just contact us if you have any questions.

Happy Blogging!

Physical Therapy Website Design: Creating a Brand That Stands Apart from Competitors

Physical therapy website design is a great opportunity for a private practice to differentiate themselves from the competition. If you run a physical therapy clinic, you know who your competitors are, and you know what makes you different from them. So, how do you convey what makes you different from the rest when crafting a physical therapy website design?

Astute branding choices, plus specific attention to SEO, so you’re found easier online, is the right strategic formula. Additionally, you need a site that is patient friendly, loads fast, offers the right information to your viewers (i.e. services and specialties), and has clear calls to action throughout. Of course, you want your website to work well on not only desktop computers but tablets and smartphones too (this is called a responsive website and you can read more about what that means by clicking here).

Here at E-rehab.com, we’re an experienced team that gets your business there, step by step.

Branding in Your PT Practice Web Design

Your physical therapy practice needs to demonstrate how it stands apart from others. While it’s important to use quality images, graphics, and a consistent color palette to make a statement, branding should also be about the information you share with your prospective patients. Here are some ways you can differentiate your practice:

Share innovative physical therapy techniques others don’t offer?
List special credentials and the benefits of seeing a PT that has them (perhaps you have and OCS and/or doctoral degree)
Do your outcomes set you apart? If so, list them. FOTO has a widget for that. Ask for the code and we can include it.
Do you have a unique physical location?
Do you treat/touch every patient every visit? While it’s getting harder to do so with declining payment, this is a good differentiator and something the big box clinics don’t do much of anymore.

Include Your Own Physical Therapy Images & Video – Images and Video are Everywhere and You Should Leverage This Too

In the age of visuals, providing videos on your website that showcase what you offer, is a great method of branding. Don’t just do a video about a treatment technique, create a series of videos on the conditions you treat, why physical therapy is a great choice, and then why someone should choose you.

Patient Video Testimonials and Social Proof

Also, patient testimonials are one of the best methods of branding for websites. Real results are everything when it comes to patients choosing physical therapy, and they’ll hear it directly from your best cases. This is called social proof. Here’s what social proof means:

…often in situations where we are uncertain about what to do (i.e. I don’t know which physical therapist I should choose), we would assume that the people around us (experts, celebrities, friends, patients.) have more knowledge about what’s going on and what should be done. Reference: https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-proof

Effective SEO

Your website should be optimized not only for your brand name but also for the keywords “physical therapy + city your business is in”, so those in your local area find you easier on search engines.

It’s also important to include appropriate titles, include keywords, and alt tags for your images and videos, so the search engines have a better idea of who you are and where your business is located.

While keywords in text are still important, be careful in being too general. Developing unique long-tail keywords pertaining to specialized physical therapy procedures you provide, will help you get found easier too.

Easy Integration with Social Media

Integrating a website with social media is essential in order to provide content about the physical therapy services you offer. You can do this by creating social media buttons that link to your social properties as well as easy shares on your web pages, blog, and videos.

Creating educational information on your site for social media sharing is important to alert your followers about services and specials you offer. The more detail you include in your content, the more apt it is that visitors will share. Just be sure the content you create for social media is information not found anywhere else. You want to get all the “juice” you can which will help with your search engine rankings.

Customizing Your Site for Mobile

Responsive design for mobile devices is more essential than ever for your physical therapy site. As more and more people use mobile devices to look up information (statistics indicate that approximately 35% of PT website viewers are using mobile devices now), your site needs to be optimized for mobile platforms as well. If you aren’t sure if your current website is mobile optimized, we recommend you check it out here: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

15+ Years of Experience – We’ve Got You Covered

We’ll help make your site easy to use so those searching for you will find exactly what they need and fast. This means possibly restructuring the desktop version of your site, so the most essential information gets seen first.

Stand out and show prospective patients that you’re there to help. Contact us here at E-rehab.com, so we can create a unique website for your physical therapy practice.

Thinking About Physical Therapy Blogging? Watch Out for These 4 Common Mistakes When Hiring a Writer

Physical Therapist have chosen their professional career path because they want to take care of patients. You’ve spent years investing in education grad school, fellowship training, con-ed galore and there’s no question you are the specialist in relieving their patients’ pain. Why would PTs ever want to trade the fruits of their labor (i.e. billing for patient care), and instead, start physical therapy blogging?

Sure it might seem fun at first, but keep in mind the importance of getting it right. Writing your practice’s blog is a specialty of its own. It represents who you are, and how you would like your patients to perceive you. In the Adage of today, it is a key component to your total marketing campaign. It should not be underestimated.

Once a practitioner understands the significance of his/her blog (i.e. communicating your value and expertise to your community), it often becomes clear that hiring a professional writer might be their best bet. If this is an avenue that you would like to pursue, consider the following 4 biggest mistakes that can be made, before hiring someone to manage your blog.

First common mistake: Taking the cheapest route available.

What is the saying? If you are going to do something, do it right. In the case of physical therapy blog writing it is imperative to get it right, too much is at stake to just wing it. This is a marketing component that needs total commitment once you embrace the need to blog.

Remember your ultimate goal, letting your patients know what your practice represents. Having a poorly written blog can say “I don’t really care about the end result. I just need to get this done.” Your patients are smart, and they are critiquing your message and how well it is written. Does it provide information that is meaningful and well researched. Is this information unique? Does it entice the reader to want to find out more?

It’s ok to be mindful of your budget, just keep in mind the importance of what is being accomplished here. Consider reworking where your dollars are spent, if you are not impressed by what your budget is is able to offer.

Second Mistake often made: Not looking at your PT blogger’s portfolio.

Your blog writer needs to have the experience and capacity to understand exactly what it is you would like your patients to take away from each blog. Is your future writer knowledgeable enough to communicate the overall philosophy of the practice, the issues you find to be important, and the personality you would like conveyed? If your office is fun, warm and caring, a heartless message about the newest scientific studies may not be the style you are looking for.

Even if all the grammar, and spelling is perfect the message can get lost in the boredom of the delivery. An experienced writer can adapt well to whatever the message is. Sometimes that requires seriousness and sometimes being a little playful. Find someone who offers you versatility.

This is your time to do some research. Ask for sample writings of what they have done for other clients. Check out their online portfolios and be sure to ask for a sample writing of what they can do for you.

Third mistake often made: Not spending the time to establish goals and setting a workflow process.

You have found an author who seems to be a perfect fit for you and your practice, now you can sit back and keep your eyes on your patients, SORRY not yet. There is still some work ahead. You and your future writer need to sit down together and map out your expectations of what it is you wish to accomplish. Plan out a series of physical therapy topics, and how they will fall into a calendar of blog releases. Discuss the tone each one should convey, and what sort of images, if any, you would like used.

Together create a blog marketing strategy with your wants and specific directions, so your author can refer back to your discussions. Establish deadlines of when you expect each blog article, and the process of proofreading before publishing. This roadmap should discuss both your needs and your authors, preventing frustration on both ends. By setting guidelines and strategies you will both be able to focus on what you do best. You can keep your attention to your patients, your writer can develope amazing article to wow your patients.

Last mistake to watch out for: Developing and maintaining your relationship.

Never take it for granted that you and your author are doing just fine. Along with your blogging roadmap, set quarterly appointments to come together and touch base with how things are going. What are the things you feel positive about? What areas would you like to see grow? You should take a look at your scheduled post and see if they are still pertinent? Maybe there is something in the news lately you would like to address, or there is a buzz about a new service that your clinic is offering. This is the time to keep on topic, aligned with your marketing strategy, which when written up correctly, can give the community you serve the right perception…that you are on the cutting edge of your industry.

Providing great content is what E-rehab.com specializes in. We provide physical therapy blog posts for patients that are about the value of physical therapy and are regularly posted on your website, and consistently present the value of seeing a physical therapist first.

If you’d like more information, contact us for details about E-rehab can help you with your physical therapy blogging.

Additional References

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/outsource-blog/

Responsive Physical Therapy Websites – E-rehab’s New G5 Platform

We are pleased to offer physical therapy responsive websites. Websites developed by E-rehab.com are even better with our advanced G5 development platform. Built on top of the WordPress infrastructure, they are screaming fast, extensible, and highly customizable. Today, I want to share with you one of the very important features of our new G5 platform…our responsive, mobile optimized websites. Why does this matter? Take a look at your website analytics. You’ll notice 25-40%+ of your website traffic is coming from mobile devices. It’s critical that all PT private practices have responsive mobile website… one that is not only optimized for smartphone screens but is also optimized for physical therapy patients. You see when a patient looks you up on their smartphone, chances are, they want to contact you right now. You want to make sure that your website has the right technology. You need what we call quick access buttons. Here’s an example. Notice quick access buttons right on the home screen of the mobile optimized website. They are highly visible, designed for the specific actions that physical therapy patients commonly take, and make it faster and easier for patients to:

Tap once to call you,
Find you on Google or Apple Maps,
Request an appointment,
Follow you on Facebook, and
Even review your practice online.

Does this really matter. The answer is yes. We’ve tracked over 250,000 calls, calls appointment requests, Facebook actions, and Maps request from our physical therapy mobile optimized websites. The calls are often from patients that are ready to come in for treatment. Don’t miss out on new patients that are trying to contact you. Let us help. You can see several examples of our responsive designs by clicking here. Call E-rehab.com today for a free consultation. You can reach us at (760) 585-9097. We hope to hear from you soon.

Physical Therapy Marketing Online – The Total Online Presence

In this post, I would like to share with you a little bit about what a total online presence is. I describe these key components because these are the basic online technologies that new, existing, past patients and even referral sources will engage with.

So, what exactly is a total online presence for a physical therapy practice?

Number 1

You must check on page 1 of Google especially in the maps listings. Are you there? That’s step one of a total online presence. SEO or search engine optimization is the strategy that is required to rank your physical therapy website on page one of Google, Bing, and well, Yahoo. Yahoo doesn’t matter much anymore.

Number 2

you need to have a five star reputation so you convert people that are looking at you online in the patients. Having a 5-star reputation is a great way to differentiate yourself from the big-box companies, POPTS, and hospital systems.

Number 3

you need a great looking, fast, and responsive website that looks just as good on a desktop as it does a tablet and smartphones.

Number 4

you also need video. Video helps you build authority and trust and allows you to deliver the key message that you want patients to know. Video gives people confidence that you are more engaged in their needs too.

Number 5

you need an e-mail marketing system that will welcome patients, allow them to download their paperwork, thank them for choosing you, and send monthly newsletters that creates both goodwill and gets patients to come back to you next time they need care.

Number 6

you need to create social network properties like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Foursquare, and Instagram. Then you need content and a social media marketing platform to post your content on these social properties.

Number 7

you need to be advertising online. Pay-per-click advertising can be a great way to generate leads for your practice especially in niche markets like TMJ treatment, vestibular rehab, women’s health, and balance rehabilitation to name a few.