The Number 1 Factor in Physical Therapy Referral Marketing

As the old saying goes, people buy from people they trust. How do you establish and maintain trust? Here are four easy ways to accomplish this today and improve your physical therapy referral marketing program.

1. LOOK LIKE A PRO

Like it or not, in this world, looks matter. A professional appearance conveys respect to the doctor and office staff, suggesting that you care enough to look like a professional for them. If you look the part, then the doctor or office staff will trust your authority, and that trust can then be built upon.

2. KNOW YOUR PROFESSION

Sharp style can only get you so far — especially when talking to a doctor with some knowledge on rehab of neuromusculoskeletal problems. Make sure you know the latest research that supports a referral to physical therapy, how your care can specifically solve a problem for that doctor’s patients, and what your competition does inside and out. Then share your information with confidence through intelligent, insightful conversation to build further trust.

3. KNOW SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS BEFORE THEY DO

In sales, the saying is that “everyone’s favorite subject is themselves.” That’s why when you take the time to really know their practice, the patients they see, what they think about treatment, and even solutions to problems they haven’t yet thought of, you immediately create authority and trust.

Do your homework and ask questions. Get to know your referring physician’s business, and then drop a little knowledge in your conversations to show you’re concerned about them. (Hint: Have you looked at your referring physician’s online reputation? If it’s not great, let them know about it and share the process to help them improve it.)

4. KEEP YOUR COMMITMENTS

It’s such common sense but so rare! If you follow through with your commitments, you’ll quickly earn a physician office’s trust. Why? Because so many don’t keep their commitments.

If you fail to follow through on the little things, how do referring physicians know they can trust you when it really matters? More importantly, how will they know you are fully invested in the patients they refer to you?  Just like you, they are very busy and do not want to waste their time with people who may damage the relationships they have with their patients.

Don’t worry though, it’s easy to prevent these problems — just keep your commitments.

THE NO. 1 FACTOR IN PHYSICAL THERAPY REFERRAL MARKETING IS?

All of these tips contribute to the No. 1 most important factor in physical therapy referral marketing success: TRUST!

Looking for more information about how to generate physician referrals?

Contact us about our More MD Referrals Sales & Marketing program.

Physical Therapy Online Marketing: Finding Your Key Audience in Patients and Referrals

Physical therapy online marketing is a necessary move if you want to hone in on capturing prospective patients who spend time online. Even if you’ve already done extensive online marketing for your physical therapy practice, you’ve likely realized that you need to focus more on capturing the right demographics. It isn’t enough to just market yourself to the entire online world and hope someone will notice and visit your website.

Ultimately, being thorough in finding key groups of people you need to capture, is the real secret to successful online marketing today. Those individuals are much easier to find through social media, though it doesn’t have to focus just there to attract the right people. It also means attracting prospective clients through website media or email.

So what type of contacts should you be seeking for your physical therapy clinic? Patients frequently fall into two different categories. Beyond there, you have other patients who are more local, plus those in the medical community who can help you improve your reputation.

Marketing To Past Patients

In your database, you likely have numerous patients who haven’t visited your physical therapy clinic for months or maybe years. In some cases, patients leave town due to personal circumstance or because they found another physical therapy source better suited for them.

Don’t delete these people from your database since you could still win them back with proper social media marketing or through email newsletters. If you had a social media account when they started with you, no doubt they still follow you on places like Twitter or Facebook. It’s rare when people take the time to unfollow someone they already followed years ago, especially if they have thousands of other people on their lists.

Link up with these former patients again with a direct message offering a special deal at your clinic. Or, perhaps advertise discounts directly on your social media feed. Direct messaging needs doing with discretion, since it can easily look like spam if you’re not careful. By checking to see if the person still follows you, advertising directly on your account means they’ll see it there anyway.

If they signed up for an email newsletter, send them specialized emails detailing what makes you stand out from your competitors of late. Your improvement examples will follow exactly what led those past patients to change to your competitor months or years before.

Marketing to Current Patients

To round out the potential for a healthy return on investment toward your marketing, re-focus efforts on marketing toward your current patients. Retaining patients you already have is imperative for this year and every year since they could also easily slip away if you’re not careful.

You can do this by also offering discounts for valued patients, plus providing health education on topics they can’t find anywhere else. The latter might be the most important of all, when value is what many people want while seeking medical treatments.

By making exclusive educational information available on social media or through newsletters, you help people improve their health on their own complementing the physical therapy you provide.

Marketing to Local Patients and Other Doctors

Local marketing is more important than ever, you can capture those already having physical therapy done with your competitors. When you place your information on local online directories, like Yelp or Yahoo! Local, you increase your chances of being found. Don’t forget, though, that you need your name, address, and phone number consistently on every entry so everyone can easily contact you immediately. Far too many businesses forget to place simple contact information in their local directory listings.

As for marketing toward doctors, you want them available for referrals and recommendations.

Contact us here at E-rehab.com so we can help you with your physical therapy online marketing procedures this year. It’s time you captured and re-captured the people who make or made your clinic successful on a consistent basis.

Three Ways to Use Your Newsletter to Market to Doctors

Marketing to Doctors

Marketing to doctors is especially challenging. They are a very busy bunch that tend to be quite skeptical of marketing materials. You can overcome these obstacles, however, with an effective newsletter strategy. Newsletters are an excellent way to position your physical therapy practice as a true resource. Here are three ways to accomplish this.

Be Informative

The less “salesy,” the better. You want your physician readers to feel you are a trusted resource. You want them to feel your newsletter contains information useful to their practice, not just content about your product or service. Secondly, quality content in your printed newsletter can be recycled into quality content on your blog or website. By posting an electronic version of your newsletter on your website, you open your potential audience up to any physician performing a search engine query about a topic you have covered. In fact, according to American Medical News, 86 percent of physicians use the Internet to gather health information. Once you’ve created quality content, integrate your printed newsletter with your electronic formats to reach both audiences. Here’s a sampling of what you might consider including in your newsletter:

  • Features from industry blogs (doctors want to know what their peers are doing)
  • Recent studies and research (clinical trials and surveys)
  • Tips and how-tos
  • Valuable resources (include website addresses to other online resources)
  • Company news (feature expansions, new hires, awards and new products)
  • Educational opportunities

Be Scannable

The average person spends 51 seconds reading a newsletter. Every article is not going to interest every reader. Have a format that is easily scannable, so that doctors can quickly glance through the content. Use bullet points, brief summaries or call-to-action boxes. Use images, but not too many. Keep the layout clean, with straight lines. Give readers an option to find out more by directing them to your website or blog. Be sure your web addresses aren’t complicated with multiple backslashes. Long web links can easily be given a short URL for printing purposes. Technology issues are the quickest way to lose a reader. You don’t want them to get frustrated when trying to type in a really long web address with a lot of signs and symbols.

Gather Input

The best way to start any conversation is to ask a question. An effective marketing strategy involves gathering input. If you were selling a product in-person, you would not jump right into talking about what you have to offer. An effective salesperson gets to know their client. They take a few minutes to ask the physician about his or her needs and challenges. Then, they craft their message based on how their product can address those needs and challenges. While not in-person, newsletters can do the same. Use surveys to gather data. The result is two-fold. First, your physician readers will perceive you as interested in the success of their practice. Go beyond asking, “what articles interest you?” Ask about the techniques and strategies they find effective. Summarize the results in future issues. Doctors will see your publication as a way for them to share information and learn about what their peers are doing. Secondly, you’ll receive valuable data on which to base future newsletters. Don’t frustrate your readers by making them search for a way to contact you. Give options for paper and online submission. Make submission very easy with a pre-paid, tear-out card. Each issue, whether it contains a survey or not, should contain clear contact information, via phone, e-mail, website or mail.

E-rehab.com specializes in helping physical therapists market their business to physicians. Let us help create your marketing strategy. Contact us for more tips about creating an eye-catching newsletter.