How do you spread the word about your physical therapy practice? For many therapists, this is a difficult question to answer. Limited resources and time often means having to rely on word of mouth from current patients to attract new visitors. But as it turns out, there are plenty of cost-effective ways to help patients find your practice, and one of the most underutilized tools to accomplish this is video marketing for physical therapists. Below, we break down some of the best ways to tackle your video marketing campaign, so that you can get the word out about your practice and watch as more patients flock to your clinic.

Develop a Plan

Here’s an example of what you don’t want to do when it comes to video marketing for physical therapists: one day, you decide the medium is right for you, so you buy a camera at the local super market and shoot some footage around the office. Then you upload the video somewhere, and hope people find it. Well, aside from the potentially serious HIPAA violations, chances are strong that no patients or potential patients will see this video if it’s posted like this. This means you’ve just wasted money on a camera and time on putting the footage together.

Instead, the first thing you should do is come up with a plan. To do so, ask yourself the following questions:

• What are you able to shoot in and around the office?
• What should and should not be filmed?
• Who would be willing and able to be a part of the video?
• How can you promote your video once it’s finished?
• Most importantly: what type of video would be most effective?

Coming Up with the Right Content

That last question is an interesting one. Your first thought is probably to go toward a promotional, commercial-like video that showcases your practice, staff and patients in 30 to 60 seconds. But in reality, there may be better alternatives to help your marketing.

Here are three examples that will likely perform better than a basic promotional video:

1. Feature an array of patient testimonials that highlight all the great attributes of your practice, which will automatically improve your reputation.
2. Create a “behind-the-scenes” video of your front desk staff and therapists, which will convey a personal atmosphere.
3. Make educational videos about common patient concerns and ailments that don’t directly promote your practice, but establish your physical therapists as thought leaders and experts on relevant content.

Promoting Your Videos

Of course, even the best video will not help your physical therapy practice if nobody ends up seeing it. That’s why you should promote the video, both on your website and your social media channels. We’ve covered the ideal social media networks for physical therapists in a past blog post; videos make for perfect content to enhance your presence. You may even consider playing your videos in the waiting area and patient rooms to increase engagement with your current and new patients.

To Get the Most of Video Marketing for Physical Therapists: Listen

Finally—and this may sound counterintuitive—one of the most important aspects of video marketing for physical therapists is not only giving out a message, but listening in response. By that, we mean hearing feedback about your videos from your patients, which will help you improve your video marketing efforts in the future.

It’s important to keep this in mind: successful video marketing for physical therapists is not a one-time deal in which you produce an amazing video and can rest on your laurels for the next decade. Instead, it requires regular updates and new videos that keep your patients invested and coming back. [pullquote4 textColor=”#dbe308″]Successful video marketing for physical therapists is not a one-time deal in which you produce an amazing video and can rest on your laurels for the next decade. Instead, it requires regular updates and new videos that keep your patients invested and coming back. [/pullquote4] By listening to their feedback, you can ensure that your videos continue to improve and help your practice gain patients.

Of course, this type of strategical video marketing for physical therapists—from developing a plan to coming up with the content and promoting the video all the way to adjusting your strategy based on feedback—requires significant time investment. And we completely understand that running a physical practice generally does not leave this kind of time available!

[titled_box title=”We’re Here to Help” bgColor=”#000000″ textColor=”#000000″]This is why we want to help. Contact us at E-Rehab to learn more about how we’ve helped other physical therapists like you spread awareness about their practice using video marketing, and start talking to us about how we can do the same for you.[/titled_box]