Physiotherapy Marketing: 5 ways to reach your local community

I realise that there are many ways to market your physiotherapist practice. Some are great some are mediocre and some are downright aweful ideas and totally ineffective.
My questions is do you know which ones effectiveley work for you within your community and provide a substantial return on your investment?

If not, then youre not only hindering your efforts to disseminate your message within your community but alos killing your chances of becoming a profitable chiropractor.

Marketing is an at and not a science. Therefore, you have to think creatvely when putting together your game plan. If you focus entirely on the monetary gain then youll straight away.

So before yoiu chisel out that revolutionary game plan tahty makes your physiotherapy practice flourish, make sure you lay the proper foundations for relational marketing. Inbound and relational marketing is built on relationships and relationships take time to develpop and nurture.

To see how this works, lets explore five tips that will aid you in reaching your local community.

1. Get your practice online
I cant reiterate how important this step is. If your business is'nt online, youre invisible to a huge amount of people.

Why?
Because people turn to Google these days instead of the Yellow Pages to find out what they're looking for.  Case in point, a couple of weeks back I spoke to some physiotherapists at St Georges Hospital Medical School about how important it was to have a presence online.

He said that his practice is located one block for a local school. After establishing himself within social media he noticed an influx of patients from the college. After asking how they found out about his practice and services, he was shocked about how they found out about physiotherapy practice and services, he was shocked on how he was discovered. They didnt even know he existed until they found him online.

The point is being one block away with good visibility isnt enough to connect with local prospects. It took the power of Internet to open those doors and if he hadnt have moved his business online they would'nt have given him the time of day.

2. Provide valuable content
Anyone can have a website these days. But to have a website that attracts, engages and builds fans to your practice requires effort and knowhow. The physiotherapists that know how to do this will reap the benfits.

Why?

Because content is king and when you write content that solves problems for people you will be seen as the physiotherapy expert within your community. Not only that but you'll be able to build genuine relationships that foster trust which is the catalyst for future business.

3. Spark meaningful conversations
If you write valuable content, then this will take care of itself. Conversations typically evolve once people start leaving comments on your blog.

But dont forget that the conversation continues on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Make sure yiou stay abreast of these conversations and particiapte in the conversation whenevr possible.

4. Have a brand and promote it at every opportunity
It takes more than just having a search engine optimised website or blog to be recognised online these days. Youve got to promote it. So start branding yourself every chance you get. List the social media networks youre a part of as well as your blogs address on company letterhead, business cards, email, newsletters ets.
Announce it during new patient orientation classes, public health talks and community events.. Dont let a single opportunity to promote yourself pass by. It will not only do wonders for yoiur sites traffic but will also establish new contactsthat youd never recieve otherwise.

5. Stay active online.
This one is huge. If you devote the time and energy to start a blog, stay with it for the long run. Dont abandon it and allow it to run into the ground. How do you avoid this?

Simple; by publishing content regularly.

Content is king

Post and post some more Google loves content. The more you feed it the more poular in ranking your blog wil place for certian keywords. Ninty five percent of people dpo not look past page one therefore your goal is to shoot for pahge one listings quickly and consistently. You can do this by incessanty posting valuable and keyword rich content.

These five tips if followed will help you immensely to attract more visitors to your website and increase your referrals in the local community. Good luck.

If you can think of other tips and recommendations I have not mentioned here, feel free to leave a comment. In addition if you would like to keep up to date with other tips for physios building their online presence, join our mailing list on our main website .

The Business Case For Investing In Facebook Page For Your Physiotherapy Practice

You can set up a Facebook page for free, but if you want to do things properly it will involve havng a budget. In addition it takes times and effort and potentially people  power if you wnat to get the best out of Facebook.

1. Its not expensive. Setting up a page is cheap. A lot of the apps are free and in time you may have to commit more resources, but that would be a sign that you are winning.

2. Its viral. Thanks to many apps and newsfeeds on offer, Facebook provides you with the perfect tools to connect to its huge user base.

3. You need to keep up with your competitors. Most physiotherapy practices today already have a Facebook page and are communicating with their fans on a daily basis so if you are not there as well, you are losing out from not having a presence where your customers are

4. Instant feedback. If you really want to know what your fans and customers think of a new service you have created or if there is a part of your service you are looking to upgrade or simply want a bit of feedback on what your customers think your physiotherapy practice could improve on, then Facebook is the perfect answer if you can build up a big enough community.

5. Increase brand loyalty. Regular incentives and offers are a good idea as is listening and responding to your fans on Facebook. This is really where most of your customers are so if you are not there as well establishing relationships and providing engaging content to your clients then you really are doing yourself a disservice.

6. Increase sales. Shopping is a social experience so why not utilise the network to drive appointments. You can increase the amount of appointments booked on your website by driving customers from your Facebook page and this does not have to be only on Facebook. Twitter is another great platform growing in popularity. You can utilise other social networks where your fans are engaging and interacting. The median age on Facebook is now 38, and the biggest demographic on Facebook, are males aged between 21 and 24. [Source: AdAge May 2011] they are young and this is the sort of population most private physiotherapy practices have coming through their doors so there is the added benefit of advertising and reaching these individuals through Facebook ads.

7. Increase brand awareness. Facebook is the ideal platform to share content. Give your fans something to shout about and they will amongst their friends.

8. Insight into your customer base. The Facebook Insights option can deliver up-to-date information on just who is engaging with your content.

9. You'll boost your search presence. Facebook's online strength means that for the most part, a well optimised page can rank well for brand terms in search engines and becomes a valuable property in the ever aggressive natural SERP's.

10. You can use it for recruitment. In a recruitment sense you can reach out to find the right people for your practice and avoids the costs in some cases involved advertising your post via other media. In addition you can reach out for your fans to recommend or share the job with their friends and acquaintances therefore the job post is exposed exponentially.

11. Protect yourself. If you don't register your brand name and create a relevant page then you run the risk of someone creating a Facebook page and making it look official. So it would be better for you to make your own page before someone else does.

12. Fast customer service. No need for telephone calls or time consuming customer service. On your Facebook page your practice has quick and easy access to reply to customer queries and complaints. In todays world where fans demand more than before tehy want to b heard and they want to be replied to quickly when tehy have a query.

13. Its a window into the mobile world. Today mobile browsing outreaches desktop use and your fans are looking for things on their mobile, so if your practice soes not have a FAcebook page it is virtually throwing away the opportunity to engage with its fans via mobile.

14. Tool to integrate your offline and online activity. If their is an event such as the one below from Pure Sports Medicine, it is the perfect opportunity to get feedback and talk immediately with your fans let them post photos, talk to their friends and acquaintances about what they thought about the event. Overall this can be a winner.

So there it is, a quick overview of some of the benefits of having a Facebook page so if ever you really wanted a business case you have one here to help you. What we as physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropractors have in the past hidden from getting involved in, market demands have driven us to get involved in social media and this does not only include having a Facebook page. To not have one should be clear for us all to see and it really would be a disservice to ignore. What frightens me evn more is the tragic fact that a lot of Facebook pages for physiotherapists even when put up get abandoned and customer queries left unanswered. Soin this case we would say yes there is the need t have a Facebook page but don't please follow the crowd and leave yours abandoned after a few months. 

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