The success of a physical therapy practice depends on its ability to heal people. Before you can start healing people, however, you have to gain their confidence and trust enough to attract them to your clinic.
Your relationship with your patients needs to be built on communication and trust, and it begins with your practice’s marketing.
In the digital age, most marketing happens online. The star of your online marketing strategy is your website. And there are five things that your website must have to make it effective.
1. Hero Image
The first thing that a potential client should see when they click on your website is an image of an ideal happy patient. For a physical therapy clinic, this means that at the top of the homepage, there should be a picture of a smiling patient working with a physical therapist.
The hero image should be accompanied by three testimonials, or statements from actual satisfied patients. Three is the magic number here. If the potential patient sees only one or two testimonials, they may begin to doubt the quality of your practice’s service. At the same time, if there are more than three, they may get distracted from the rest of the website.
By using exactly three testimonials, you establish a pattern of success without overwhelming or confusing the patients.
2. Call to Action
Once you have drawn a prospective patient in with assuring images and testimonials, you need to call them to action.
For a physical therapy clinic, a typical call to action might say something like:
“Schedule an appointment,”
or simply, “Contact us.”
There should be several calls to action on your homepage, but the most important place to put one is in the top right corner. People’s eyes will be naturally drawn to this area, so they will find it easily.
A less direct, but no less important, call to action can take the form of a phone number. It is a good idea to put your business’s phone number in the center of the page above the fold so that it stays visible as the viewer scrolls down.
Making your phone number easy to find is especially important for a physical therapy clinic, as people searching for a physical therapist are usually experiencing a period of pain and stress.
In addition, many people, especially older ones, will find it comforting to speak to a real person instead of clicking through a website. Making prospective patients comfortable with you makes them much more likely to choose your practice.
3. Three-Step Plan
The next thing your homepage must have is a three-step plan for what they should do to solve their problem.
By presenting a simple course of action with a clear beginning, middle, and end, you will establish trust with prospective patients. You are showing them that you will guide them through the whole process.
This plan of action will assure potential patients that you know what to do, giving them a sense of peace of mind that will greatly increase their interest in your services.
A three-step plan for a physical therapy practice might go something like:
- Schedule an appointment
- Talk to a therapist
- Establish a plan to feel your best again
4. Fresh Content
Your website needs a steady stream of fresh content to educate patients and show them that you are active and engaged. This content can come in whatever form you find works best for your practice.
Here at The Steeplechase Company, we find that blog posts and email digests are the best way to communicate with clients.
For a physical therapy clinic, content might come in the form of instructional videos about stretches and exercises to relieve common health issues. A monthly health issue sent to their emails is also an easy way to keep your patients’ interest.
Check out our blog post on modern approaches to patient education here.
5. Marketing Automation
Getting prospective patients’ information
Your homepage should include calls to action that call the prospective patients to share their email address with you. Once you have this information, you can use a marketing automation system to send them targeted emails to further market your practice to them.
To learn more about marketing automation, click here:
https://contentfirst.marketing/google-facebook-build-mailing-list/
Capturing contacts is a crucial element of your marketing strategy. The more contacts you have, the wider your base of potential patients.
Every chance you get, you should try to obtain contact information. Every page on your website should include a link to contact you and join your mailing list.
Keep your clinic in their minds with newsletters
Everybody on your mailing list should receive regular emails from you.
Even if someone is not currently in need of physical therapy, regular interaction and communication with your firm will build familiarity. This will then make them more likely to turn to you in the future if they do suffer some sort of injury that leads them to seek out a physical therapist.
When it comes to the emails you send to your mailing list, content is again of the utmost importance. A regular newsletter with links to your latest content is a great way to maintain engagement with potential patients.
This content should be relevant and helpful to your patients, and should help you to cement your reputation as experts in your field. It should convey a sense of competence and confidence. You need your patients to trust that you know what you are doing.
It may seem counterintuitive to give out information about physical therapy for free. After all, your business relies on people paying for such information. However, the trust and gratitude you will gain from sharing this for free will more than make up for any amount of money.
By giving some advice for free, you convey a clear message that you really care about your patients.
This will make people more likely to:
- Come to you for physical therapy
- Return in the future
- Recommend you to friends and family
Finally, you can provide further tools to help potential patients discern what they need to do. Often, this takes the form of white papers.
How website content lends to even more credibility
Your clinic’s website might have basic contact information or even an “about us” page to help your patients find and learn about you. But does it have other valuable information for your patients? Some examples are the use of white papers and blogs.
A good white paper breaks down an issue and explains how your business can help to solve it. A physical therapy practice might choose to publish white papers breaking down health issues and outlining the steps to relieve them.
Simpler tools might take the form of blog posts. For example, you might make a post about general health tips such as:
- eating right;
- drinking plenty of water;
- maintaining good posture, etc.
This shows that you are committed to your patients’ health.
For more information about how blogs connect you with patients, click here.
By following these guidelines, you can hone your digital marketing approach to gain patients’ trust and confidence.
Here at The Steeplechase Company, we can help!
Do you need a successful digital marketing strategy for your physical therapy practice?
We help by starting with a solid foundation:
- Designing an attractive and effective website
- Capturing contacts
- Nurturing leads with great content and helpful tools
If your business would like some guidance on all of this, schedule a FREE practice review here.