PT Classroom - 5 Strategies to Reexamine When Promoting Your Physical Therapy Practice in the New Year ׀ by Chai Rasavong, MPT, COMT, CMTPT, MBA

5 Strategies to Reexamine When Promoting Your Physical Therapy Practice in the New Year

This past year has come and gone and the start of the New Year is a great time to re-evaluate your past and current strategies when promoting your practice. Each physical therapy practice may be different and unique, but successful marketing strategies may be universal.

1) Reexamine your social media presence – Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are some social media platforms that can be utilized to promote your practice. If you didn’t actively attempt to attract followers last year, this may be the year to do so. Having followers on these platforms can allow you to share educational information and other information/events in regards to your practice.

2) Reexamine your online reputation – Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Bing and Yelp are just a few platforms where patients can search for more information and leave reviews as well. Examine your reviews left by patients and follow up with any unsatisfactory reviews. In addition, make sure all your listings are up to date and have all the necessary information required by each platform. If you are not already doing so, encourage your patients to leave a review on the platforms listed above as this could help with search engine optimization.

3) Reexamine your physician referral sources – You may already have a good relationship with certain physicians that refer to you consistently, but there may be other physicians that have referred to you in the past but have not done so recently. Now’s the time to reconnect with those physicians and see how they are doing and put yourself back into sight and into mind.

4) Reexamine your community outreach programs – Nothing works better with promoting yourself and practice then getting in front of the community which your practice is located in. Sign up to have a booth at various local events or school events and promote yourself there. I find the one on one interaction is highly more valuable than purchasing an advertisement or sponsorship. Another strategy could be hosting and conducting educational courses on pain management, diet/exercise, golf, running, biking etc. for your community. This allows the individuals in your community to visit your practice and associate you as an expert on a topic.

5) Reexamine your patient data and do something with it if you are not already doing so – Customer data is invaluable to all businesses. The more information a business can obtain on you the more potential they have to actually selling something to you. Think about how some advertisement just miraculously shows up on a website you are visiting after you just searched for something. It’s not a miracle. That search you made on Google was collected and analyzed and ads which are paid by advertisers to Google and other websites are displayed based on that information they just collected. With your physical therapy practice you possess patient data such as names, addresses and email addresses. With their permission you can mail or email them both promotional and educational materials to help yourself and practice remain visible.

By reexamining and addressing the above strategies, you will be able to further strengthen what you are already doing to promote your practice. However, I would highly recommend that all strategies should not only be examined at the beginning of the year but be examined and reassessed continuously throughout the year as well. The nature of our business is dynamic and should be addressed in that matter. Best of luck in the New Year!

Last revised: January 1, 2018
by Chai Rasavong, MPT, COMT, CMTPT, MBA