Marketing is an essential component of any successful physical therapy clinic’s business plan. The stronger your clinic’s marketing strategy, the more patients you attract, the more clinicians you can recruit, and the more revenue your clinic can generate. However, great marketing isn’t just about promoting your clinic. Great marketing is the steps you take to build strong relationships with your past, present, and future patients.

Even if marketing comes naturally to you or your team, between patient management and running an office, it’s easy to make these 5 marketing mistakes.

Top 5 Physical Therapy Clinic Marketing Mistakes

No Consistency in Your Messaging

Consistency is key! There’s a reason why brands like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola have seen such lasting success. They’re consistent in their brand image, message, experience, and voice. Who you are in the office should be the same online. Consistency doesn’t limit your brand, it enhances it. This congruency between your on and offline presence and message is essential to the patient journey so that they never feel as if they’re ever in the wrong place.

How Can You Better Ensure Marketing Consistency?

• Create a content calendar to track and monitor posting frequency
• Maintain the same voice across different platforms (email, social media, newsletter, website, etc.)
• Stick to the same color palette across all digital platforms
• Use only brand-related images

Too Much Self Promotion

You’re probably wondering, “Wait, but isn’t self-promotion what marketing is all about?” Certainly marketing is about getting your name out there, but it’s not just about flaunting your certificates and boasting about your incredible clinicians and rehabilitation successes.

Your marketing should be customer focused. The type of marketing you put out should add value to their lives. This might include things like blog posts about staying fit and healthy, third-party news articles about home stretches you can do, or providing information about new scientific studies in physical therapy advancement.

Ignoring Online Reviews

Many people reference online reviews prior to committing to a restaurant, coffee shop, and, especially, a doctor’s office. Ignoring online reviews—good or bad—is a serious PR and marketing fumble.

Be sure you dedicate a portion of your marketing time and resources to managing your reviews. Both the good AND the bad.

Addressing negative reviews as they come in shows potential new patients that you sincerely care about the individuals that come through your doors. Sharing positive reviews lets your current patients know that you’re listening to what they’re saying and that their voice matters.

Bad Website

Or worse… no website at all! What’s the big deal about websites? Websites can be costly to build and maintain. After all, your business isn’t based online, you’re running patients through strength building exercises on Shopify, so why does it matter if you have a working website or not?

Because, many times, your website is the first exposure your target audience has with your brand and clinic. A good website can help to educate, inform, and capture new clients.

You don’t need to have anything fancy. All you need is a simple site that includes:

• Your hours and location(s)
• Information about your practice
• Overview of the different services you offer
• Staff and team member bios
• Contact form to schedule appointments.

No Measurement Tracking System

You track your patients’ progress, so why aren’t you tracking your own? Marketing is both an art and a science, which is why you need to be diligent about measuring the various outcomes to ensure organizational growth and financial return.

Consider tracking the wins of your marketing efforts through a short patient intake survey.

Questions to ask can include:

• Lead Source: How did they hear about you?
•  Conversion Journey: What steps did they take before choosing you?
• Purchasing Behavior: Why did they choose you?
• Return on Brand Equity: How likely are they to recommend you to a friend?

End the Year on a High Note

Now that you’ve got the tips and tools you need to successfully market your office, it’s time to take what you’ve learned and apply it! There are only a few more months left in 2018, use these tips to end 2018 on a high note and start 2019 off on the right foot.