Competition is one of the main challenges businesses face nowadays, especially if they are placed in an urban area. The number of physical therapy clinics has continued to grow in the last years, making the competition stronger. So, what you want to do is make the prospective clients believe that your clinic offers services they can not find in another location. How do you create a competitive advantage for your clinic?
Everyone says the best words about their clinic. What matters is which clinic clients speak best of. Try adding new services to your clinic within the space and budget you have. Not only do you attract new clients, but also keep the old clients.
For example, add a hydrotherapy option for clients with back injuries. Do not let the loyal clients get bored of the same services that might lose effectiveness after some time. Not rarely, clinics take the old clients for granted, but that’s not clever. Don’t lower service standards for old clients as you get new ones.
Nurture relationships with both types of clients. Regarding new ones, try offering the first sessions for free. Everyone loves free services. They’ll turn into loyal returning patients when they see you’re value-oriented.
Create a positive practice environment. Show them that you care. You might be giving them the best service, but no one wants a robot serving. Put emotions into your work. Talk to your clients. Make them feel at home; make them think they have a place where they can express themselves. Smile often while talking to them. Listen to their feedback. This will make them happy.
If they are happy, good reviews are coming. People communicate and share experiences. Their satisfying experiences play a key role to raise curiosity in their relatives/friends. Don’t forget, clients are the ambassadors of your clinic. Furthermore, a patient’s attitude plays a key role in the patient’s recovery.
It also helps you to understand if your patient will finish his/her therapy or is about to interrupt the sessions. In the last case, try to find out the reason. Is it because the therapy lasts too long and they’re tired at the end? Not all patients have the same motivation and strength to continue until the end.
Technology is making our lives much easier with new inventions every day. Information flies through social media, so the clients are probably reading about these new types of equipment that help with their treatment. Make sure to have them in your clinic. Otherwise, you will see patients leaving one by one. If you don’t provide them with new practices, other clinics will. It was all about competition, remember?
Another involving practice to use would be virtual practice. Through virtual practice, you can reach and connect with patients that wouldn’t be able to access physically in the clinic considering the pandemic we are going through. Also, the comfort of attending the therapy from their homes helps to keep them more engaged into therapy sessions.
What you need to do is create therapy programs for different cases with several sessions for each. The ability to see a professional remotely also helps people who live in a rural area. They might save a few good hours from their day.
4. Know your competitors Stay at least one step ahead of your competitors. Make some research, learn about the facilities and treatments they provide, their staff and experience. Find what makes potential clients treat themselves there. Meanwhile, you might consider new ideas you didn’t think of before.
Still, you need to keep your practice unique so your clients can easily make the difference. Also, knowing your competitors doesn’t mean you should see them as enemies. You can benefit more by creating partnerships with them. However, firstly start with a friendly approach to learn about how they view the competition and business.
Social media is a great way to expand your clientele. We would suggest using Instagram. There were more than 1 billion monthly active Instagram users during 2020. Open a business account, which can be done in a few steps, and start posting. Make sure your contact information is updated. Write a great bio to leave a good first impression on people that visit your page.
Keep in mind that 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile per day. Also, 90% of Instagram users follow a business. Post every day about your services, talk about your client’s success stories. Post videos and photos of treatments. Try putting faces in your posts or tagging your actual clients. It will create more credibility. Pay attention to the time of your posts, too. It seems to be that top professional services brands have the most luck posting early on in the workday, especially on Fridays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Engage with your audience.
Giveaways and contests are great to help increasing the number of followers. Using promo codes too is advisable to boost sales. Even a small discount makes a great impact. Each follower is a potential client. Also, try working with an influencer to sponsor your posts.
Create your own logo and use the same one for your website, emails that you send, your clinic’s waiting room, or the clothes your staff wears. Use the same colors in all the communications with clients. You may also use your logo as a profile picture for your account so users identify you better.
As soon as you set up your business account, don’t forget to add your website link to your bio. Potential patients will probably search your clinic, that’s why you have to be online. Otherwise, you will look less legitimate. Having a website that showcases your services is very important.
Customers will find your services online and get the information they are looking for. Most of them already know about you if they show up in your clinic. Be careful to use the right language. You might have the right idea of what you are talking about, but you need to make sure that the patient has the right idea too. On the other hand, you can use your website to collect information about your audience.
Learn who visited your website, and target your audience. Check your site’s functionality. Make sure everything it’s updated and working. Try opening it in different browsers and devices. Not everyone owns the latest technology.
If you’re hesitant about paying for social media advertising, consider the fact that more than 2 billion people use social media every day. Paid ads guarantee you a place in the user’s feed. If you pop up regularly in people’s feeds, they will start to recognize you. Recognition brings engagement and engagement brings a new client.
Find where your audience is likely to be active the most, different age group means different preferred social media. This way you reach a wider audience. What’s great about paid advertising is that you pay only if the user clicks the ad(surely, depending on the ad).
Instagram has a greater average cost per 1000 impressions (6.70 $) compared to other platforms, but Instagram brings more engagement. Paid advertising on social media gives you control over who sees your ad. This allows you to identify your ideal audience and prepare for a better performance than your competitors.
8. Get reviews and ask for referralsA good review will make the difference for a new potential client that has not been in your practice before. They don’t know you yet and must be very interested in what others are saying about your service. They might be hesitating, but they will for sure book an appointment if they read positive reviews.
It will make them believe they can be the next satisfied patient. Just ask your patients to leave a review for you. We would suggest going with the old patients. There must be a reason why they visit your clinic. Tell them to write exactly about that. Make it look easy for them. Don’t insist too much though.
You don’t want to end up getting a bad review. A 2020 study by BrightLocal found out that “79% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family.” It seems like not only reviewing is important. 96% of the customers that read online reviews also read the business response to their review.
“Interestingly, there’s no real distinction in consumers’ perceptions of businesses responding to ‘positive’ versus ‘negative’ reviews. No matter the sentiment of the feedback, consumers want to see that the business cares.”
Referrals remain a good way to receive new patients. Satisfied patients come to play here. Even though some of them may just forget about suggesting you as an option to their friends despite being satisfied with your service. Others maybe don’t want to talk to their friends about their therapy. Still, give it a shot.
It may turn out to be a consistent way to bring new clients. If you are talking to a patient who was injured while exercising in the gym, you could suggest telling the other gym attendees who have a similar injury. Most importantly, thank them for their referrals. This is how you maintain a good relationship.
To conclude, marketing your Physical Therapy practice is the best way to show your prospects the facilities and services you offer and tell what’s so special about them. Make sure you are visible online. Prepare your audience about what to expect from you and prepare yourself to meet their expectations.
That’s how you built the reputation of your clinic. Once you have done your best at bettering your services, you don’t have to worry much about competition. That’s the first step to positioning yourself against competition. Then, follow the steps we’ve mentioned above, and in case you need help keeping everything up and running, we’re here to help.