Top 6 Social Media Marketing Methods to Grow Your Physiotherapy Business
Marketing a physiotherapy clinic is a lot of work. In a deluge of information and websites, you need to find the right mix to stand out from the crowd and make your voice heard.
To best decide the marketing methods that you need to take, we must take a look first at the common challenges of marketing your services in RMT Kitchener.
Fierce competition
Undeniably, any given province or territory has a healthy number of physiotherapy clinics competing for clients. When you search for available physiotherapy clinics in your area, you will get a handful of names in the returned search, with many clinics a stone’s throw away from each other. A patient may not be able to tell the difference between the clinics and just pick one with the most affordable service or shortest wait time.
Knowing how to market your clinic means highlighting your clinic’s strengths or specialty services. For instance, you could highlight that you have the best rates in town. You can also include some information like the insurance carriers you are catering to or the training your therapists have undergone.
Deliver the services that your patients are demanding
Customers nowadays are very particular with the kind of services they are want. When seeking professional services, they want to make sure that they are getting their money’s worth especially because these services are not cheap.
Customers who have bad experiences with a service provider will likely write an online review. These reviews play a huge role in convincing or warning future clients about a business. If there are a lot of negative reviews, customers will avoid these clinics at all cost. On the other hand, if there are a lot of good reviews, customers will have a positive response and will likely book a session. Your goal then is to get as many positive reviews from legitimate clients as you can and use these to your marketing advantage.
Physician referrals can serve as a barrier to treatment
There are many patients that do not get covered by their insurance carrier because they didn’t receive a physician referral. As a way to deal with this, you extend your marketing efforts not only to patients but to doctors as well.
Addressing the challenges of social media marketing
Several people think that digital marketing only involves updating Facebook statuses. In the case of businesses like physiotherapy clinics, the notion of putting up a page, filling in all of the information, and completely abandoning it is common. Here’s the truth: social media pages set up for your company will not generate income.
The art of social media marketing is about being consistent with your content. To be able to do that, a team should focus on working on the content and regularly update it. However, your posts on new promotions, seminars, and testimonies are not enough, you also have to use these channels to answer questions and address concerns.
Hiring in-house or outsourcing
A marketing plan involves different people and hiring this team is a choice you need to make. There are some savvy clinic owners who can probably manage their site and other digital collaterals but when the patients come in, they can’t afford to spread themselves too thin. Forming a digital marketing team is the next best thing to do. If you want the team to focus on your site, hiring an in-house team is the sound choice. On the other hand, if you are only looking at somebody posting and replying to queries online on your behalf, outsourcing a Edmonton SEO expert is the best choice.
Social Media Marketing Tips to Boost Your Business
Social media is not as easy as it seems. Physical therapists need to establish a digital footprint that will lead people to trust and choose their clinics for treatment. If you are gearing to face the challenges of social media marketing, here are some handy tips that you can use:
Have a clear social media goal
The very first step that you need to take is to create an outline of your social media goals before implementing changes on the site, posting across platforms, and allocating budget for premium advertising.
If your clinic is fairly new, your goal should be building brand awareness within the community. If the business has been around for sometime, your next goal is to fill the appointment calendar as much as you can.
Speak in a way your patient can relate to
Your patient profile or the vital information on the behaviour, buying power, and preferences of your patient plays a huge role when choosing which social media platform you should focus on. Identifying your patient mix gives you information on whether your business’ direction and vision are the same as your patients’.
It is also important to understand where the patient population is spending time online. If you want to reach the right people, you need to hang out where they are spending most of their time, especially on social media.
Be where your patients or their guardians are
After you determine who your patients are and know which social media channels they are spending time on, you would want to make your presence felt there.
Understand what content you can share, the demographics, and the appeal that makes them the chosen channel of your patients. A 2015 survey showed interesting Canadian demographic trends that you can take note of as you start rolling out your social media campaign:
- There are close to six adult users in Canada who have Facebook profiles. About half of them access the platform more than once per day.
- The respondents check the following social media channels more than once a day: Facebook (47%), Instagram (27%), Twitter (23%), and LinkedIn (6%).
As you start out, set up a profile on popular social media channels. Use these to reach out to them.
Create interesting content
Content is a very important component of marketing. Have a steady stream of content that will make your physiotherapy clinic a constant presence in their newsfeeds. If you don’t have a website yet, make sure you contact a website design provider in Vancouver. The more you appear on multiple platforms, the more brand awareness is established.
You need to establish your presence because not all people are actively looking for your services. However, because they already know about your business through your posts, the moment that they need your services, you will be the first thing on their mind.
Make your branding unmistakeable
Whatever your content and wherever you are marketing, never forget about your branding. Always use the same color theme, font, and logo across all platforms to make your business identifiable.
Establish a connection with your followers
Social media channels are free but they present an effective way to connect with your future, present, and previous clients. Sharing informative and entertaining contents is only effective when you have followers reacting and commenting on your posts. To encourage this interaction, you need to reply to them. This is also a perfect opportunity to respond to service queries and booking needs.
Social media is a powerful tool for marketing your physiotherapy clinic. With the right mix of strategies and techniques, you can reach out to your target market to raise brand awareness and fill consultation schedules.