What To Do If Corporate Hospitals Are Dominating Your Physical Therapy Clinic’s Market Place With Bigger Ad Budgets

by · 22nd January 2015

“Behold”!

So I read an interview the other day (on a well know pt marketing website) about a pt who thinks he can’t “out spend” the big corporate hospitals who dominate his town with their big advertising budgets…

And as a result…

“Thinks” he has no option but to “surrender”…

And accept that his pt clinic will never be as profitable as he would like, because he’s never going to be able to get his name out there in-front of the big corporates.

Here’s a teaser of what he said:

===

“I tried paid advertising once, but I really do not have the ability to compete with large orthopaedic practices or hospital based therapy centres for advertising space.

Large scale brand advertising campaigns could bankrupt a small town clinic like mine and is better left to the large corporates”!

===

And he’s right…

Large scale brand advertising campaigns ARE better left to the big corporates – because they have the money to *waste* and rarely does any form of brand advertising work anyway.

(Unless you’re coca-cola or apple).

And here are a few more things on his comment:

1.) You don’t need a marketing budget to beat the corporate hospitals

A “budget” implies that you’re going to spend the same amount of money EVERY month – whether your ads are successful, or not. Here’s what most people don’t get about advertising: if your ads are successful, spend more, run more, make more $$$.

If they’re not successful, stop and try something else.

2.) You shouldn’t even try and “copycat” what they do

Most small businesses think they should advertise and market much the same as the bigger “brands” (I loath that word), so they spend (waste) a lot of money on image, brand, and presence – often thanks to the advice of the “guru’s and practice management consultants. But that would be a lot like a rabbit trying to emulate a lion.

The big corporate’s have all sorts of reasons for the way they advertise and market that have nothing to do with getting a new patient or making sales.

3.) You do have the ability to not only compete, but WIN when it comes to advertising

Why? Because your agenda is much simpler. And all you have to do is find successful business with similar agendas to copycat. Those using direct response marketing (like what my own pt company uses) that share these two basic ideas:

* Spend a $1.00 on marketing, get $2.00 back. Preferably more, fast, and should be able to be accurately tracked back to that $1.00 spent.

* Never spend another $1.00 unless it directly and quickly brings in that $2.00 (or more).

And that, in a nutshell, is how something called “direct response marketing works”.

And, I don’t hold back in saying this, it could well a life changing principle that if you know more about – could solve your biggest business challenge and help you achieve your main business goal.

Want to know more Direct Response Marketing and how to use it to make more profit in your clinic?

If so, open up my emails across the course of the next few days I’ll tell you more about it…

Talk soon.

Paul

P.S Hit Reply if you have any questions for me, I love to hear from you.

Do you think that you’re “beat” because of the big corporate hospitals advertising power and budgets?

Want some help to overcome that?

If so, let me know what you need by reply to this email.

Click Here to Subscribe to Paul’s Marketing Tips Email List >>>

Where To Look To Find Patients Before They Call Their Network And Even Get Close To A Physician

by · 21st January 2015

Let’s chat about “Media”…

(One component of the “Message – Media – Market”, Marketing Triangle).

Because you need to know precisely which one you’re going to use to locate your “WHO”.

Or, in reverse, you’ve got to know which media your “WHO” is tapped into – so that you can serve them highly specific messages to trigger response to your clinic.

Remember…

the goal of why we’re using direct response marketing is to get your prospective patients – with, say, back pain – to take action BEFORE they ordinarily would have (had they not seen your advert) and most definitely before they call their insurance.

Sounds a little “cerebral”, right?

Well, it kinda’ is!

But it’s fun.

And hugely profitable.

And means for less worrying about getting referrals from doctors and more time thinking about what you’re going to do with your profit!

So let’s being another marketing lesson.

Got your pen and paper ready?

Off we go…

“Media” is where you choose to run your ads.

And the list of options is long – often so long that it can feel overwhelming and stop you in your tracks before you’ve even got going.

The Media includes but is not limited too:

* Facebook

* Google

* Newspapers

* Magazines

* Yell

* Coupons

* TV

* Radio

* Etc, Etc…

The question is, which is best?

And the answer.

There isn’t one.

It varies a lot by “WHO” YOU want to reach.

An example:

If you’re trying to reach a 65 year old gentlemen who loves to play golf and take cruises with his wife (because that’s “WHO” you have decided you want to work with), then is he likely to be looking on Google?

Perhaps.

But maybe you’d have more chance of finding more gentlemen aged 65 with back pain, by running an ad in a golf magazine, appearing on a website for a cruise company or sending out a postcard to a list of highly targeted individuals who fit this description – and offering them a free “tips” report titled:

“Golfers – How To Swing Without Back Pain Even In Your 60’s”

And of course…

One of the “tips” that is going to be included in that report is YOUR service.

And the goal is to get the Gentlemen’s contact details when he calls to get his free report – so that you can have a nice chat with him to find out precisely what his problems are, what he wants and needs and politely make him aware that physical therapy is something that will help him get there faster.

The process that I’ve just described there, that’s called “direct response” advertising.

And my advice is that whatever Media you’re going to choose – it must allow for you to deliver a “direct response” message – or skip it.

With that said, your goal as captain of your ship should be to use as many different MEDIA as possible to seek out your preferred “WHO”.

Most clinic owners become very lazy at this…

…choosing to be dependent on only physician referrals which could be stopped at any time…

Or on only one, two or three means of getting new patients, leaving them very vulnerable to sudden disruptions in business and never really feeling as though they can move from, say, seeing 30 patients per week, to seeing something like 100 (and employing others to do the work for them) – not to mention the threat from competition opening up in the market place.

Anyhow…

Have you got any questions for me about this?

What Media have you have the most success with?

OR, which one has swallowed up most of your marketing dollars?

(Google Ads or Facebook, I bet?…)

HIT REPLY to this email and let me know what frustrations you’re having…

Or…

Apply to talk to me personally on a *free strategy call*… and I’ll work with you to identify the best Media for your clinic… and how to get the best response from it!

I’m happy to help you figure this out faster…

And if your application for a FREE strategy call is successful, all I ask in return is you give me a nice testimonial for my website based on the good advice I give you 😉

Sound fair?

If so, hit reply and let me know that you want a strategy call, or fill out this form to let me know more about your challenges:

Yes! Let Me Talk To Paul Personally And Have My Biggest Marketing Challenges Solved Today >>>

Hope this helps,

Paul.

P.S The free strategy call is limited to just one per week…

…and is offered on a first come first serve basis and is only for my email subscribers.

Click Here to Subscribe to Paul’s Marketing Tips Email List >>>

Do it in time, here:

– Yes! Let Me Talk To Paul Personally And Have My Biggest Marketing Challenges Solved Today >>>

End of blog post.

===

Click Here to Subscribe to Paul’s Marketing Tips Email List >>>

What “Avatar” Has To Do With Running A Profitable PT Clinic (One That Makes A Profit With Out Knowing Any Doctors Or Physicians)

by ·

In today’s “episode”….

Let’s talk about what you need to create a *profitable marketing piece* using Direct Response Marketing – something that if you master, will let you put an end to your worries of no doctors referring to your clinic.

So, let me introduce you to something I call the “Marketing Triangle” which forms the foundation of all good marketing activity…

It’s made up of three components and they’re all as important as the other:

Market – Message – Media.

And the first I’ll teach you about is the Market.

This is your “WHO” you want to attract.

(Because you don’t just wan to try and attract everyone and anyone, right?)

Now…

You might hear me refer to the “WHO” as an AVATAR and it’s essentially WHO your IDEAL client or patient is.

Someone you love to work with.

Get great results for.

Someone whose hopes, dreams and goals that are perfectly aligned with your skills and specialist solutions.

Thing is, NOT many pt’s really know WHO their ideal patient is.

Sure…

They will always be able to tell me that they see more people with back or neck pain etc…

…but rarely are they are able to describe to me their best patient in any more detail than that.

What I mean?

Well, let me tell you about my own “avatar” to help you understand:

“It’s” a lady – and she’s in her mid 50’s or 60’s.

For a whole bunch of reasons, but in a nut shell…

…simply because my clinics service is focused on helping people maintain independence, mobility and living free from drugs and without risk of surgery – all of the things that many women value most (MUCH more so than men).

And another reason…

Women are “preconditioned” to invest in their health – they’ve been going to hairdressers, beauty salons and care greatly about how things like their nails look – enough to spend money on it – so I want to tap into that pre-conditioned behaviour pattern (rather than try to create one with guys who don’t regularly spend time or money on their health).

Now back to my “avatar”…

She is married with children (and now have grandchildren who they adore), are politically “conservative”, pay using American Express Cards (rather than VISA or MasterCard) and are MORE interested in things like maintaing self worth, independence and mobility and playing with those grandchildren in the park – than they are ending “back pain”.

I even got it down to which newspaper and magazines she likes to read, what TV shows and which radio station she is more likely to be listening too.

What’s more…

I spend so much time thinking about her and talking about her, I felt I had to give her a name – so I did, and it’s “Mary”!

And whenever I’m preparing a marketing piece to attract more “Mary’s” to my clinic, I go so far as to look at a picture of a “best” patient of mine (called Mary) – one who accurately represents the type of person I love to work with and want to see more of in clinic.

Consequently…

When I sit down to write these marketing pieces, say for a newspaper advert, I have a clear understanding of what to write that will motivate many more people like “Mary”, to respond to my message.

And that “Message” (another part of the Marketing Triangle) has nothing to do with “me”, my services, how reputable I think I am, or how many years I’ve been in business.

I make NO attempt to be “all-inclusive” or to cast the net wide to catch as many fish as possible – like most of the guru’s will tell you to do.

Nor do I even give a minutes thought to who I might repel, even offend (usually doctors or drug companies!) when I do so either.

In fact, the more I mention those two in my ads in a negative way, the more calls to my clinic I seem to get from “Mary’s”!

I know my prime target (the “WHO”) – and I design my “Messages” and choose my “Media” accordingly.

How about you?

What messages are you writing?

Where are you placing them and who are they going to?

Are you doing what most other pt’s do and making the mistake of marketing “your services”?

Or…

Are you writing cleverly worded messages that seek out your ideal patients by aligning your specialist services with the values of highly motivated patients?

Ones who feel compelled to call your clinic because you seem to “get them” better than anyone else and because of that will pay any price you set?

If you’re NOT currently doing that…

*Want some help to get started?*

HIT REPLY to this email now and let me know what questions you have for me.

Or, if you want to talk on the phone or face to face on Skype, give me signal in the same reply.

Be quick though…

For obvious reasons, (like my own time famine), I can only give one free strategy call away per week.

Get it in time, by reply.

Talk soon.

Paul.

P.S Now you know about one of the components in the Marketing Triangle you need to know to beat the POTs to the patients…

I’ll discuss the others in much more detail, next time.

Be sure to watch for my name appear in your inbox 😉

Note to reader: Click Here to Subscribe to Paul’s Marketing Tips Email List >>>

Why People Choose Physicians Over Pt’s In The First Place – And What To Do To Reverse Engineer The Referral Process

by ·

So if I’m going to help you to defeat your number one business challenge – getting patients to your clinic in-spite of where doctors send referrals too – and achieve your business goals…

…then “Direct Response Marketing” is something that I need to teach you some more about.

So, off we go:

First, think about how a “typical” patient with, say, something like “back pain”, might think and take action.

As you know…

MOST patients don’t take action the minute they feel their back pain coming on.

No.

Many wait weeks, months and even years before doing something about it.

Why?

Well there’s a whole bunch of reasons and the more of them that you know, the easier is it to get more patients to your clinic.

But I’d say there’s a few common ones why patients don’t move toward seeing a physical therapist at the same speed they would, say a dentist, at the first sign of tooth ache.

Including, but not limited too:

===

* Not sure what a pt actually does

* Insurance hassles and headaches

* Time – everyone thinks that tomorrow will be the day it just disappears

* Self doubt – most people are so negative that they think nothing and no one can help “ME”.

* Easier to just suffer (than find time for 10 sessions of pt)

* Too much choice (pt, chiro, osteo, drugs, homeopath etc etc) meaning that it’s easy to get the decision wrong – so inaction seems the best and safest one.

* And many, many more.

===

So now think about how you could possibly motivate all of these people people, who think like this, to call your clinic?

Are you really going to do that by simply putting an advert in a newspaper or on Facebook which says “I’m here, call today”.

Truth is, you’re not.

Not enough to forget about the physicians not referring thing, anyway.

Now think about why a patient might choose a physician or medical doctor in the first place – or better yet, WHY they will accept a referral to any pt clinic that the doctors sends them…

.
.
.

It’s all to do with “trust”!

Something that because of their perceived status and authority in society, is difficult for anyone to match – pt’s included.

But there is a way to get round this…

And you’ll do it by catching their attention of a (usually unsuspecting) prospective patient by offering them something that is much easier and less hassle and comes with no effort, zero risk or finical outlay – than calling their network.

And you’ll do that by using marketing which offers something like a “free tips report”.

Something that promises to solve their problem – with very little effort required on their part.

That free tips report could be:

“How To End Back Pain Quickly And Easily In 9 Simple Steps”…

And would Giving people a reason to RESPOND to your advert by calling your clinic and gives you an opportunity to first get their contact details, and then begin to answer questions that your new prospective patient has about pt and back pain.

And the real GOLD in this strategy, is this:

Once you’ve got their contact details, you’ve also bought yourself some TIME.

TIME which you can use to build authority, trust and respect – as well as over come all these objections I just listed.

(Like what the physicians get automatically).

Now you can FOLLOW UP with that person and convince them that YOU (and pt) are the best solution to solve their problem long term.

Tell them all about how you help people just like them…

..show off your testimonials…

..add them to your mailing list…

…explain why coming to see you is going to be better in the long run

– AND –

That you CAN take care of all the referral and insurance headaches for them, by having your assistant setting up appointments or getting forms faxed to and signed by doctors.

To sum up todays lesson:

Use “direct response marketing” to exchange valuable information for contact details and you get a change to explain what you really do and how you can really help – LONG before those people were even beginning to think about calling their network as their pain inevitably got worse.

In essence, you’re getting to all these people before physicians are even mentioned.

Make sense?

Let me know what questions you’ve got for me about this.

I love to hear from you and I read all replies personally.

(Just give me a day or so to respond as I’m busy with my own patients too – really busy with new patients at the minute ;-).

Go ahead, hit reply.

Paul.

P.S Look out for the next email in this series devoted to showing you how to put an end to worrying about doctor referrals at your clinic.

HIT REPLY and let me know what questions you want answering.

===

Note to reader: to receive regular marketing ideas emails like this, join Pauls email list by optioning in at the top or bottom of this webpage.

Marketing Tips For Physical Therapists Frustrated By A Lack Of Physician Referrals (And POTS)

by ·

If you’re anything like most of the other PT’s who I help, one of the challenges, (maybe even *threats* to your business), is from physicians and doctors.

(Either setting up against you, or just not referring regularly enough).

And I understand, how, if you’re a small town or independent physical therapy clinic just trying to make a living and hoping for a few referrals to boost your profits – it can be frustrating when they don’t come in – despite your best “marketing to physician” efforts.

And if you’re battling away against a physician owned therapy service positioned across the street, then that frustration must be even worse as you watch their car park fill up each day with patients (and not yours).

So, what are *we* going to do about it?

Well, I have a few solutions.

(Proven ones that work, too).

Want to know more?

“Great…”

Well, the first thing you’ve got to do is stop focusing all your efforts and energy on “marketing to physicians”.

Who wants to rely solely upon referrals for all the referrals, anyway?

What if the one that you’ve got a nice relationship with, the one who sends say, 60% of your clinics referrals, decides to take an extended vacation?

Or, retire early?

Worse yet, set up his own clinic against you because he realises how much cash is to be made from owning a pt clinic he and his friends can refer to?

(His reimbursements are dropping too, remember).

So lets focus on a different style of marketing.

“Marketing solutions”…

Preferably to patients you love to work with – hassle free, high paying, always show up, follow through on care plans etc etc.

Now, did you notice how I NEVER said “market your services”.

Despite what the “APTA” and the “guru’s” out there are telling you, doing that is a waste of your time.

Why?

Simply because patients don’t really care about “your services” and as much as the APTA want to “raise awareness” of how great a profession physical therapy IS, people don’t have the time to listen.

So what to do?

Well…

You’re going to need to know how to get the attention of prospective patients LONG BEFORE they decide to call there network (and end up in the care of a medical doctor).

And how to do it?

It starts with marketing solutions in the form of “bait”.

Offering something that somebody wants.

Something that makes their life EASY and hassle free – and less painful or more active, of course.

This bait has got to be something that can help someone solve a problem or pain in their life.

And your marketing has to at least let them know that there is a solution out there that doesn’t involve anything too strenuous or difficult – like calling their network or arranging to go and see a doctor – and tell them exactly how and where to get that solution (i.e. by calling your clinic).

This type of marketing is known as “Direct Response”…

And is way more effective than running adverts that “raise awareness”, “get your brand out there”, or wasting time “marketing to physicians” (who don’t have the time to read what you send them any way).

Interested to know more about how you can use direct response marketing to beat the POTS and generate your own continuous supply of new patients?

If so…

Watch for my name appearing in your inbox over the next few days when the marketing lessons will begin.

In the mean time, Hit Reply with your questions for me.

I’m interested to know what marketing you’ve tried so far…

Did it work successfully?

Was it an expensive flop?

What’s the single biggest thing that frustrates you about marketing that you’d love to know the answer too?

Go ahead, HIT REPLY…

I read all your replies and love to hear from you.

Talk soon.

Paul

P.S If you want me to help you solve your problems personally…

…Let by know by REPLY to this email and we’ll arrange to get on the phone or Skype and work through your challenges together.

Be quick though…

For obvious time reasons I can only offer one free 45 minute strategy call per week.

If you want to get it, let me know by reply in time.