Prosperous Physical Therapy - Physical Therapy Business Resources, Tips and Tools

By Liz Urichuk

Having a presence in social media today is a must no matter what business or industry you’re in. You may have an account set up in LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (or others) but now what? Do you know what components you need to make it successful? Having a social media presence without a strategy is like having a ship without a rudder.

A solid social media strategy should have a purpose, goals, action steps and evaluation.

Purpose

The purpose of a social media strategy is the foundation of it. It is the “WHY” you’re doing social media. You may want a stronger online presence of your clinic’s blog or website or perhaps you want to increase awareness of your clinic in your local area. Your “why” is really important to remember as you progress with your strategy. Due to a number of reasons (overwhelm, poor results, time management) it is easy to forget why you are engaging in it in the first place.

Goals

Your goals are the specific achievements you want to attain via social media. When you create goals it’s important to note that there should be no more than 3. If you’re trying to achieve too many goals you’ll be heading for disaster. Another tip to be mindful of is keep your goals realistic! An example of a goal may be to increase the number of fans on your clinic’s Facebook Fanpage from 100 to 150 or to receive 500 hits to your website by the end of the first quarter. The more specific you are the better, because if you don’t know where it is you want to be then how do you know if you’ve arrived?

Action Steps

The action steps are the processes that are performed to achieve the goals. If your clinic’s goal was to increase your clinic’s Facebook Fans from 100 to 150 then the action step could possibly be creating a Facebook Ad that you run for 30 days enticing new patients to a brand new service you’re offering. The action steps may change upon quarterly review of the strategy depending on the progress your clinic makes in the allotted timeframe.

Evaluation

Evaluation is the final piece that is needed in a solid strategy. Knowing if you’ve attained your goals is important to identifying if your strategy and work efforts have paid off or whether they need to be altered. Evaluations can be done in a variety of ways. It all depends on what you have created for goals. It may be as simple as checking the number of Twitter followers you have at the end of your quarter or checking the number of hits to your clinic’s blogsite using a site analyzer such as Google Analytics.

When your clinic has a social media strategy created, the process and desired results are clear. Your strategy should be revisited and measured at the end of every quarter (90 days) or at least twice a year at a minimum. Revisiting the strategy will enable you to adjust it in areas that need tweaking to achieve the desired goals or to make new ones.

Watch for our next article on Social Media Tips for your Physical Therapy Clinic every Tuesday until the end of May. The next article will focus on Creating Content.

A big thank you to Erika for allowing me to share my knowledge and experience in social media marketing here on the Prosperous Physical Therapy blog with you. I love social media and could not imagine myself NOT doing it for a living. I really hope you had the opportunity to take away something that you can put to use today in your clinic’s social media marketing. In order to help your clinic create it’s strategy more easily, please feel free to download this social media strategy outline courtesy of E-Works Office Services.

If you have any comments or questions about today’s blogpost enter it in below. I’d love to hear from you!

Liz Urichuk, Certified Social Media VA
E-Works Office Services
Is your business WIRED for Social Media yet?

Strengthen Your Business Skills:
A Practical Business Skill Development Series
for Physical Therapy Business Owners

In the upcoming months I will be focusing the business tips I send you twice a month on strengthening your business skills.

You will receive the MOST successful, effective, and easy to implement tools and strategies I know for strengthening physical therapy business owner skills. These tools and strategies have proven to give the best results I have learned from coaching physical therapy clinic owners exclusively over the last 5 years.

Strengthen Your Business Skills #4

A Must Approach for Getting More Clients:
Choose a Target Audience

The traditional laws of branding do not apply to professional services businesses, according to literature. According to a key study, traditional advertising media (TV, radio, print media) scored very low in terms of effectiveness. From my interviews with you, I would say your experiences support this.

What works in professional services is building your service brand in your efforts to get clients. If you direct your marketing to the right people, you build awareness and esteem for your services while you generate new clients. This is why we will be talking about choosing a target audience for your marketing.

Target marketing is another way to position and distinguish your business. It is another critical step in any effort to get more clients or, for that matter, in any marketing. To be successful in marketing and getting more clients, you need to know who your best potential clients are. The literature says that there is a direct correlation between clinics that know exactly whom they target and how well they can generate new clients.

And here is more about target marketing. Are you practicing the “spray and pray” approach to marketing? I frequently hear physical therapy clinic owners saying,” Well, my services could really help just about everyone.”

Here is a thought for you to ponder: “If you have EVERYONE for prospective clients, I guarantee you will have NOBODY for a client! The fact is that the more narrowly you define your market, the easier and less expensively your practice will be filled with new clients. I believe this so strongly. And let me tell you I have gone through the very same talk and process in getting new clients for my coaching business, and until I defined a target market or target markets, I struggled.

Why do you need a target audience?

Why would anyone want to narrow down the number of people to which they market? It almost seems counter-intuitive! Think about it – all the opportunities and business you would be missing by not marketing to the masses, right?

Wrong! The fact is that when you narrow down your target market, three magical things happen:

It becomes easier and less expensive to find and reach your prospects. Without a target audience, you are practicing what I call a “spray and pray” approach to marketing. It’s expensive and creates little in the way of results. Inversely, if you know who your potential clients are, you know where to go to find them.
Another magical thing is that your name and brand spread more rapidly when you have a target market. It’s better to become a big fish in a smaller pond than to be just one of a million in the ocean. When you focus on servicing a specific, narrow target your name becomes known faster, and people quickly begin to recognize you as an expert.
A third magical thing is your services become more desirable. As you become recognized as an expert, the perceived value of your services increases dramatically. You will attract higher quality clients, they will be more likely to use your services fully, and to return and to refer to others!

How do you choose a target audience?

Selecting the right target audience is not something you want to take lightly. It is a process of matching your knowledge, skills, and expertise with your passion and the right target people.

I recommend a 3 step approach to selecting a target audience:

Step 1: Understand the 4 primary types of target audiences.

Based on occupation or industry. This target is made up of people that are employed in the same profession or work in the same industry.
Based on demographics. This target consists of people who share one or more of the same characteristics. For example, age income level, weight, height, ethnic origin, value of home, etc.
Based on geography. This target is simply based on the physical location where people live or work. For example, the same neighborhood, or city, or school district, or community.
Based on psychographics. This group is based on how people think – their likes, dislikes, hobbies, religion, or political convictions. This can be an effective way to target, because people spend most of their discretionary income on things they are passionate about. For example, in this target there could be sport groups, Liberals, people who love big dogs, etc.

Step 2: Evaluate your skills, likes and potential markets.

The following questions will help you evaluate your skills, likes, and potential markets:

What are you really good at?
Do you have a lot of experience in a certain industry or performing a particular type of service?
What are you most passionate about? (hopefully this matches your answers to the first questions.)
Is there one common need most of your current clients experience that no one is addressing?
Is there one recurring problem that you seem to be solving for most of your clients?
When you analyze your competitors, is there something they are not offering, or something you improve or provide much more effectively and efficiently?
In the market that is most likely to purchase your services, is there a segment that other service providers think is too difficult to get involved with?

Asking these and similar questions will help you identify a target market to offer your services to.

Step 3: Evaluate the viability of your target.

When you finally identify a target that is appealing to you, you need to evaluate this to see if it is viable. Here are seven questions to help you evaluate if it is a viable target:

Can you easily and affordably contact this target? (Is there a list, an association, group they belong to?)
Do people in this target recognize a certain problem and want to solve it?
Can this target afford your services?
Is there a successful track record of this target using your kinds of services?
How much competition is already in this target?
Can you become credible in this target? (Are you familiar to this target, do you have experience in it?)
Is this target big enough to sustain your business?

Now, that you have thought about all of these questions, what is next?

I encourage you to answer all of these questions fully in writing.

Remember: Everyone has at least one subject they know a lot about. Find that one subject for yourself, and I guarantee there is a crowd of people that are hungry for your expertise and help. All you have to do is figure out what this “subject or expertise” is and find that hungry crowd!

I have 3 great questions you could use to demonstrate to your clients that you really care about helping them and making a difference in their lives.

Clients will tell you all of the things you need to know to keep them for life, to get more referrals and then generate more revenues.

Three questions to ask your clients:

What is your biggest “pain” or “need”?
What do you want in the way of services from us and how do you want it?
What is not important to you? (We sometimes make huge assumptions about what our clients want in the way of services from you. Be very careful about making any change to your services without hearing the need first from your clients.)

Start listening to your clients. First ask them for input, and then deliver on it. This is so very powerful as a way to connect with your clients meaningfully and to grow your business.