We get it. Creating a pelvic health physical therapy marketing strategy can feel intimidating. Women who suffer from pelvic floor pain have often suffered for months or even years, sometimes in silence, due to the intimate nature of the issue.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 26% of women around the world suffer from chronic pelvic pain (CPP). This issue accounts for 12% of the hysterectomies performed in the United States and 40% of laparoscopies. What’s more, the origin of this pain isn’t gynecologic in 80% of the women who experience pain. It’s a frustrating and painful condition and many women believe that there aren’t treatments for the problem.
But you know that physical therapy provides real and lasting relief for women who face challenges with pelvic floor dysfunction.
This guide will give you the answers you need to reach the women in your community who suffer from pelvic pain.
Ask Yourself: Who Is My Ideal Women’s Health Patient?
When it comes to women’s health physical therapy marketing, figuring out who your ideal patient is plays a key role in your success. We can’t emphasize this enough. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that all women right now at this very moment in their lives would be the logical recipients of your clinic’s pelvic health physical therapy marketing strategies.
As with any successful marketing campaign, nothing could be further from the truth. It may be the case that every woman at some point in her existence will be part of your ideal patient demographic. However, you’ll have better luck if your marketing targets women who currently need your services right now.
In fact, when it comes to women’s health physical therapy marketing, don’t be afraid to mention the types of services you offer in your marketing materials.
For example, if you treat
- Post-natal women
- Pre- or post-menopausal women
- Women who experience pain during sexual activity
- Women who experience “leaking” or incontinence
- Pregnant women
- Those who have issues with constipation
- Etc.
Then say so in your marketing materials. This is where creating a “buyer persona” comes in – which is just a fancy way of saying “your ideal patient.”
Identify Your Ideal Pelvic Physical Therapy Patient
For example, if you know that you’d like to treat post-natal women specifically, then your targeted marketing efforts need to put this demographic front and center. Here is a bit of information and a few stats about the women this affects, according to LifeSpan.org.
- More than 1/3 (35%) of new mothers experience dysfunction after childbirth
- 20% of first-time mothers have a severe injury to their pelvic floor
- A woman may experience pelvic pain for a number of months or even years after having a baby
The above information tells you quite a lot about this demographic already.
However, a bit more targeting will make your pelvic health physiotherapy marketing strategies even more precise.
For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the average age for a woman in her child-bearing years in the US is 26.3 years old, and the average age of first-time moms has gone up all over the US, with women in Washington, D.C. and Oregon (3.4 years and 2.1, respectively) having the largest increase. There was also a smaller gap between births. In the year 2000, it was 2.8 years. As of 2014, it has been 2.4 years.
Knowing this information helps you narrow down your targeting even more. And this is just one example. You’ll want to create an ideal customer profile for all the demographics you’d like to serve. Post-natal women are just one of them.
Here are some other customer profiles:
Ack! I Feel Awkward. What Should I Say to Potential Patients?
For many women, intimate health discussions engender feelings of awkwardness and fear. Additionally, because conditions like pelvic pain aren’t always spoken about openly, many women mistakenly believe that pelvic pain is just a part of life. Many also believe that there is nothing they can do about it, except learn to live with it. This isn’t the case.
With an effective marketing strategy, you can show women how to get relief from the physical challenges they face. The tone of your marketing messaging lets them know that their physical health issues are nothing to feel embarrassed about. No one deserves to live in pain.
Although many people think of marketing just in terms of advancing a business’s agenda, it’s so much more than that. Your pelvic health physical therapy marketing materials educate your patients about their options.
Physical therapy often represents a better course of action for pelvic pain and dysfunction than painful, invasive, and often unnecessary, surgical procedures. This includes surgical procedures for challenges like vaginismus, a condition that affects up to 6% of the population and for which surgery is often unnecessary, according to HealthyWomen.org. (However, some women are still advised to get surgery for the condition.)
Women’s Health Physical Therapy Marketing: The Message Behind the Message
When you create engaging, sometimes funny, always readable marketing materials, you open up communication with your patients. You allow them to talk about issues that they would otherwise feel reluctant to talk about. And you reveal the empathy you feel for the pain they experience.
7 Women’s Health Physical Therapy Marketing Messaging Tips for the PT
1. Don’t be embarrassed. When you speak to your patients about their pelvic health issues, don’t be embarrassed. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. However, because there is still a stigma around reproductive health in society at large, it’s important to understand that your client may feel embarrassed. That’s why the conversation on your end must flow naturally and with empathy.
2. Show authority in your marketing materials and be women-centric. If you’re an expert in the field, make it known. If you have certifications from prestigious organizations, mention that in your marketing materials, including on your website.
3. Put an informative FAQ on your website. Make a list of the commonly-asked questions you get regarding women’s pelvic health, like does treatment hurt, is it invasive, etc.
4. Show testimonials! If your work has helped other women, then show it. Post testimonials and reviews on your website. Ask for reviews from current and past clients (if they feel comfortable giving them).
5. Develop an educational outreach aspect to your pelvic health physiotherapy marketing materials. Many women don’t realize, for example, that they don’t need surgery, that physical therapy can help to improve and even heal what ails them. In some respects, this tip is something that can support the first point in this list. That is, if you feel like you have some clients who will still feel embarrassed by a discussion of this topic, then create materials that answer their unasked questions.
6. Give potential patients a freebie. Create a PDF about women’s pelvic health that they can download for free. Make it a guide to the types of pelvic health treatments your clinic offers. Creating a document like this allows you to collect names and email addresses. On the flip side, it also gives your new clients a chance to get to know you in a non-threatening way.
7. Include a call-to-action (CTA) on all of your marketing materials. Call women to book an appointment with you! There’s an every-page-is-a-landing-page concept that nets its users more leads. Basically, to employ this, you need to put a CTA on all of your marketing materials, your blog posts, social media posts, etc. An effective CTA is an offer for a free initial evaluation.
This last point is important and accomplishes a couple of things. Aside from giving you a chance to meet a potential new client, it also assuages some common client fears, like having to pay for a service that ultimately can’t help them. Many women have already seen many healthcare providers and without finding relief for their pain. A free initial evaluation is risk-free for this new client and may help to break down some walls and build trust.
How Do I Get More Women’s Health Patients?
Let’s keep going with our example of a post-natal potential patient. Now that you know the basic age of the post-natal women who might use your services, you’ll then want to think about creating some marketing materials that appeal to this demographic.
The most common way to do this is to create a sales funnel, which helps potential patients discover your clinic via various marketing methods.
These could be but are not limited to:
- Posters featuring young women with one or two kids around them (to put up in your clinic)
- Postcards and brochures to area women in this demographic (Often, the local Chamber of Commerce will have mailing lists you can buy.)
- Blogs that target local SEO terms and which answer some common questions about this condition
- Google marketing through a Google Business Profile
- Word-of-mouth referrals supported by postcards and brochures that you give to your clients
Once you get women onto your email list or into your clinic for a free screening, you stand a great chance of helping them find their way through the rest of the sales funnel and more importantly, to the relief from their pain that they deserve.
How Do I Market My Women’s Health Clinic — Final Thoughts
Pelvic pain is a common, yet avoidable problem that many women deal with. Sadly, many believe that there is no solution for the challenges they experience. With the right women’s health or pelvic health physical therapy marketing plan, you can connect the women in your community with the pain relief they’re seeking.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can better serve the women in your community, reach out to us today. Practice Promotions provides all-in-one marketing services for 1400+ physical therapy locations. We can help your pelvic health clinic get more new patients.