How to Create a Successful Physical Therapy Marketing Plan for 2024

One of the most important things you can do for your clinic is to evaluate your physical therapy marketing plan every year. With the threats of inflation, hiring struggles, and competitors, you’ve got to take charge of how you get new patients!

By the end of this article, you can have a finished document for your PT clinic – just grab this physical marketing plan template and follow along filling in your own information:

Why Is A Written Physical Therapy Marketing Plan Important?

Writing out a marketing plan forces you to sit down and think about how you’ll make your clinic’s business goals a reality and plan resources ahead of time. 

Without a marketing plan, month-to-month marketing efforts will be chaotic at best. Patient volume will be inconsistent. You may have trouble telling what’s working and what’s not and most importantly, you’ll probably feel like you’re constantly playing catch up instead of having control and predictability. So, if you’re thinking “Oh no, that sounds like my practice!” – don’t panic. I have good news for you: 

No matter what you’ve done (or not done) in the past, it is never too late to create a plan that will bring success to your clinic. 

To gain stability and freedom in your practice, you need functional systems that bring in a consistent flow of new patients. And the key to consistency is a good PT marketing plan. 

Also, it’s actually not hard.

I do recommend setting aside a half-hour or hour to really think. Shut the office door or go somewhere else – whatever you need to give yourself mental space to get outside the day-to-day. But then, just follow the 6 steps below:

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Table of Contents

“The most important thing to remember in YOUR leadership role is that your clinic’s physical therapy marketing plan is not about “buying this email software,” “running that Facebook ad,” or “using XYZ consultant.” Those are individual actions or tactics you can include in the correct section of your plan, but the planning document you put together needs to be more like guide rails you can hand to whoever is carrying out those actions. If you’re running a clinic, you need specialists around you to get marketing done right. So think about what your team needs to work independently day to day:

• What goals are most important? 
• What audience are we trying to reach?
• What makes your clinic stand out from competition?
• What budgets do we have to work with?
• What results are we measuring success based on?
• Who is responsible for which areas & reporting back to you?

“Would you like to work fewer hours? Would you like to sell this practice one day? Would you like to hire another PT? 

“A proper PT Marketing plan is the most important tool you have to delegate work to marketing experts with confidence they understand what you need them to work towards.”

-Neil

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#1.
Write Your Practice’s Goals + Budget

This first section is more about your overall company than it is about marketing specifically. It puts the marketing plan in context and includes 3 parts:

First, Where Do You Want To Be In 5-10 Years?

Hopefully, you already have a business plan or company vision in place you can copy into your marketing plan for this section. 

If not – maybe you’re just starting to take your practice from a solo shop to a serious business with multiple therapists – take some time to seriously think about this first. It’s hard to set up a 1-year plan without the bigger goals in view. (If you need help with this, I highly recommend Elite Entrepreneurs as one of the best leadership training resources for PT owners.)

I recently spoke to one of our most successful clients about their practice goal-setting method:

“I’m really strategic about setting my goals. What we do is we have an annual meeting every year with the executive team. We look at: where are we going as a company? What is that big goal that kind of scares you?”

– Jill Marlan, CEO & Founder of Peak Performance PT, Ernst & Young Winning Woman Entrepreneur in 2018 (North America), Practice Promotions Customer

Write down your 10-year vision. If it scares you, you’re on the right track. Now you need to think: what do I have to do in the next 5 years to reach that goal? What about this year?

Jill went on to tell us:

“So really, we take our 10-year picture of where we’re going, and then we fold it down into: what do we need to do this year? Then we break that up into quarters and strive to hit our quarterly targets. Then we put actionable items in place to hit those.”

The Bottom Line: Before you start on a PT Marketing Ideas & Strategy, you need to decide what success means for you and your practice. Does it mean working fewer hours? Does it mean opening up new locations? Hiring new PTs? Nobody else is going to rally the troops for you, you have to paint the vision of success and lead your team there.

Next, List Out Your Team

This may not necessarily mean specific marketing employees! Think about it more in terms of roles than job titles. In many clinics, office staff or others help with certain marketing actions such as keeping patient mailing lists up to date or tracking the total new and returning patients each month. 

Also in most clinics the owner is going to have a certain amount of marketing leadership responsibility even if they have a staff member carrying out the day-to-day needs. 

No matter how your team looks, list it out here so everyone knows what’s expected.

Lastly, Calculate Your PT Marketing Budget

The reason I say “calculate” is because a marketing budget is exactly that – it’s not your job to guess what seems right but instead use a simple calculation based on your practice’s annual revenue.

The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends 7-8% of total revenue be spent on marketing. I’ve also heard smarter people than me say “5% to keep your business running, 10% to grow your business”

If you’re a little more used to budgeting and forecasting you can adjust each month’s actual number based on when you expect lower or higher revenue.

For example, let’s say a clinic averages about $700,000 annually and is trying to achieve a moderate growth level (8% budget):

Statistically, underspending is MUCH more common for PT clinics than overspending. But the beauty of this system is you don’t have to have a huge budget, you just have to plan the right percentage.

Is there an easier way to do this?

Yes! Let us help you with the math. We created a simple, interactive PT Marketing Budget Calculator that takes your revenue and your practice goals into account: 

You can also get 3 sample budgets for clinics of different sizes here:

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#2.
Describe Your Target Audience & Key Branding Statements

Your ideal target audience or “buyer persona” and what your brand offers in value to that audience sets the tone for many of the marketing messages you will send out throughout the year. Before getting into the meat of your physical therapy marketing plan below, fill out these 2 sections:

Target Audience:

Finally, it’s not uncommon to have “secondary” audiences in your marketing plan as well so feel free to fill out 1 or 2 additional personas.

Next is how your company or brand relates to those personas:

Key Branding Statements & Differentiators:

PS – If you haven’t, take some time to evaluate your competition and actually list out what their differentiating statements appear to be. This can help you position yourself in a unique way.

Now that we’ve covered the important goals and details about your clinic, it’s time to dig into the strategy of your PT marketing plan:

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#3.
Set Your Marketing Goals & Targets

Next, you want to write measurable marketing goals for this year. It’s important to note that these are different from your practice goals in step 1. 

In fact, the marketing goals you write should be the “sub-steps” that help you reach the practice goals above.

Good goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. You should be able to tell if you’ve met your PT marketing goals or not.

First, narrow down about 3 high-level goals or initiatives to focus on.

They might be:

1. Market More “Direct-To-Consumer”
   WHY this is a good goal: According to the APTA, 97% of PT clinics reported a decrease in doctor referrals. Additionally, this article shows that while specialist referrals have increased over the past decade, referrals to PTs have managed to plummet 55%. That’s a big threat to practices who heavily rely on them. However, if you take control of your own marketing, by going directly to local consumers in your area, you will have better predictability and stability in your patient volume.
   
2. Increase New Patients Online
   WHY this is a good goal: Your new patients will NOT come from social media. In fact, according to marketing agency BrightEdge, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media (BrightEdge, 2019). One of the primary ways new patients find you and your practice is through an online search, allowing them to visit your website or look up your contact information.
   
3. Bring More Past Patients Back
   WHY this is a good goal: Studies show it is 5X cheaper to bring back a patient than find a new one. Your past patient list is a gold mine of people who know you and trust you already. If you have a mailing list of 2500, even just a 1% response will add 25 patients to your schedule at a very low cost. Staying on top of their mind for new pains – even years down the road – is a great way to keep your clinic busy.

Next, determine the statistic you will use to measure success & set a target with a date.

For Example, our first goal was Market More “Direct-To-Consumer.” 

To measure this goal, look at the percentage of patients that come in directly (such as walk-ins, through phone, email, via website, etc.) vs. patients that come through doctor referrals. Set a target percent of direct-access patients and a date you want to reach that percentage such as: 

• “By December 2024, physician referrals will only make up 50% of our patients.” 

The second was Increasing New Patients Online. 

For this stat, track the Number of New Patient Leads & New Patient Calls from your website. For instance: 

• “By September 2024, my clinic will average 10 new patients a month from our website alone.” 

Lastly, Bring More Past Patients Back

To measure this goal, simply track your clinic’s number of reactivated patients. 

Example target: 

• “By December 2024, 10 past patients will be coming back to the clinic every month.” 

“If you want to get bigger, then you have to understand that you can’t be purposeful about marketing if you’re spending 40 hours a week treating patients.”

-Raj Suppiah, Co-Founder of Foundation Physiotherapy & Wellness, Practice Promotions Client

Now that you have your Practice Goals set, your Target Audience, and your Marketing Goals in place, it’s time to lay out your strategy. 

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#4.
Lay Out Your Strategy to Reach Your Annual Marketing Targets

Now for the part most people think of when they hear the word “marketing plan,” the specific strategy. 

Inexperienced marketers will often jump right to this step (or worse, skip it and jump right to the tactics). But here’s why that’s a mistake…

HubSpot defines a marketing strategy as:

“A marketing strategy is a plan for reaching a specific marketing-related goal (or goals) in a focused and achievable way. It takes into consideration what your business is currently doing well and what you’re missing in regards to the objective you set, so you’re more likely to accomplish it.”

Essentially, it’s a well-thought-out plan to meet your goals. Therefore, skipping the goal-setting above makes laying out a marketing strategy much more difficult, like shooting an arrow blindfolded in a hurricane.

So take a look at your goals above. Where are the gaps between where you are now and where you aim to be? What has to happen to make those goals a reality?

Based on 20 years of experience in the PT marketing industry, we have created a simple 5-step PT Marketing Funnel that helps physical therapists achieve the three goals above:

• Attract more new patients by going direct-to-consumer 
• Increase new patients online 
• Bring past patients back in the clinic 

If you’d like, you can watch a 10-minute video workshop on the PT Marketing Funnel here. 

Otherwise, here’s an overview of the five steps:

Filling In Your Strategy: A 5-Step Patient Marketing Example 

Each of these 5 areas should be monitored, invested in, and optimized monthly for best results:

Step 1) Build a Massive Online Presence 

Purpose: 

To create a massive online presence leveraging Google, search engines, and social media to be easily discovered by thousands more people in our community searching for our solutions. This will help our goals of marketing more direct to consumer and attracting more patients online.

Stats to Measure Success: 

• Organic Google Rank (SEO)
• Website Traffic
• High Number of Visitors to Your Blog

Where do you go when you are looking for an answer? Google. 

That’s where your patients are looking, too. So, if your goal is to attract new patients online, you need to create a massive online presence. Your clinic CAN be discovered by thousands more people in your community searching for your solutions. Being found online can be complicated. But basically, it comes down to:

• Increase your rank on Page 1 of Google (SEO).
• Leverage local search like Google My Business
• Blog regularly to increase traffic to your website

To measure your success, first look at your PT website’s organic Google rank for key phrases like “physical therapy near me” or “back pain near me”. You need to appear on the first page. Also, check: are you on Google Maps and Google My Business? Are your hours up-to-date?

Website traffic is always a good way to find out if you are getting discovered online. How many people are finding your site every month? 

(Read the tactics section below for specific recommendations for getting found online)

Step 2) Maximize Online Discovery

Purpose

Next, supercharge the amount of people finding you with paid ads and increasing how many local listings you appear on with Local SEO. Thanks to Google’s 2021 Vicinity Update, you have to “pay to play” and show up on Page 1.

Stats to Measure Success

• High number of clicks / conversions on your Google Ads
• You appear in 2-3 places on Page 1 of Google for several search terms

Consider these actions…

• Use PT-specific Google Ads to command more space at the top of searches like “physical therapy [your town].”
• Add on Google Ads targeting specific conditions you treat – about 80% of potential patients search for conditions not knowing about PT yet. 
• Make sure you show up on local listings / Local SEO!

Step 3) Build Trust

Once patients they find you, educate & excite them by connecting with their specific problem then building trust in your expertise with proof from others like them. This will remove doubt/fear and make them ready to schedule.

Purpose

Show that you have helped other people get relief from pain. Help the patient make the mental shift from “this place provides physical therapy” to “What if this clinic could help ME?”

Stats to Measure Success

High # of 4 and 5-star reviews on Google, Yelp, etc.

Step 4) Convert Patients

Once patients are ready, call them to action! Use clear language like “book appointment” and give them the option to call or use a form. Also make sure you know where calls & leads come from so you can invest wisely.

Purpose: 

To increase phone call inquiries and online appointment requests and ensure a high percentage of visitors/leads convert into scheduled patients. This will help achieve our goals of increasing new patients online.

Stats to Measure Success: 

• # of Website Appointment Requests
• # of New Patient Phone Calls

The goal of this step in your marketing strategy is 2-fold:

1. Call people whose interest has been piqued by the earlier stages to take action & contact you. (this won’t work as easily if you haven’t built their trust first!)
2. Make it as easy and painless as possible for them to go from interested to scheduled. This is essentially the sales part of your marketing strategy, so keep in mind it may require a personal touch. For example, when your staff answers the phones are they trained to answer insurance questions and say thank you? Or answer a question and quickly turn it into a scheduled appointment?

The most important factor in great new patient conversion is making sure your website is generating signups. But we’ll get more into that in the last section below.

(Read tactics section below for specific recommendations on improving new patient conversion)

Step 5) Leverage Patient Reactivations & Referrals

During & after care, you need to develop patient loyalty. This requires a good clinic experience and staying top-of-mind consistently after care. You should also request reviews now. Finally, fill your schedule with reactivations and patient referrals by calling past patients to action with newsletters, email, and more.

Purpose: 

To nurture your patient list and stay on the top of their mind so they will return for future conditions, refer friends, and promote your practice.

Stats to Measure Success: 

# of Reactivated Patients/month

When past patient marketing comes up, most PT owners I’ve ever talked to react something like this: “Yeeaaahh, I know I should market to my past patients but we don’t do much right now”

The excuses are usually time or cost. That’s because the most effective way to market to past patients is still printing and sending direct mail to your patient list at least once per month and paying for postage feels like a big expense.

But real data does not support that feeling.

Marketing to your past patients through, at minimum, direct mail and email needs to be a priority for any clinic with a patient list of 500 or more. More on that below.

Bonus: Keep Patients Engaged Convert Patients

Purpose: 

To keep patients engaged with our clinic & their therapists by leveraging marketing tools that increase compliance, retention, testimonials, and social media engagement.

Stats to Measure Success: 

• Patient retention rate
• HEP Compliance
• Social media followers

Many practices make the mistake of ending their marketing plan after the person becomes a patient. Don’t be like those practices!

A new patient still needs to be nurtured, educated, and engaged to ensure they stay through their care plan and have an experience worth sharing with their friends and family.

(Read tactics section below for specific recommendations on boosting patient engagement)

Finally, let’s move on to the specific actions & tools you will use to accomplish your new strategy!

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#5.
Plan Specific Tactics & Marketing Actions

What do I mean by “tactics?”

The best way to define a tactic is to review the sections above:

Your “marketing plan” is this guiding document that lays out your annual goals…
Your “strategy” refers to the broad areas marketing will focus on to reach those goals…
And lastly, “Tactics” are specific actions you take or tools you use that fit in one of your strategy’s steps. 

Tactics are things like: 

• Social media posting
• Paid advertising on Google
• Monthly newsletters, etc.

No single tactic alone is meant to achieve your annual new patient goal. Instead, many tactics working together within your strategy add up to a full marketing plan.

Specific Tactics for Step 1
(Build a Massive Online Presence)

BOOST ORGANIC GOOGLE RANK (SEO)

Many methods of marketing get you in front of people who may not need your service now, but you hope they remember when the time comes. However, working on your Google rank via search engine optimization puts you in front of people actively searching for help with pain. Make it a priority to improve your Google rank this year through consistent blogging, condition pages on your website, or enlisting an SEO professional for more advanced help.

One thing to remember here – if your website is more than 2-3 years old, loads slowly, or is hard to see/use on mobile devices no amount of blogging will get Google to rank you highly. Keep your website up to date!

LEVERAGE LOCAL SEARCH & LISTINGS

As a local business, leveraging local listing profiles like Google Mybusiness, Yelp, and others will get you at the top of local searches without as much technical work as typical SEO. You essentially fill out these profiles like you would a Facebook page. But be thorough! Include hours, conditions, plenty of custom photos, and fill out a profile for each location. 

Also, there are over 70 of these listing websites, so focus on the most popular 5 or so in your area or use a local listing distribution tool that lets you fill out your information once and send it to many different sites.

Additional Resources to Improve Your Online Discovery: 

1. Top 5 Google Hacks for Physical Therapy Websites 
2. How Do Patients Actually Find You Online?
3. Online Business Directories for PT Practices 
4. SEO Keywords for Physical Therapy Websites
5. 3 Simple Steps to Boost Your Practice Website’s SEO That You Can Do Today

Specific Tactics for Step 2
(Maximize Online Discovery)

GOOGLE ADS FOR “PHYSICAL THERAPY”

Once again, advertising on Google ensures you get in front of people searching for your specific services. This has become a must for any clinic looking to grow especially if you’re in a competitive area. 

GOOGLE ADS FOR SPECIFIC CONDITIONS

Don’t limit yourself to “physical therapy” searches! Many more people search for their symptoms than physical therapy, so include ads for “back pain” and other conditions so you can show them how you can help.

Additional Resources to Improve Your Google Ads:

• Understand How the Google Vicinity Update Affects Your Practice
• The Ultimate Guide to Physical Therapy Google Advertising
• 5 Reasons Your PT Practice Should Advertise With Google Ads PPC

 

Specific Tactics for Step 3
(Build Trust)

INCREASE 5-STAR GOOGLE REVIEWS

Most owners know how important Google reviews are in today’s world. But what’s important to realize is you need to have reviews coming in every week and month for best results. 5-10 reviews a month is MUCH better than having 50 at a time and not getting any for several months.

INCREASE FACEBOOK & YELP REVIEWS

Depending on your audience, reviews on other websites might be just as important to you. That’s fine! If possible don’t ignore Google because it can help your SEO more, but it’s great to give patients options depending on where they interact.

GIVE YOUR WEBSITE A “WOW” FACTOR + MAKE IT EASY TO USE

Potential patients are likely browsing at least 3-5 competitors’ websites in addition to yours. Many of them will leave a website in the first 3 seconds if they don’t get a feeling of professionalism & personal care from what they see. Design isn’t everything, but it is a big thing.

What’s more – even if your first impression is good patients want to be able to find the information they need quickly and without confusion. When someone has only just discovered your practice, you don’t have enough of a relationship to stop them from leaving just because your website was too slow or confusing. Pay attention to how many pages people view on your site and how long they browse to understand if you are doing this well or not.

CREATE A CONSISTENT ONLINE BRAND PRESENCE

This is less about increasing trust as avoiding LOSING their trust. If a potential patient sees an ad for your clinic – billboards, Facebook, anywhere – then visits your website and things look different or information isn’t consistent, it comes off as “sketchy.” Make the effort to keep the visuals of your brand and info about your clinic consistent across the internet.

Additional Resources to Help You Build Trust: 

1. Stop Feeling Awkward! How to Ask for Google Reviews [Podcast]
2. Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Yelp Reviews with Ujjwal [Podcast]
3. PT Practice Generates 42 Reviews in 30 Days

Specific Tactics for Step 4
(New Patient Conversion)

WEBSITE CONVERSION BEST PRACTICES

If you’re currently getting 2,000 website visitors a month but no appointments, then advertising to get more visitors won’t help. However, following a handful of PT website best practices such as using a contrasting red, orange, or green appointment button and placing it in 3-4 places on the homepage including the top right corner can ensure you call people who are interested to take action. Here’s a more in-depth collection of website conversion tips.

ONLINE APPOINTMENT MECHANISM 

Online appointment requests are essential now. People are searching online so give them the option of taking action immediately even if that’s as simple as filling out a form & your front desk calling them back. 

AUTOMATED PT CHATBOT

Some visitors will have questions and you don’t want that to stop them from reaching out. A very simple chatbot that focuses on getting them in touch with the front desk is a great bridge to converting visitors who aren’t quite sure yet.

PHONE CALLS FROM WEBSITE & ADS 

Even in our digital-first world, many people will still want to call vs. filling out information online. Make that option easy to find! You can even link phone numbers into Google ads or Google Mybusiness to keep your phones ringing. Just make sure your staff is trained to turn calls into appointments.

WEBSITE & PHONE CALL TRACKING 

Since your website is such a critical piece to converting patients, you need to know whether its working or not. Make sure your website company provides easy-to-understand analytics and ideally includes call tracking so you know where your phone calls come from (Google ads, your newsletter, an organic search, etc).

Additional Resources to Convert More New Patients On Your Physical Therapy Website 

• PT Practice Website Performance Checklist (PDF, also available below this list)
• Check out Fix Your Front Desk Academy for powerful staff training
• Blog: ‘What is a Website Conversion?’ + How to Get More 
• Podcast: How To Diagnose & Fix Your Clinic Website’s Problems

Specific Tactics for Step 5
(Leverage Patient Reactivations & Referrals)

This final step is about keeping the relationship you’ve worked so hard to build. Even patients who have the BEST experiences eventually stop telling their friends unless they are reminded. To build the best base of raving fans who refer others and trust you first for pain, you must work to stay top-of-mind.

Here’s how:

MONTHLY PATIENT NEWSLETTER

Above I mentioned a third-party study showing how it is 5X cheaper to get past customers back, but what about PT Clinics? Does that change?

Last year – practices using the Ultimate PT Marketing System who mailed their newsletters each month averaged a response rate of just over 1%. That’s 10 patients for every 1,000 newsletters sent. Is that worth the cost? Let’s do the math:

• On average, a patient is worth about $960 per care plan in the US.
• It costs about 70cents per newsletter to print and direct mail.
• So if an average clinic spends $1,400 to send 2,000 newsletters and gets 20 patients back, that’s a potential return of over $19,000. 

Marketing to your past patients absolutely is the cheapest way to fill your schedule, it just takes more time and consistency than other efforts. Just be sure to track your returning patients every month so you can see the results.

EMAIL MARKETING (BLOGS & HEALTH TIPS)

Remember all that valuable content like blogs and digital newsletters we mentioned above? It’s no good if you don’t send it out! Emails with free tips or things that improve people’s lives should outnumber your sales emails about 3-1.

REACTIVATION CALLS + EMAILS

Checking in on your patients after care is a highly personal, caring action. But reactivation calls are specifically a marketing action. You do NOT want to be like a telemarketer, but there is an ideal window to contact a past patient in that is long enough after treatment for new issues to have arisen yet not so long they forgot about you. Simply ask how they’re doing, if any new conditions have come up, and if so… help them!

PATIENT REFERRALS

Patient referrals are wonderful but they need to be encouraged & asked for. Whether you have a referral incentive or not, make sure a certain amount of direct mail, emails, etc are specifically asking people to refer friends. Done consistently people will begin to subconsciously memorize your referral request & be ready when a friend or family member mentions pain, etc.

Additional Resources to turn past patients into Raving Fans:

• 1 Simple Step to Get Past Patients Back in the Clinic [Podcast]
• How Custom Newsletters Can Grow Your PT Practice [Article]
• Past Patient Postcard campaigns
• Why Your Past Patient List = A Gold Mine, with James Pumarada, PT [Video]

Specific Tactics for Bonus Step
(Patient Engagement)

This is where “marketing” to patients becomes about making their experience with you easy, valuable, and caring enough for them to stay with you and come back in the future. You want to take them from having agreed to trust your expertise to being glad they did. You also want to nurture them from just having learned that PT can help their condition to understanding how valuable PT is to health in general.

Here are a few ways to do that:

PROVIDE FREE, VALUABLE CONTENT EVERY MONTH

You are an expert in many aspects of health, and every single person in the world deals with their health in some way. Freely sharing your expertise through blogs, emails, brochures, rack cards on specific conditions, … anyway people will listen builds your reputation as knowledgeable but also caring. 

FOCUS ON YOUR HEP EXPERIENCE

Your HEP is more than a list of instructions you hope patients follow, it’s a tool you must use to keep them coming through their entire plan of care. Think about your HEP from your customers’ point of view – is it making their exercise routine easier? Is it educating them along the way and offering MORE value than expected? Does it include easy, quick ways to get in touch with their therapist with questions? All of this changes their experience for better or worse, take the time to make sure it’s for the better.

PS – in today’s video-heavy world, an HEP mobile app is a fantastic way to provide a great experience.

ENCOURAGE SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT

This is the best time to engage with them on social media since they are actively interacting with you in person and will be more willing to comment, like, share, etc. As current patients take those actions, your social pages will get favorable placement by the platform’s algorithms. The best way to grow your social media presence is by making it about your current (aka most engaged) patients first.

REQUEST REVIEWS & TESTIMONIALS

This is also the stage of your patient marketing to request reviews. Reviews are best requested in-person, then supported with follow up emails or through your HEP app if you’re using that. Online review marketing tools are nice but use them to SUPPORT your in person efforts, don’t rely on them solely. 

You can also use a variety of print materials with QR codes to make in-person requests easier.

Additional Resources to Increase Patient Engagement:

• The 3 R’s of Rehab Growth: Retention, Referrals, & Reactivation [Article]
• Boost Patient Retention with PT Technology | feat. Vikram Sethuraman [Webinar Replay]
• Custom-printed new patient welcome materials

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Final Step.
Share The Plan With Your Team

Congratulations!

You should now have a filled-in physical therapy marketing plan for 2024. Hopefully, you found some new ideas along the way and have a clearer vision to share with your team and even hold them accountable.

So what’s next?

This plan won’t do any good unless you all share it with your team. Here are a few tips for sharing your plan:

• Review the practice goals and really focus on the why behind what you’re asking them to do. 
• Ask for your marketing team’s feedback and specific ideas on HOW to do certain things. What software do they find helpful? Do they have any ideas you didn’t include?
• Hold an annual overview meeting with your entire staff. There are points where therapists and office staff play key roles in getting marketing messages to patients, so they should understand the goals and “why” as well.
• Set monthly reporting meetings with your marketing team & clearly communicate what they should come to the meeting with. Usually this means all the stats listed in the strategy & marketing goals section plus ideas to improve areas that need attention.
• Lastly, keep it positive. You want this to be about all of you moving towards a great & achievable goal not a list of demands you have from your employees. Celebrate wins publicly and work together, supportively, on things that may not be going as well.

What if I have a small marketing team or none at all?

It’s okay to have goals that are beyond your current bandwidth or manpower. That’s what growth is about! But don’t put off or ignore the need for more resources for long. Outsourcing certain areas of marketing to allow your small staff (or yourself) to focus on areas they’re strongest in is a great place to start. Check out some of the options we have available for clinics of any size here.

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Bonus: Statistics & Resources To Help You Plan

• In the marketing industry, the top-performing articles are over 5,700 words in length. (SEMrush, 2019) Articles that are >3,000 words get 3x more traffic, 4x more shares, and 3.5x more backlinks than shorter articles. (SEMrush, 2019) 
• Listicles get 2x more shares than other blog post formats. (SEMrush, 2019) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)
• SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media. (BrightEdge, 2019) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)
• To improve site performance, the top technical SEO tactic used by marketers is optimizing mobile performance. (HubSpot, 2020) 
• 49% of users say they use Google to discover or find a new item or product. (Think with Google, 2019) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)
• “Where to buy” and “near me” mobile queries have grown by over 200% in the past two years. (Think with Google, 2019) 
• 60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly using the search results such as the “click to call” option. (Think with Google, 2019) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)