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Marketing ideas
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Marketing ideas - November 3, 2007 12:59:34 PM
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BillW
Posts: 10
Joined: May 8, 2006
From: Frankfort, Illinois
Status: offline
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I am sur ethis thread has come up before. I have had poor results with doing Dr lunches and dropping off info with the front office staff. Does anyone have any good advice regarding marketing plans that have worked well for them?
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RE: Marketing ideas - November 5, 2007 6:57:51 PM
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alodato
Posts: 21
Joined: April 9, 2007
From: Woodinville, WA
Status: offline
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Some marketing ideas that have worked for me are:
1. Current patients - They are by far, my BIGGEST referral source. If you do a good job with them, then they will publicize you to friends, families, and most importantly their doctor. Don't be afraid to mention to them that you are never too busy to take a new referral.
2. Be unique - Make your clinic or your skills different than the competition and push that. For instance, we do 1 hour treatments with no aides or assistants, we do orthotic/biomechanical evaluations, we do women's health and everyone one of our PTs has a post-grad certification, most with multiple certs.....This is HUGE to patients!
3. Doctor Lunches - These work to get your name out there, but ask what they look for in PT and more importantly, ask them what they like to see....it shows that you possibly will refer patients to them. I agree, unless you have an "in" with the docs, it can be frustrating....One tip here, let #1 be an "in" for you.
4. Give talks - Find a runners group or some other athletic group and give a talk on common injuries/treatments. Speak about what you can do for them and more importantly, when it is a serious matter that is beyond a PT's intervention (shows that you are willing to use the health care chain and have good relationships with other practioners). IMO, chiros tend to tell people they can cure everything from spine problems to deafness.....We as PTs are different!
Hope this helps!
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RE: Marketing ideas - November 5, 2007 10:26:53 PM
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FLAOrthoPT
Posts: 1011
Joined: May 8, 2004
From: West Palm Beach
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Better yet, reverse the paradigm! Stop waiting for docs to give you a patient. Tell me how these two scenarios sound to you if you were a doc:
1)Hey doc, I am a great PT and my clinic rocks and we do shoulders WAY better than the clinic down the road. Can you send us your patients?
2)Hey doc, I am going to be sending you about 10 patients a month through my running symposium that I do each week. All I ask in return is to send me the patients both pre and post surgery or for conservative care that come and see you.
So, stop being a passive system. If you rely on medicare, go to the traditionally geriatric areas of your town, and do some free wellness things to help screen for things like low back pain, then send those patients to the ortho to be evaluated and sent back to you for therapy. Do a free golf analysis, of body mechanics, etc...and patients who have hip or back or shoulder restrictions, well send them to the ortho as part of the "medical golf team" and in return they check them out and send them back, and soon they'll send you some more patients anyway and some more of the niche you are carving out, like golfers who came to them first...
just need to change your thinking...
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RE: Marketing ideas - November 5, 2007 11:56:06 PM
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bonez
Posts: 156
Joined: August 29, 2007
Status: offline
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While practice marketing doesn't really happen in the great white north, it is interesting to hear these ideas for practice growth. The funny thing is that these are all ideas that have been presented to the chiro population only it was about 15+ years ago.
While there seems to be some professional bickering south of the border the physio population would not waste as much time if they could glean info off the non subluxation based chiros as to what works and doesn't wrt practice marketing.
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RE: Marketing ideas - November 6, 2007 8:02:50 AM
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SJBird55
Posts: 2242
Joined: May 10, 2004
From: Michigan
Status: online
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Reality is that it's all in who you know.
The more involved you are in the community, the more aware others are of you and what you do. And I don't mean just educating or doing PT stuff, I mean actually caring about something other than your PT world and doing something for the greater good of the community.
Take it a step further and get to know small details of others (physicians included) and remember those details. Have an actual relationship versus demanding patients.
I have found that short "newsletters" seem to work pretty good. In my newsletter I target the type of patients I'd like to have walking through the doors. I generally only target 3 physician offices. I personally like a small cohesive team versus referrals from all over the area. This comfort level of mine is not reality though because if you do a good job and your customers are loyal the amount of referrals from unknown sources increases because the referral source has no clue who you are but the patient walking in the door knows more about you than you know about him or her. This is exactly what alodato states as number 1 (and I'd have to agree).
There is something very special about being chosen by the patient to serve him or her.
This year, now that I have enough data, I know I have 4-5 physicians that have supported me the last 2 years with their confidence in my abilities. I always send a personal Christmas card to them, but in the beginning of 2008, I'm actually going to send them a personal thank you. In my thank you I will address their actual behaviors in referring for services. On physician always sends the high school injured athletes... one physician tends to always send the elderly patients that have multiple co-morbidities and patients with back pain... one physician tends to send patients with a neurological overlay combined with orthopaedic issues... one physician tends to always think of me when he has an elderly patient following up after hospitalization and funtion has substantially declined. I know from the trends that I see that the physician is actually putting thought into where he/she would like the patient to go for physical therapy services.
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RE: Marketing ideas - November 6, 2007 1:39:06 PM
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ehanso
Posts: 353
Joined: September 14, 2004
From: Minnesota
Status: offline
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I have not been in pvt practice for some time, but I did a lot of research on the Docs that were referring pts. I sent them birthday cards and some that i personally knew i would send anniversary cards. If i read about something one of their kids did i would clip the article and send it to them. Little things, but they remember when your name comes across their desk.
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RE: Marketing ideas - December 12, 2007 2:57:48 AM
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webrehab
Posts: 24
Joined: January 31, 2002
From: San Diego
Status: offline
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Bill,
I currently help a bunch of practices across the nation with their marketing efforts so I have a bit of advice. Much of the previous advice has been stated and is great!
Short answer is:
Have a Vision ->Passion->Present an Exceptional Image to the community ->Differentiators (deserve the referrals by being the expert)->Communicate this to Key Referral sources -> Develop Relationships and strategic partnerships->Deliver exceptional service (clinical care and customer service) ->Communicate regularly with referral sources (in other words, get out of the office) ->repeat ->retain.
1. Have a vision. Set clear goals for yourself e.g. I want to develop 10 more referral relationships this year and each will send me 3 patients per month.
2. Differentiate yourself on your passion. Niche yourself in a few of your favorite areas! You won't burn out if you are treating patients you love to care for. If you love to treat TMJ patients, you will do great work with these patients and everyone will know. Deserve these patient by being the leader in delivering evidence based practice, understanding that only you can do it (no doctor can match what you do!), and having a Yes attitude that you are the leader and feeling confident about this when you go out to create relationships with the doctors.
3. Image - have a professional image (physical evidence) for your practice.
4. Communicate this to the community. Turn up the "noise level" about what you do by doing by using the web, email, inservices, free screenings, MD meetings (start with the MD assistant and do it first thing in the AM. They are the gatekeeper to the doctor), direct mailings, join BNI, Chamber of Commerce, etc. Network and build relationships (the key word relationships). Refer patients to MD's.
5. Develop relationships. You sell yourself every day. Learn how to do this by being friendly, relevant, empathetic, real. Identify your referring physicians' needs and fill them.
6. Deliver Exceptional Service. Start even before they come in to your practice! Take every opportunity to educate the patient about all that you do. This involves proper training for you and your staff. Customer service is simply forgotten by most.
7. Communicate with the referring physicians every opportunity you get. Call them! Most clinicians never pick up the phone and call a doctor.
8. Repeat your marketing processes regularly and measure your results.
9. Retain - you never discharge a patient! You are their family physical therapist and no one can do what you do as well as you when it comes to neuromusculoskeletal rehab!
Enjoy. Make sure you regularly step back and evaluate yourself. Make sure what you are doing fulfills you. Owning a practice can be a tough grind. You may ask yourself, "Why did I even do this?"
Here are a couple practical thoughts:
a. About 50% of all of your referrals will come from 5%, yes 5% of your referring physicians. My point? You may have to go out and bust your bottom, can't get past some gatekeepers, get the door shut in your face, etc. But, you only need a few good referring docs to fill your practice. Once that happens, you need to diversify your referral base so all your eggs aren't in the same basket. I don't know your demographics, but I am sure you can do it.
b. Go to your few best referral sources and write a letter of recommendation for yourself that they only need to sign. Tell them you really like their care philosophy and would like to meet 2-3 of their colleagues that think similarly. Take that letter of recommendation to those doctors. That will be 6-9 warm leads for you with a nice letter of recommendation.
Good luck. If I can be of more help, you can visit my website www.e-rehab.com and get my contact info there. I love to help along with the rest of this group.
_____________________________
David Straight, MPT, OCS
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