CLINIC OWNER S MARKETING GUIDE. How To Market Physical Therapy Services In Today s Fast Changing Health Care Industry

Transcription

1 CLINIC OWNER S MARKETING GUIDE How To Market Physical Therapy Services In Today s Fast Changing Health Care Industry PTRM The PT Referral Machine Copyright 2015 Marketing Turnkey Systems E. Falmouth, MA 02536

2 The Landscape of the Physical Therapy Industry Has Changed Marketing physical therapy in the new age of healthcare consumerism & the Affordable Care Act. If you roll back the clock thirtyfive or forty years, you will see a referral-driven market for physical therapy services almost completely controlled by physician gatekeepers. This means that most of us grew up in an age where physical therapy was something you did only when your doctor told you to do it. That pretty much explains why most physical therapy sales and marketing consultants still preach sales and oneon-one relationship building as the best marketing strategy for physical therapists. But today is different. the days of simple relationship building, sales training, & selling doctors are over! Consumers are now the gatekeepers, frequently using information technology to self-diagnose, drill down on a professional s recommendation (yours included), or find and select a therapist on their own. All this is happening at the same time that physical therapists are growing into an expanded role with the Affordable Care Act of 2010 and some form of direct access in almost all states. In addition, as healthcare costs continue to shift to consumers in the form of high deductibles, copays, and co-insurance, they have a growing financial incentive to delay or seek out more conservative treatment options, like physical therapy. I ll say that one more time for emphasis because it s so incredibly important consumers have a strong incentive to seek out physical therapy if they know it s an option. These circumstances create an unprecedented marketing opportunity, making the physical therapy profession one of the fastest growing segments in health care. With this exciting growth comes more competition and new business challenges. Growing markets attract bigger players with more cash and marketing executives anxious to spend it a scary prospect for many smaller independent physical therapy practitioners. But hopefully that fear washes away as we unfold the solution for you in this Clinic Owner s Marketing Guide. In this growing industry, any clinic owner with good experience, training, and the right business systems can look forward to sharing the projected double-digit industry growth for many years to come. For most independent physical therapy practices the best marketing system solution is outsourcing to a partner with established physical therapy marketing operations, much the same as you would outsource your documentation and billing software needs. Applying this idea to marketing may seem strange, but it s time has come. You need to consider finding a solution, not just a training program, website, or social media assistant. For example, can you imagine running a physical therapy clinic in today s world without scheduling, billing, and documentation systems designed specifically for physical therapists? Trying to write your own software code is a really bad idea. Even if you were a good coder, any code you write will be inferior to the industry solutions that already exist. The marketing and communications demands of today s independent clinic are no different, especially when affordable options deliver superior value. If that makes sense, then the best way to take advantage of this physical therapy industry growth opportunity is to forget the feel-good, confidencebuilding doctor sales training and find the right marketing system solution. I m not talking about just a $99 website, Facebook page, some pay per click ads, and a practice rep sitting in the back room dreaming up blog posts; I m talking about a physical therapy marketing system that busts through all that clutter and gets your clinic s strategic message in front of the right people at the right time. This type of solution can t be learned in a week of seminars and workshops, and it can t be implemented from the training sheets and templates they give you to take home. In fact, many of those seminars and workshops (you know the ones I m talking about), send you home with a good tan, a three-ring binder full of stuff, but no budget left to implement a single thing anyway, for another whole year! Physical therapy marketers need to let go of the traditional emphasis on selling physicians and shift considerable focus to educating consumers about physical therapy diagnosis, treatment options, and provider selection guidelines. A market-dominating strategy will strike a balance between the needs of today s highly specialized physicians as well as consumers. Marketing in health care IS NOT a dirty word It s An important responsibility. In health care, marketing s job is to help facilitate a decision about diagnosis and treatment options for a particular condition. If you re a physical therapist, it s your responsibility to set up your communications system to produce and deliver information that helps people understand the indications and benefits of care. It s not enough to have a website with body parts to click on, chase physicians around for meetings, and call the job done. Even Marketing Needs To Educate if the right people find your website, they re not going to click around and sort through your pages and links to find out why you are any better or different when it comes to helping them with their particular problem. Instead, you need to consider their information gathering process along the complete spectrum of the consumer experience from problem recognition to provider selection, and set your marketing machine to serve it up. Page 1 Page 2

3 Lessons From The Best Health Care Marketers Drug Companies So what does a dominating physical therapy marketing system look like? A Recipe for Dominating Your Market (and feeling really good about it): 6 Physical Therapy Marketing Essentials That Serve Patients & Give You Control Over Practice Growth. After years of consulting with independent physical therapy businesses we have boiled the physical therapy clinic marketing process down to what we call the Six Essentials. 1) Strategic Planning, 2) Internal Marketing, 3) Website (internet), 4) Consumer Marketing, 5) Physician Marketing, and 6) Someone To Get It Done For You. We call them essentials because together they comprise an efficient system, a marketing machine. Removing any one of the essentials is like having broken teeth in a gear; eventually it gets stuck and stops turning. If you decide to setup and maintain the 6 Essentials on your own, chances are it will take much longer, cost a lot more, and probably get less results. Taking advantage of a turnkey system like the PT Referral Machine is a strategic decision based on your marketing needs and the possible reality that you and your staff may not have the requisite training and resources to do it effectively. Lessons From The Best Health Care Marketers Drug Companies. Drug companies recognized the physician gatekeeper problem years ago. Their strategy to overcome this was simple; stop waiting for the doctors to recommend a drug, and promote the benefits directly to the public through advertising. From a marketing perspective, these direct to consumer campaigns gave drug advertisers two powerful advantages: 1. They became first in the minds of consumers, and 2. They were able to introduce large numbers of consumers (99% of which didn t even have the ailment in question), to their treatment option even before diagnosis! A 1-2 knockout punch. No matter what you think about big drug companies advertising, it s hard to deny that the information in their ads is helpful (even the annoying disclaimers) in educating the public about treatment options, potential contraindications, and side effects. In addition, drug advertising has helped drug reps sell to more accounts with less effort than in the old days of simple relationship building. See where this is going? Wouldn t it be nice to have A Tireless Army Of Paper & Digital Practice Reps Working For You? The potential benefits of physical therapy are not well known by most consumers or their physicians. It s your responsibility (not theirs) to serve up information in an appealing way, and then reinforce in a variety of different contexts like the internet, ads, and direct mail. When the system runs correctly, consumers see your message before going to the doctor, physicians are exposed to (and reminded about) indications for treatment, and the doctor-patient conversation is fundamentally changed. When done right, the marketing problem becomes over prescription, not under prescription like today. Most (if not all) of this communication should happen without requiring a meeting between therapist and physician. When loaded with health care decision facilitating information, the marketing system becomes a tireless army of paper and digital practice reps who don t need appointments, can t make excuses, will never call in sick, ask for a raise, or quit without notice. So, you ask, does this mean physical therapists should market like the big drug companies? Well, yes, and no. Obviously, the strategy makes sense, but to pull it off, you need Fortune 500 marketing operations. When you realize this, you can stop pulling your hair out trying to implement this strategy yourself, and focus your energy on finding the right marketing services provider to handle this for you. Page 3 Page 4

4 What You Need To Get The Most Out Of Your Marketing Investment... Your marketing service provider needs three critical things to ACTUALLY EXECUTE this strategy for you: Complete Direct Response Content System Content that speaks to consumers from their point of view about their problems and spurs response. You also need concepts that can be quickly customized for your use in a variety of formats. Otherwise, you may find yourself with a pile of poorly written materials that don t get results, don t work together as a system, or never get used at the times they are needed most. Complete Implementation Services and Support Running a truly integrated marketing system requires training, experience, and lots of management support. Unless you have the resources to hire a senior-level marketing executive (and don t forget his support staff), for a generous six-figure salary plus incentives, chances are you will need a marketing services provider to handle all of this for you. Affordability Building an integrated content system for websites, marketing materials, marketing, direct mail, broadcast advertising, print advertising, and community and professional events is very expensive. Find a marketing services provider that provides access to content AND implementation on an affordable fixed budget. Assess your marketing readiness before starting any type of marketing. Most clients want more business, but are surprised or overwhelmed when they learn that they may not be ready to handle an influx of new patients and inquiries. That s why it s important to assess current staff and facilities before rolling out any type of patient aquisition marketing. Another common mistake is to assume you have a handle on this question without checking your perceptions with a variety of qualified professionals including your accountant, practice management advisor, and strategic marketing consultant with an expertise in physical therapy. Most of what you need to assess your marketing readiness is included in our getting started process. The first 30 days of a level 2 or 3 PT Referral Machine program have been carefully planned to make sure you complete a full assessment of your marketing potential with advice from our senior consultants. This process is so critical to our success together that we start every new member with a 30 Day FREE TRIAL. Getting started is easy. Visit PTreferralMachine.com and click Get Started or call (800)

5 PTRM The PT Referral Machine PTreferralMachine.com David Steinberg Physical therapy services may offer the best value in healthcare. This seems to be the best kept secret in the industry, and unless the physical therapists find a better way to communicate their value to the marketplace, it s likely to remain that way. That would be a shame, because everybody loses therapists, patients, and doctors alike. Trent Wehrhahn The PT Referral Machine is an industry solution Operated and maintained by Marketing Turnkey Systems, LLC. USA: 90 Altons Lane E. Falmouth, MA Canada: 213 Cortina Bay SW, Calgary AB, T3H 0L7 (800) Marketing Turnkey Systems, LLC.. May not be used without permission.