Why Marketing PT Will Get You Zero Clients

Working with cash based physical therapy practice owners, I often see them get hung up on the marketing piece to their business. Many of my students will verbalize “If I just had better marketing, I would have more clients. While this is not entirely false, marketing PT is not always the answer to your physical therapy entrepreneurship troubles. 

This may come as surprising to many of you who have followed me for some time now, afterall, I also provide digital marketing services alongside business coaching for cash based practice owners. Not to mention, I love learning and improving marketing strategies for my clients and my own business.

In this blog post, we’re going to break down why marketing and advertising physical therapy isn’t the key to getting more clients, and more importantly, what you should focus on instead.

The Biggest Cash Pay Physical Therapy Mistake

When a provider is looking to start a cash based practice, oftentimes marketing and advertising the practice is the first thing on their minds. First instinct is to tell others that they provide physical therapy services and leave it at that. This often comes before the practice owner has set up their business entity, knows what they want to charge, or knows what target audience they are hoping to work with.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a cookie cutter solution to marketing a cash pay physical therapy practice. And even a perfect marketing strategy, although there truly isn’t one, is not going to be what alone helps you to be a successful solo practice. Learn more about why your business’ success doesn’t only depend on marketing in the blog post here.

At the end of the day, if you’re marketing a practice as “Hey, I’m a physical therapist,” you’re not going to attract potential customers, especially not your ideal customer.

Why a General Marketing Plan Doesn’t Work

One of the concepts I see my students have a hard time grasping is the fact the average person doesn’t know much about physical therapy, or any medical practice at all. We as healthcare providers understand what our role is and what products and services we bring to the table, but a random John Smith on Instagram doesn’t.

It’s this lack of knowledge that makes general marketing on any marketing channel ineffective. As I mentioned before, simply saying “I’m a physical therapist and can help you” doesn’t work. The key to successful marketing lies in being specific—you need to focus on a specific audience with a specific problem and offer them a specific solution.

The Power of Niche Marketing

If you take nothing else from reading this post, I want you to understand this - niching down is critical to the success of physical therapy small businesses.

Taking the general approach requires people to ponder and wonder if you’re the right fit for them, what it is you do, and how you can help. When a potential client has to think for longer than a short period of time about whether you’re the right physical therapist for them, they end up moving on. That potential revenue for you and your business is gone.

To give you an example from my own practice, I primarily work with CrossFit athletes struggling with shoulder, back, hip, or knee pain. I also help active women with pelvic floor dysfunction. Narrowing down who it is I work with and the problems I solve allows my marketing strategies to speak directly to the individuals I want to help. 

Narrowing down your target audience and exactly what it is you offer makes it easier for people to understand what it is that you do, as well as whether or not you’re the right fit for them. You can’t say the same about a general marketing strategy that screams “I’m a PT and help everyone.” 

Why Being Specific Makes Marketing Easier

Now we understand that niching down and being specific helps your ideal customer decide if you’re the right fit for them, but how does this benefit you as the business owner? 

Being specific in what you do and who you help reduces the time and effort you have to spend on marketing for your practice. Whatever marketing tool you’re using should be utilized to broadcast your USP, or unique selling point, that explicitly states who you help and the problem you solve. When your marketing message is targeted, the right people—those who actually need your services and you want to work with—will pay attention and reach out to you.

I know it’s tempting to want to serve everyone, especially when you’re just starting out and feel like you’ll take whatever client you can get. Plus we as healthcare providers truly just want to help others feel better and live a better quality of life. But if you try to market to everyone, you’ll attract no one. It seems the opposite of what it should be, but take it from someone with experience running a successful practice, being specific is the way to go.

You’re Not Selling Physical Therapy

As I’ve mentioned several times, knowing who you help and the problem you solve is critical. You’re not selling physical therapy to your ideal customer. You’re selling the solution to their problem. 

Not only do your marketing efforts need to focus on specifically who you help, but also the outcome they can expect from working with you. This could be running without knee pain, working out without leaking urine, playing with grandchildren without back pain. Again, it needs to be specific.

For example, instead of marketing “physical therapy,” focus on the transformation you provide: “I help CrossFit athletes eliminate joint pain so they can get back to their workouts.” That’s a clear, tangible outcome that people will understand.

You’ll also find that shifting your marketing focus to solving your clients’ problems will help reduce the likelihood of questions like “Do you take my insurance?” or “Why should I pay you $100 when I can go down the street and pay someone else $50?”

Position Yourself as the “Go-to Guy” (or Gal)

To further build off of marketing the problem you solve and for whom, this strategy helps your to position yourself as the “go-to guy.” To make it simple, think about the amount of therapists within your area all “selling physical therapy services.” This in itself is confusing for potential clients and reduces their likelihood of commitment to services. 

In a way, this saturation of PTs trying to sell PT services is good news for you. Because you have already narrowed your marketing message and speak directly to your ideal client, you take out the guesswork for those that are appropriate to work with you. This simple fact reduces the challenge of competing with every other physical therapist in your area because potential clients know you’re the expert who can help them with their specific problem.

To give you an example, if you become known as the go-to person for female CrossFit athletes struggling with peeing their pants during exercise, when an individual with this problem hears that you’re the one to call, they’re already more likely to be convinced that you’re the person for the job. This helps to build credibility and trust with potential clients, making them more likely to commit to you and your services.

To learn more about the importance of building trust and credibility for your business, read the blog post here.

Sales Skills Can Make or Break You

Now that we’ve covered the essential marketing strategy that helps to get your name out there, there is another key piece to landing clients - sales. You can generate as many leads as you possibly can, but if your sales skills are shaky, converting those leads is going to be a lot more challenging.

Just like any other skill, becoming a good salesperson takes repetition and practice. Don’t get frustrated if you’re not a pro when selling to your first potential customer, this skill takes time. The important thing is that you work to identify your strong and weak points when it comes to sales and build from there. 

It may be self explanatory but the sales process is where the real work happens. You’ve already convinced a potential client that you’re the “go-to guy” to solve their problem (which you are), now you have to drive home that message with your sales communication skills. Being able to communicate well with a potential client and further help them see how you’re the right one to solve their specific problem at that time will better ensure they choose you to work with over someone else.

To learn more about selling your physical therapy services for cash, ready the blog post here.

Conclusion

In conclusion, yes marketing is important but it’s not necessarily the end all be all to building your business as a cash pay practice owner. The key is to focus your energy on getting clear about who you help and the problems you solve to help build trust and credibility with your audience. Once you have this down, your marketing will come easier, as will an influx of those interested in working with you. 

Potential clients don’t want to see that you’re trying to sell them physical therapy, they want to see that you’re the “go-to guy” to fix their specific problem and feel confident you’ll do a good job. To drive things home, make sure your sales skills are on par and if they’re not, seek out opportunities to improve them. 

By shifting your focus to specific marketing and solid sales skills, you’ll be more likely to build a thriving practice that helps you serve the individuals you’re so passionate about helping.

If you’re struggling to narrow your marketing message or feel that your sales skills need some work, we cover all of these concepts in our DPT to CEO business coaching program. Or if you’d like to find out more about if our program would be the right fit for you, book a free discovery call with me here! We can discuss your goals, current state of your practice, and what your next best steps would be.

Listen to this episode on my podcast!