Target Practice
Monday July 19, 2010
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Even the most proficient PTs could be twiddling their thumbs in empty clinics unless they get the word out about how their skills can help their target clients, says Howard Edgar, senior director of creative services for Practice Builders LLC, in Irvine, Calif. In his 15 years with the consulting firm, he estimates he has worked with several hundred PT practices.
Target Marketing
“For us, the whole science of marketing comes down to who is the target audience? What location are you in? What are the needs of the people in your area? And then trying to reach out to them in a way that lets them know you can solve those problems,” Edgar says.
Edgar had one client in New York whose referrals for aqua therapy, orthopedic postsurgical rehab, neck, spine and low back pain had dwindled over the years. “He was the best-kept secret in the area,” he says.
Their marketing campaign for him included developing a brand identity (a consistent look and color scheme on all written material), creating a direct mail campaign to referral sources publicizing the specifics of his practice, and designing strategies for practice representatives to use in-person during presentations at different medical practices.
“After all of our help, he was able to increase his patient visits by 33%. He had a 60% increase in net revenues after implementation of this marketing plan,” Edgar says.
Attract Referrals
The target market depends on the type of practice. “A lot of our strategies are devoted strictly to building referral relationships,” Edgar says.
Analyze who needs to know about the clinical successes of the practice in order to beef up referrals. Do you need to target physicians, insurance companies, industry or consumers directly?
Then establish some sort of a marketing plan. “Don’t go out and just do the shotgun approach, the spaghetti approach where you throw a bunch of things up against the wall to see what sticks,” Edgar says. “Review your plan every year and make adjustments based on changes in the marketplace.”
His organization develops a variety of marketing strategies for clients, including e-media, websites, direct mail, branding, billboards, TV and radio commercials, and more.
The key, he says, is not the medium as much as the message. All marketing strategies should demonstrate how the practice can solve the problems of the clients they want to serve.
Once a plan is in place, test the strategies, track the results and adjust accordingly, Edgar says. “There may be six, eight, 12, 14 different strategies [in a marketing plan]. The idea is to present a layered approach, knowing that some are going to succeed crazily and some of them are going to fail,” he says. “What we do at the end of Year 1 is we get rid of the ones that aren’t working, pump up the ones that are working, and we try some new ones. We always want to be trying something new.”
Create Demand
As one of the co-founders of Measurable Solutions Inc. in Clearwater, Fla., Shaun Kirk, PT, MHS, MTC, is well-versed in effective marketing strategies. But years ago, when he and his partner split their private PT practice, marketing was not foremost in his mind.
He wanted to be known for the quality of his PT skills, not his marketing acumen. But with only one-third the number of referral sources as in his joint practice, he realized his clinic would go under without some effective marketing.
“Marketing is a numbers game,” he says. “Marketing [strategies] are the broad actions that you do to create a demand for your services.”
Kirk’s anxiety over talking with physicians was so great, he figured there had to be a better way. “That’s when I started doing careful surveys of physicians to find out what makes them refer to one practice versus another. Then applied that survey data in promotional campaigns that drew attention and interest toward my practice,” he says.
What he found through his surveys was that physicians in his area referred to PT clinics based on results — as determined by patient satisfaction. “You have to have the correct definition of a result from the doctor’s point of view,” Kirk says. “How they [physicians] evaluated whether a patient got better or worse was simply by asking the patient.”
Thus in terms of referrals, the percent of a patient’s increased range of motion, for example, mattered less than a patient thanking the physician for referring him to a particular clinic. So Kirk tailored his marketing accordingly, highlighting information about patient satisfaction, rather than just presenting objective clinical data.
Through his targeted efforts, he was able to grow his practice ninefold.
Find Your Audience
Being a nationwide ergonomics company lends itself well to reaching large numbers of potential clients by presenting at trade conventions, says Drew Bossen, PT, MBA, vice president of Atlas Ergonomics in Iowa City, Iowa.
“Our business model is to look at prevention and look for organizations that are known to have problems, i.e., business, and how do we solve those issues for organizations that are looking for solutions,” Bossen says. “What we find to be incredibly successful is public speaking in venues where your clients are going to be. That provides an almost instantaneous credibility in terms of your knowledge base.”
So he often gives informative speeches at trade conventions of the occupations most likely to be interested in ergonomic intervention, such as national trucking associations or the Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association (an organization dedicated to occupational safety, health and environmental systems).
That targeted marketing pays off. “When we have a lead arise out of a speaking engagement, we close over 50% to 55% of those opportunities. That’s huge. It’s based upon that they look at you as an individual who has knowledge, [that you’re] a subject-matter expert in the area,” he says.
Cost-Effective Strategies
Marketing a practice need not be expensive. “We have practices who come to us with very limited budgets,” Edgar says. There are ways to get themselves noticed in the community without spending a lot of money, he says.
“What we largely do for them is to recommend low-cost strategies, kind of guerrilla marketing strategies, that they can do to promote themselves,” he says. This may include blogs, direct-mail letters and public relations campaigns. For example, a PT in sports medicine might write a fitness blog. A pediatric specialist could invite the media to a free demonstration for parents of infants about the importance of “tummy time.” In direct-mail campaigns to referral sources, geriatric therapists could give real-life examples (while preserving patient privacy) of how their PT intervention helped clients decrease falls or remain independent. With the patient’s permission, a rehab therapist could tell the media about the role physical therapy played in a local resident’s recovery.
“The way [PTs] work with people tends to lend itself to public relations, because they’re able to help people in all kinds of conditions with all kinds of problems and they have some great stories to tell,” Edgar says.
Today, with declining reimbursement and increasingly competitive markets, PTs have to be incredibly strategic. “One thing I commonly say is that if you keep on doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve got. If what you’ve got is a shrinking practice, you’re going to continue to get that,” Kirk says. “It isn’t your clinical skills that are the problem — it’s your marketing skills. It’s that you’re not getting your message out about your competence. If everyone knew the results you get in clinical practice, you would have an abundance of new patients in your practice.” •
Anne Federwisch is a freelance writer.
Target Marketing
“For us, the whole science of marketing comes down to who is the target audience? What location are you in? What are the needs of the people in your area? And then trying to reach out to them in a way that lets them know you can solve those problems,” Edgar says.
Edgar had one client in New York whose referrals for aqua therapy, orthopedic postsurgical rehab, neck, spine and low back pain had dwindled over the years. “He was the best-kept secret in the area,” he says.
Their marketing campaign for him included developing a brand identity (a consistent look and color scheme on all written material), creating a direct mail campaign to referral sources publicizing the specifics of his practice, and designing strategies for practice representatives to use in-person during presentations at different medical practices.
“After all of our help, he was able to increase his patient visits by 33%. He had a 60% increase in net revenues after implementation of this marketing plan,” Edgar says.
Attract Referrals
The target market depends on the type of practice. “A lot of our strategies are devoted strictly to building referral relationships,” Edgar says.
Analyze who needs to know about the clinical successes of the practice in order to beef up referrals. Do you need to target physicians, insurance companies, industry or consumers directly?
Then establish some sort of a marketing plan. “Don’t go out and just do the shotgun approach, the spaghetti approach where you throw a bunch of things up against the wall to see what sticks,” Edgar says. “Review your plan every year and make adjustments based on changes in the marketplace.”
His organization develops a variety of marketing strategies for clients, including e-media, websites, direct mail, branding, billboards, TV and radio commercials, and more.
The key, he says, is not the medium as much as the message. All marketing strategies should demonstrate how the practice can solve the problems of the clients they want to serve.
Once a plan is in place, test the strategies, track the results and adjust accordingly, Edgar says. “There may be six, eight, 12, 14 different strategies [in a marketing plan]. The idea is to present a layered approach, knowing that some are going to succeed crazily and some of them are going to fail,” he says. “What we do at the end of Year 1 is we get rid of the ones that aren’t working, pump up the ones that are working, and we try some new ones. We always want to be trying something new.”
Create Demand
As one of the co-founders of Measurable Solutions Inc. in Clearwater, Fla., Shaun Kirk, PT, MHS, MTC, is well-versed in effective marketing strategies. But years ago, when he and his partner split their private PT practice, marketing was not foremost in his mind.
He wanted to be known for the quality of his PT skills, not his marketing acumen. But with only one-third the number of referral sources as in his joint practice, he realized his clinic would go under without some effective marketing.
“Marketing is a numbers game,” he says. “Marketing [strategies] are the broad actions that you do to create a demand for your services.”
Kirk’s anxiety over talking with physicians was so great, he figured there had to be a better way. “That’s when I started doing careful surveys of physicians to find out what makes them refer to one practice versus another. Then applied that survey data in promotional campaigns that drew attention and interest toward my practice,” he says.
What he found through his surveys was that physicians in his area referred to PT clinics based on results — as determined by patient satisfaction. “You have to have the correct definition of a result from the doctor’s point of view,” Kirk says. “How they [physicians] evaluated whether a patient got better or worse was simply by asking the patient.”
Thus in terms of referrals, the percent of a patient’s increased range of motion, for example, mattered less than a patient thanking the physician for referring him to a particular clinic. So Kirk tailored his marketing accordingly, highlighting information about patient satisfaction, rather than just presenting objective clinical data.
Through his targeted efforts, he was able to grow his practice ninefold.
Find Your Audience
Being a nationwide ergonomics company lends itself well to reaching large numbers of potential clients by presenting at trade conventions, says Drew Bossen, PT, MBA, vice president of Atlas Ergonomics in Iowa City, Iowa.
“Our business model is to look at prevention and look for organizations that are known to have problems, i.e., business, and how do we solve those issues for organizations that are looking for solutions,” Bossen says. “What we find to be incredibly successful is public speaking in venues where your clients are going to be. That provides an almost instantaneous credibility in terms of your knowledge base.”
So he often gives informative speeches at trade conventions of the occupations most likely to be interested in ergonomic intervention, such as national trucking associations or the Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association (an organization dedicated to occupational safety, health and environmental systems).
That targeted marketing pays off. “When we have a lead arise out of a speaking engagement, we close over 50% to 55% of those opportunities. That’s huge. It’s based upon that they look at you as an individual who has knowledge, [that you’re] a subject-matter expert in the area,” he says.
Cost-Effective Strategies
Marketing a practice need not be expensive. “We have practices who come to us with very limited budgets,” Edgar says. There are ways to get themselves noticed in the community without spending a lot of money, he says.
“What we largely do for them is to recommend low-cost strategies, kind of guerrilla marketing strategies, that they can do to promote themselves,” he says. This may include blogs, direct-mail letters and public relations campaigns. For example, a PT in sports medicine might write a fitness blog. A pediatric specialist could invite the media to a free demonstration for parents of infants about the importance of “tummy time.” In direct-mail campaigns to referral sources, geriatric therapists could give real-life examples (while preserving patient privacy) of how their PT intervention helped clients decrease falls or remain independent. With the patient’s permission, a rehab therapist could tell the media about the role physical therapy played in a local resident’s recovery.
“The way [PTs] work with people tends to lend itself to public relations, because they’re able to help people in all kinds of conditions with all kinds of problems and they have some great stories to tell,” Edgar says.
Today, with declining reimbursement and increasingly competitive markets, PTs have to be incredibly strategic. “One thing I commonly say is that if you keep on doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve got. If what you’ve got is a shrinking practice, you’re going to continue to get that,” Kirk says. “It isn’t your clinical skills that are the problem — it’s your marketing skills. It’s that you’re not getting your message out about your competence. If everyone knew the results you get in clinical practice, you would have an abundance of new patients in your practice.” •
Anne Federwisch is a freelance writer.
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Monday July 19, 2010