Despite the numerous advantages of developing your own online marketing strategy, many large and small physical therapy clinics continue to get sidetracked. One of the main reasons is that they don’t have enough time or resources to make a good plan for online marketing. 

Naturally, this could occur if your in-house marketing specialist takes a vacation, becomes ill, or ceases to work for you. In any case, knowing how to make an online marketing plan for your practice is crucial.

Creating an online marketing plan but getting stuck in the process is a common issue among clinics these days. Given that there have been a lot of changes online marketing has undergone over the past. This makes it hard for physical therapy clinics to learn the process and apply them to their business quickly.

Proper marketing and advertisement of your physical therapy practice can be a complicated process. There is no one-size-fits-all approach but there are many proven strategies that you can consider to market your physical therapy clinic.

While having an online presence is an essential component of any marketing strategy, there are times when the lack of conversion of new leads presents a challenge. Also, you need to increase traffic and improve your SEO, but you don’t have anyone on staff who can do this for you. That is a major problem that, with sufficient knowledge, can be easily resolved.

In this article, we’ll provide you with some helpful tips on how to develop your own online marketing plan that incorporates social media marketing (SMM) and local SEO (SEO).

7 Tips for Creating a DIY Physical Therapy SMM and Local SEO Marketing Plan

1. Know your target market.

To set yourself up for success, you need to know your target market and how you are going to reach them. Once you determine that, all of the other aspects of marketing will fall into place.

However, marketing your physical therapy practice to your ideal customer can be difficult. Also you may not have time or funds to pay for advertising, and you may not know whether your marketing efforts are effective.

Fortunately, there are plenty of other ways to draw patients to your practice. Remember, no single marketing strategy should be considered a last resort. Experiment and analyze the results, and remember that your goal is to build trust in your business through customer education.

2. Build an online presence.

As a physical therapy practitioner, you already have important stories to tell and valuable information to disperse to your existing and potential new clients. However, in order to tell those stories to the right people, and at the right time, you need an online marketing strategy. By utilizing basic digital marketing tactics and resources, you can successfully create and share interesting content that attracts warm leads through the door.

Remember that marketing your practice online doesn’t just mean advertising. As we’ve mentioned, Word of Mouth is a great form of online marketing, but it won’t do you much good if there’s no one to talk about your practice in the first place. Make sure that you’re providing value at all times. Write blog posts, take pictures and videos of your practice—whatever you do, don’t forget that the digital world is there as a way to help relay information and create loyal fans of your services.

3. Build up your Google My Business.

Having your own Google My Business page is a critical aspect of online marketing for your physical therapy practice because it provides authentic information about your practice to both potential patients and search engines. It’s easy to set up, and it doesn’t require a huge time commitment on your part. Nonetheless, even though it’s simple to create, people still overlook this powerful feature.

Be sure to fill out your company’s profile with a location, hours, and a short “About” section that lets people know what kinds of issues you work with and how long you’ve been open for business. Then, make sure that your clinic website is mobile-friendly and optimized on the search engine

4. Build backlinks.

Backlinks are important for increasing brand awareness, and for establishing your practice as an authority within your niche. Besides, not all backlinks are created equal as some backlinks will help you rank better than others. In the end it’s important to diversify your portfolio and have a variety of links pointing to the main website.

5. Create content (including videos).

Videos are an excellent way to convey information in just a short amount of time. These can span anything from product demos, service explanations, tutorials or a quick overview of your practice in general.

It is one of the fastest growing trends in the field of physical therapy marketing. There are many ways that you can incorporate video marketing into your business, even if you don’t have access to a massive budget. By creating regular video content, your business will come to life in a new and exciting way. You will be providing content that is more immersive than easy-to-read text and allows for more interactivity than static images or infographics.

6. Optimize your website.

Establishing a strong online presence as a physical therapist means that you need to focus on creating a web presence that caters to the needs of patients and prospective clients.

This includes keeping a relevant and updated website, including social media into your marketing plan, building an email list, optimizing your website for search engines, creating valuable content to share with visitors, and positioning yourself as an authority figure in your industry.

All of this combined will help ensure that newcomers can find you when they are searching for physical therapy treatment.

7. Optimize your business listings on local sites.

Optimizing your local search listings is important. Not only do they help bring more traffic to your practice, they also make it easier for potential patients to find you online. It would be unlikely that a website without additional services would rank even slightly higher than one with details of the different services offered by your practice.

The more visible your listing is on the first page, the more valuable it will be to those visiting your site so try to strive for this if you can.

Many clinic owners are still afraid of online marketing because they believe it’s a time-consuming and expensive venture. The truth is that, in order to attract more patients, it is worth spending some of the available money on online marketing – particularly if you’re doing so in the right way.

An online marketing plan must consider potential growth in terms of size and profits as well. This can only happen if you’re taking part in all the important events and using all the available marketing tools. By taking the time to learn and do it yourself, you can create a successful online marketing plan for your physical therapy practice.

If you need help getting started, our team of SMM and SEO experts is here to help. Schedule an appointment with us today.