Do you run a physiotherapy practice or are you responsible for its marketing and are now looking for an agency? If you want to focus entirely on your practice, I’ll show you the criteria you should consider when looking for an online marketing agency for physiotherapists.
Hello, my name is Matthias Müller, I do search engine optimization for the homepage suppliers and manage numerous Google My Business profiles. As there are also one or two physiotherapy practices among them, I have discovered over time what kind of marketing works well.
You should have an idea of this:
If you are now looking for the right online marketing agency for your physiotherapy practice, you should know which marketing strategies are relevant for your practice. Use this article as a checklist when you call the internet agencies you have selected.
Ask what marketing measures they would recommend and implement for you. This will give you a better idea of which agency is the right partner for you.
The most important types of online marketing for physiotherapists in order:
In principle, any type of online marketing is possible for a physiotherapy practice, but the special feature here is that it is localized. For this reason, a region-specific marketing approach makes a lot of sense.
1. proper local SEO
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as false local SEO, at least I haven’t seen anything like it. However, I have often seen that the local search engine optimization of Google My Business entries or websites is far from being fully exploited. It even remains unused, even if an agency was commissioned.
Do you run a physiotherapy practice or are you responsible for its marketing and are now looking for an agency? If you want to focus entirely on your practice, I’ll show you the criteria you should consider when looking for an online marketing agency for physiotherapists.
If you are now looking for the right online marketing agency for your physiotherapy practice, you should know which marketing strategies are relevant for your practice. Use this article as a checklist when you call the internet agencies you have selected.
Ask what marketing measures they would recommend and implement for you. This will give you a better idea of which agency is the right partner for you.
Using Google My Business for physiotherapists
Wait a minute … the potential client’s glasses? We’re not an ophthalmology practice, we do physiotherapy!
This means you have to ask yourself how someone would go about searching for a physiotherapist on Google. Think about what complaints someone who wants to see you has. What do you think contributes to someone wanting an appointment at your practice and preferring your practice to another?
This is how you understand your clients:
Why don’t you do the experiment yourself? Go online and imagine that you have shoulder pain. You’ve been to an orthopaedist who has prescribed six sessions of physiotherapy with special exercises to open up your shoulder.
You enter “physiotherapy my city” into Google and realize that about half of the Google search consists of Google My Business search results. While the Google Maps graphic shows you which practices are in your area, the star ratings suggest which practice might be particularly good. If you click on “More places”, you will quickly notice that some search results appeal to you more than others.
You may realize that much of the decision-making process takes place on the Google platform and not in Google Search, where website competes with website.
On Google My Business, it is crucial that people have a good experience with you. This means that you need to be a good physiotherapist who knows their trade and enjoys practicing it. You should hire capable staff who always treat your clients with respect.
Avoid this mistake
No matter how good you may be as a physiotherapist, if you don’t have a friendly tone towards your customers or address them in an unfriendly way (because you’re having a bad day), you’ll get a bad rating sooner than you think. This may well mean that your practice phone rings less often.
What do I want to tell you here? When you choose an online marketing agency for your physiotherapy practice, they should focus on your Google My Business profile. If they tell you to prioritize Facebook ads, Instagram and TikTok, stay skeptical. It may not be wrong, but it’s far less effective and less sustainable. As soon as you turn off your ads on Facebook or stop posting, you disappear from visibility. A solid Google My Business profile provides you with a stable foundation, even when the advertising budget gets tight.
If you constantly maintain your Google My Business profile and provide it with updates, you will continuously receive the most valuable traffic from exactly where people are looking for you when they need you. And for free.
At least so far it only costs time and a little effort, but no money.
2. an agency should help you build a reputation.
Surely you read the reviews on Google and other platforms yourself before you put your health in the hands of a stranger, right?
For this reason, it is important for you as a physiotherapist to constantly ask your patients to leave a review about you on the internet. It doesn’t just have to be Google, but can also be on Facebook or a platform like ProvenExpert.
However, it is crucial that you have a process that works for you. Obtaining reviews is time-consuming and tedious. A good online marketing agency will help you to simplify this process and make it more efficient.
If you have found the right agency, they will sooner or later suggest that you send your patients automated emails with a link to your evaluation profile. This way, patients can receive an email some time after their first treatment without you having to write the email again each time.
This also includes a process for recording the e-mail address and permission to send e-mails. You can work with your agency to find a creative solution here. Some practices give you a questionnaire where you can enter your e-mail address and leave a signature.
3. you should actively use a social media platform
When it comes to social media marketing, most physical therapists make the mistake of either not being active at all or having profiles on multiple platforms but not actively maintaining any of them. Being active doesn’t mean you have to post stories and reels every day. Rather create 1-2 posts a week, but do it continuously. Avoid making your last post 1-3 years old.
Social media marketing can be overwhelming, especially if you don’t know which platform is right for you. As a physiotherapist, you can take an example from the particularly successful ones in your industry.
Let’s take the example of Liebscher & Bracht, who are particularly successful on YouTube. They are also active and successful on other platforms such as Instagram. Choose a platform that you are most comfortable with and be active there at least once a week.
Suitable platforms for physiotherapists are YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Pinterest. There you will often find content such as exercises for the back or similar.
Why is social media important for physiotherapists?
I can actually speak from the perspective of your clients or patients here, as I recently had the need for physiotherapy myself.
While I was looking for a suitable practice on the Internet, I realized that it wasn’t easy here in Würzburg, for example. Because hardly anyone in Würzburg has a website that gives me an insight into the work of a physiotherapist. I found it difficult to gain an impression in advance that would make my decision easier.
Profiles on social media were also often outdated or not very meaningful. (Who cares if you say Merry Christmas? Show that you know about effective exercises and how to improve misalignments).
On my first attempt, I was honestly not very motivated to make an appointment in Würzburg. Poorly lit photos of the practice rooms or photos of the waiting room didn’t exactly give me the feeling that they would be able to help me with my shoulder.
Pictures of massage tables …? Sorry, what’s the point? If I want to lie down, I can do it at home on the sofa. I’m looking for someone to help me get rid of tension, misalignments or pain. Why do physiotherapists (Roland Liebscher is an exception here) so rarely show that they are the ones who can help me?
For example, if I see an Instagram profile of a physiotherapist who regularly demonstrates back exercises or stretching exercises with enthusiasm, then that appeals to me more. I may not leave any likes, but I have gained a good impression. I have found a physiotherapist who is demonstrably interested in what they do.
Please excuse the provocation. I know that you are interested in your work. But you have to understand that I can’t smell it, and neither can all the other patients who don’t know you. If you understand this difference and make use of the internet, then you have an advantage.
4. google ads for physiotherapists
Another important component is the placement of Google ads. You might think that running Facebook ads would also be an alternative. But I have to tell you that Google Ads are definitely more important, especially because you are a local business.
We’ve already discussed that Google is the platform where people search for physiotherapists first. So why would you advertise anywhere else?
If you advertise on Google, this will help you to be found better on Google organically (without advertising).
An online marketing agency for physiotherapists should pay particular attention to these 4 points:
For you as the operator of a physiotherapy practice, this means that you need an agency that attaches great importance to the following points:
