How To Get More Patients To Show Up For A Free First Visit At Your PT Clinic

by · 26th May 2015

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So I spent Memorial weekend in the wonderful city of “San Francisco”…

I was there to meet up with a PT Owner to talk about turbo charging his ability to acquire new patients (marketing)

-AND-

Ensure that each one of those new patients is more compliant and follows through on his entire prescription of care (sales).

But I also used the trip as a mini-vacation and took my family to see the sights:

Places like “alcatraz”, “Saucalito”, Pier 39, Washington Square and a whole host of other places that I’d only ever previously seen in the movies.

The shops were great too…

My girlfriend Natalie had a blast and my son Harry loved the Disney Store located downtown.

And while there, we got presented with a number of “offers” from many different retailers… mainly, “opportunities” to “try” or “sample” things for “free”.

(Before we bought).

And it struck me just how in-effective a “Free trial” can be.

An example:

There was this one store who had a pleasant young girl out side of their doors offering a free trial of some new skin care cream.

At least that’s what we assumed it was because all she said to us was “do you want a free trial”?

(”of what”, we both thought).

Now had this girl said something like:

“Madam, would you like a free sample of the most amazing new skin care product that could revitalise your appearance in less than 5 minutes…?”

…then “Natalie” (my girlfriend) might have paid some attention.

Asked another question…

Maybe even walked inside the store for the free trial.

(Then “bought” something!)

Why?

Because she’d have been in no doubt whatsoever of the benefit to taking the free trial of the skin care cream in exchange for giving up 10 minutes of her time.

And it’s a lot like that when advertising a “free consultation” at your PT clinic.

Often, the person who you’re trying to attract to your clinic needs to know WHY he or she should take it.

It might be free…

But there’s still a TIME cost involved.

Free is often very over used – to the point it has become completely devalued and hard to give away.

Meaning that if someone lands on your website today and sees a sign for a “free consultation”… there’s a very good chance they’ll completely ignore it, question it’s value or assume that there’s a catch!

Better to load your “free consultation” with a benefit and a compelling reason why (they should try it).

Give it a new name…

A, “Find Out What’s Wrong Free First session”, perhaps?

See, promising something like a REAL diagnosis in exchange for just thirty minutes of their time is often a good place to start.

The trick is though, to make sure they have a crystal clear understanding of what’s in it for THEM and why they should attend i.e the benefit at the end (marketing).

Do that and you’ll book more.

Continue to ride along the back of “free”… and you’ll forever wonder why your google analytics say that 1000 people have visited your website this month but not one person booked from seeing your free offer.

Hope this helps.

Paul Gough.

P.S HIT REPLY to let me know what you think of today’s email or if you want to know more about the topic…

About Paul Gough

PAUL GOUGH is one of the top Marketing and Business Coaches in the physical therapy industry and his Systems are helping clinic owners all across America run more profitable clinics. He is a published Author, Newspaper Columnist and before his stunning success in business was hired by top professional soccer teams. HIS SUCCESS STORY is one that inspires many pt's around the world - at the age of 26 Paul QUIT a high profile job in professional soccer to begin his own clinic. He had NO money, NO business or marketing skills and NO experience - and yet now owns and runs 4 pt clinics and has a proven track record of growing a physical therapy business from 0 - $2m in record time.
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