If you’re looking to take your pt clinic to the NEXT level… and stand out above all of the competition so that more new patients chose your clinic before others, then one of the things you need to know more about is how to “customize” experiences that prospects have on your pt website.
Specifically, how the visitors to your website i.e your prospective new patients ready to give you $1200, can feel as though they are customizing their future experience/care with you – to guarantee they get what they think they want and need!
It’s NOT enough to ask people to just provide a phone number and say “call us”, these days.
And even having a web form up there on your site which allows people to “book a free session” isn’t good enough.
Now before I show you how to do online forms on your website properly, let me talk to you about how NOT to do it.
Amongst others, one of the problems with web form on most pt websites is that they don’t allow the user to feel as though they are REALLY going to be able to get what they want.
Let me explain:
We live in a world where there is an abundance of choice.
Heck, you can walk into a coffee shop these days and choose from at least 20 different ways of how you might want your coffee served too you.
And so if you can “customize” your coffee everyday, what makes you think that visitors to your website don’t want to do the same for their pt treatment?
I’d say the only reason that most pt business owners don’t do it, is simply because no one else is …and the people they’re copying from, taking advice from, or modeling from, don’t understand marketing, persuasion or influence in any way that is going to make you the profit you can have.
Worse… some owners just don’t think it’s relevant, or that their patients want to be able to come to your website and chose a service that is “just for them”!
Big mistake.
MASSIVE mistake.
One more thing on these web forms…
Most pt websites ask people to fill out a form to “Claim a free first session”…
If that’s the case, and the session really is FREE, why on earth are they asking for “insurance details”?
Again, I suspect that they’re doing it just because they see other business owners are doing it (…even though this doesn’t mean it’s actually working!).
Think about it…
If you’re advertising a free session on your website BUT the prospective patient is being asked for their insurance details, and given that they don’t know, like or trust you yet, don’t you think a LOT of people will be wondering why they must give you their details for insurance (which suggests they’re going to be BILLED $$$!) for something that is supposedly100% free?
It’s confusing… and I GUARANTEE it is scaring a lot of people away.
If it really is FREE, they don’t need to give their insurance until AFTER the freebie session.
Now, if you’re reading this and it’s something that you are doing… and you’re screaming at me “but that’s how everyone has always done it in the pt industry…”, that might be the first indicator that it’s time for a change and IS why most pt’s never actually get to the NEXT level they hope for.
Anyhow, this type of online form is better than nothing, but there’s a much better (and more profitable to do it) and this is the type of thing which also makes the difference between a patient who doesn’t want to book for more than 3-4 sessions, and one will happily attend all 12 of the visits you expertly recommend.
Discover the REAL problem people want help with while they’re on your website…
And it has everything to with their perceived view of how specialist you are and how much you get and understand their REAL problem.
And this understanding of a patients “REAL” problem IS what separates the physical therapist from those with an average of 4, from those with an average of 12 visits.
See, what most pt’s don’t stop to learn about is that “back pain” or “knee pain” or whatever it is they are telling you is “wrong”, isn’t what is REALLY wrong.
No… what is REALLY wrong is that the back or knee pain is stopping something… getting in the way of their enjoyment of something… or limiting how good they can be at it.
Things like “not being able to surf” (because of back pain!), not being able to care for elderly or sick parents (because of back pain!) or play soccer in the park with kids (because of knee pain!) IS why they are really coming to see you (or considering it).
If your profits rely upon people coming and see you just because they’ve got back pain (or which ever type!), then you mind find your self “stuck”, worse yet a “commodity” always open to be labeled as the same as the pt down the street, and frustrated knowing that you can help all these people out there, but wondering why they don’t seem to show up.
And through this article today I’m going to teach more about the winning principle of offering highly specific solutions to emotionally connected patients, HOW to do it from your website, and show you a real live example of how successful (and profitable!) it can really be for your pt clinic.
So let me tell you a true story…
Just yesterday my own pt clinic received an “online” enquiry (i.e via a form on my website) from a “prospective” patient suffering with back pain.
Anyhow…
She was also making enquires at all the other clinics in town and basically, well, price shopping.
Here’s what she wrote back to us just 30 minutes after her initial on-line enquiry:
“Hi I would like to cancel my enquiry as I have sorted something else.“
– Erin.
Our response?
“Ok. No problem?”…
What, are you kidding me?…Of course not!
See, because of the questions we asked on the online form, we already knew what she wanted to achieve from going to see a pt.
Here’s how my on-line webform looks:
This is just one of the screens the user sees as there’s actually three in total — the others appear each time the user answers the questions in front of them and then hits NEXT…
Note some of the questions we ask on there:
1.) What does it STOP you from doing?
2.) What is CONCERNING you most?
3.) How LONG have you suffered or worried?
4.) Your MAIN GOAL?
…And a few others too – see this exact web form live by clicking here >>>
Now, because the girl in question (Erin!) had come through this online form, and had previously answered these questions, we were able to discover (without speaking to her) that what she REALLY wanted was this: to get back to dancing ASAP.
Although she told us “where it hurt” was at her lower back, she also told us that she’d suffered with back pain for 6 months.
So ending back pain really WASN’T her motive for contacting us as if it was, she would have done it 6 months ago when here back pain first start to surface.
Wouldn’t you agree?
It was only when that back pain has likely gotten so bad that it disrupts her DANCING (her “emotional connection”) did she decide to start the search for a solution.
So, after she sent us the email informing us that she had found another therapist in the area, (maybe even a chiropractor who works for cheaper then we do), word for word, here’s what we wrote back:
===
“Hi Erin,
Thank you so much for getting in touch to let us know.
I’m so glad that you have found someone who is able to help you.
I was just chatting with our back pain specialist, Sammy, who said she would of loved to of helped you.
She *sees lots of dancers* here in clinic – and would of loved to of seen what she could of done for you.
If you need us for anything Erin, even any advice, please just get in touch
Best Wishes,
Vicki Smith”
Practice Manager at Paul Gough Physio Rooms.
===
And with just a few minutes of our return email going back to Erin (who had just cancelled an enquiry with us)…
We were able to bring her back to us more EAGER to be a patient of ours than she originally was.
What to know how we converted this patient – one who was thinking of going to one of my competitors because they are cheaper – into a high paying patient of ours?
These words:
“Sammy (the pt) see’s lots of dancers here in clinic”.
Made it *impossible* for Erin (the prospective patient) to even contemplate going anywhere else because she now knows that we solve HER problem regularly.
Take a look at the exact email reply sequence here and start at the bottom:
(Click the image ^ to make it bigger).
The result?
Conversion to a high paying patient.
Took us less than a minute to compose – and Erin just 45 minutes to surrender to my offer of highly specific solution.
I’m happy.
She was happy.
My bank account is happy.
So, yeah, more proof that “highly specific solutions” are the only way to go ESPECIALLY if you face completion from chiropractors, pts are opening new clinics all around you or the big hospitals dominate with their big ad budgets.
Use this type of *message to market* match in your marketing to attract new patients to your clinic – and you can, well, basically put an end to worrying over your biggest business challenges or chasing doctors for more referrals.
This works especially well since most pt clinic owners don’t have the balls or nerve to do this type of thing – for fear of not appealing to a mass market.
Which, by the way, is the quickest and easiest way to blow through a marketing budget and go broke.
Paul Gough
Author, Clinic owner, Founder at the PT Profit Academy
Helping small and independent pt clinics get more referrals from direct access.
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