What does your email follow-up process look like for your physical therapy clinic at the moment?
Are you doing any sort of automated follow up?
Too many PT Clinic Owners make the mistake of putting 100% of their effort into constantly getting new patients, all the while neglecting the warmest leads they have (AKA: the ones who have already visited your clinic).
The best thing you can do is have a solid automated email marketing campaign set up for your potential patients as soon as they opt-in with their email address. Then, make sure that you are using your email marketing program to tag potential patients by their pain points so that you can target them based on their specific needs.
This process is a lot easier than it sounds and if you aren’t currently doing it, you are missing out on one of the most powerful ways to help your patients feel like VIPs, where their pain points are specifically and individually important to you.
Set Up An Automated Email Marketing Campaign for Your PT Clinic
The first thing to do is to set up an email marketing campaign for your clinic.
The best program that we recommend for any private practice owner is Infusionsoft. Infusionsoft allows clinic owners to build follow up campaigns using emails, texts and other personalized notifications all timed specifically when you wish to keep your patients updated and interested in what you have to offer. And the best thing is, once you’ve set it up, this follow-up is all automated!
Infusionsoft and other similar customer management programs provide the perfect place for you to store your patients’ names, email addresses, phone numbers and more for easy follow-up and communication.
We suggest setting up a simple follow-up sequence of emails and text messages when you first get a new patient inquiring about your services. Make sure to take down their name and email address to add to your email list.
Here are some ideas for follow-up emails that you might send to your new patients or leads:
- Introduction of who you are and who your perfect patient is…
- Introduction to your staff and a video tour of your clinic
- Answer commonly asked questions about physical therapy (such as… “Do I have to take my clothes off?”)
- Link to special reports about pain points – and suggest they forward it to friends and family
- Share success stories from some of your past patients
Don’t Stop Marketing to Your Email List
Never, ever stop following up with your potential patients. Even if they haven’t come in for an appointment in a year or more, it is never a waste of time to continue marketing to them because you never know when your marketing message will particularly resonate with what they are struggling with.
We have had new clients join our program after they were in nurture sequences. Some had been receiving our broadcast emails for 5 years and just recently signed up for a paid program. Several times people have mentioned how they were receiving our emails for over a year and the most recent one was worded in just the way that they felt spoke directly to them and prompted them to book a call for an appointment. In other words, it is NEVER a waste of time to send a follow-up email.
Here are a few ideas of the types of emails you could and SHOULD be sending out on a regular basis:
1. 9-Word Emails
9 word emails are short, check in emails that are sent to small pockets of your leads to encourage them to sign up for a plan of care.
The purpose is to send a quick check in and see if they need any help with the pain they are experiencing.
For example, perhaps you have a list of contacts that struggle from back pain. Send all the people on this list a 9 word email like this:
Subject line: Hey…
Email Copy: Are you still suffering with annoying low back pain?
And that’s it. Send the emails out and wait to see what responses you get.
If someone responds saying that yes, they are still suffering from back pain, this is your chance to reach out and give them a call and offer to help solve their problem.
2. Clinic Community Newsletter
Every Monday we send out a community update email to all the people on our list.
This email can be used as an update about the new things happening in your clinic while also serving as a powerful marketing tool to remind patients of what you have to offer to help relieve the pain they might be feeling.
Take an opportunity to share things like
- New workshops you are offering
- Success stories from your patients
- New blog articles/podcasts/or YouTube videos you created
- Share a call to action to opt-in for a free report
- Provide links to follow your clinic on social media
- Clinic offers you are running, such as a referral for rewards competition
- Review of the week
- Staff moment of the week
3. Announcement of New Opportunities/Programs/Profit Boosters
Anytime you have a new offer, program or opportunity make sure you are sharing it with your patients!
Just hired someone to do acupuncture in your clinic? Send an email announcing this and provide a special offer for those who sign up.
Hosting a webinar for runners with knee pain? Send out an email promoting it with a link to sign up.
Just bought a new Foot Levelers Kiosk to use in your clinic? Tell everyone about it!
Use Tagging to Target Patients and Directly Address Their Pain Points
If your email marketing program offers it, make sure to use tagging to label your patients by their interests and pain points.
How do you do this?
Anytime you send out an email that provides a link or call to action dedicated to a product or pain point, add a tag to be applied to anyone who clicks on the link or button.
For example, if you are sharing a new blog article that you wrote about overcoming knee pain, have a tag called “knee pain” be applied to anyone who clicks on the link to that blog from your email.
If someone clicks on an article called “How to Overcome Troublesome Knee Pain,” more than likely they are struggling from knee pain.
You can do this for any and all links that you have in your emails.
So if you send out a community newsletter, apply different tags to all of the relevant links that could indicate the pain points and interests of the person who clicks.
The best thing is, once you have started tagging these contacts based on pain point, you can do a tag search for anyone with the “knee pain” tag and send out a 9 word email just to those contacts asking “How are you handling your knee pain?” and have your front desk give them a call to check in.
This is a fantastic way to make your patients feel that your care is personalized, even though it is mostly automated.
Don’t miss out on any of these awesome opportunities to nurture your patients and use follow-up emails to bring your patients back into a plan of care and increase their overall patient lifetime value!
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