So you’ve taken the steps necessary to ensure that your website is ranking for your desired keywords on Google’s organic results as well as its local listings. That’s great! The next thing that you need to work on when it comes to physical therapy marketing online is making sure that your website converts your visitors into booked appointments, and this is where the skill of copywriting comes into play.
What exactly is copywriting? In general, copywriting is writing text that is meant to persuade the reader to take a specific desired action. In your case, the action that you want your prospects to take is to pick up the phone and book an appointment with you. How do you do that? We will discuss the basics of copywriting in the physical therapy marketing setting here.
Before you begin, here’s an exercise that I think is critical to your copywriting success. Open up the Yellow Pages directory and go to any random section — for instance, dentists. Take a look at the ads that are showing and read every single one of them. Try to ignore the identifying information with each ad (business name, telephone number, address). After going through the whole bunch, try naming five clinics and what exactly makes them different from the others.
Chances are, you’ll find it very difficult to tell the difference between each clinic. Each one of them does general dentistry, a few will do cosmetic dentistry, and you’ll see pediatric dentistry on there too. But essentially, they’re all saying the same things and the prospect has absolutely no idea why he should choose one particular clinic over the other. So what becomes the differentiating factor? Price.
If you want to get more patients booking appointments with you at the rates you want to charge, your physical therapy website has to do much better than simply naming the services you perform and generic About Us pages. Namely, your website has to inform your prospect as to exactly WHY they should choose you over your competitors. It is essential that you know what their problems are, and you state the benefits that your particular solution will give them.
People don’t buy drills; they buy 1/4 inch holes on their wall. Nor do they buy dresses but rather they are buying the admiration of the opposite sex. In the same way, your patients aren’t buying physical therapy services, but rather the chance to play sports again. They’re not looking for electrical muscle stimulation; they want to be free from the pain of muscle spasms in their back.
So when creating your physical therapy website, make sure that you know what the ultimate benefit your prospects are after. Your service is only the means to a specific end, and your website’s job is to tell them that you can help them achieve that end. If you want to learn how to write persuasive websites that get your visitors to book appointments with you, visit this page to find out how to receive a comprehensive training program for physical therapy marketing.
