Physical Therapy Logos and Graphic Design

Your physical therapy practice’s logo should be an iconic visual representation of your practice. If any of your patients see the logo, whether it’s on a billboard, newspaper ad, or building sign, they should be able to instantly identify it and connect to your practice. Logos and graphic design are more than just creating images that look nice—branding, conceptual insight, and quality should inform and influence the imagery.

Your practice’s branded identity includes your logos (icon and wordmark) and their treatment across your clinic, print, and digital marketing. Having a distinct branded identity helps new patients identify your clinic and reminds past patients about your care and results.

But, there is often a case to refresh your logo and do a “rebrand” to update your logos. You can probably see plenty examples of old graphic design and physical therapy logos from other businesses and clinics. Having an outdated logo can create the public perception of being behind the times and not being cutting edge or relevant. You want to ensure that your physical therapy logos and marketing is on par with industry leaders. And, you want to have the best looking website and print materials.

Physical Therapy Logos

Logos should visually epitomize your practice and give the foundation of your company colors. Your logos and colors will combine to influence the look of your website and print marketing. Thus, choosing the right image, font and colors is crucial. Your logos should be simple so that they stand out—nothing is worse than a complex or abstract logo that is confusing and not grounded in your practice’s mission. It’s best to have a few different draft logo designs and colors, and then ask a group of peers and patients which they like best.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Define your practice’s brand and visual identity

Whether it is your physical therapy website, newsletter or company materials, you need to have a beautiful, branded look. Everything should seamlessly carry through and really bring all of your promotions together. This makes it easy for a new patient, physician or the general public to identify your brand.

Need help with building your practice’s image and brand? We can help! From logo designs, websites, newsletters, brochures and more—we make your practice look professional to new patients and help to grow your business.

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How to Start Printing and Mailing PT Newsletters

Putting together a monthly newsletter for your PT practice can be a challenging task and take up a lot of time and money. As a key marketing program, a newsletter is an excellent investment that is most effective when managed by a professional company. If you have marketing staff in your practice, their job is to coordinate your strategies, develop professional relationships, and drive business development. Spending time designing, writing, printing, and mailing a newsletter is a full time job in itself and not a valuable use of your staff’s time. This is an action you should to outsource to maximize your resources in terms of both time and money.

Trust you physical therapy marketing to the experts at Practice Promotions. Our Practice Newsletter System combines professional, informative articles with custom content and pictures from your practice. We have a team of graphic design who create a template specifically designed for your practice—using your logos, colors, and branding. After you approve the layout and content, we print and mail your newsletters to patients and local physicians. We also will ship any extra copies to your practice (for free!) so that your marketing staff can distribute them in your waiting room and to physicians’ offices.

How it works

The team at Practice Promotions makes it easy for you to market your practice with a monthly newsletter. You are assigned a dedicated account manager who handles your content, revisions, mailing list, and printing. We use our industry expertise to get you reduced rates on printing and postage—a savings that can equal thousands each month. Our goal is to make it easy for you to send out a newsletter that promotes your brand, PT knowledge, and practice.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Get results

We have over 5 years of experience as both marketers and private practice owners and have helped our clients see dramatic results. Visit our results page for more information and specific case studies on how our clients saved time and money and got more new patients and referrals—optimizing their return on investment.

For more information on our Practice Newsletter System, call us today at 800-594-7656.

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PT Practice Marketing Plan [How-To Guide]

How often do you plan out your practice’s marketing? Do you have short and long term plans—for the month, three months, or year? A marketing plan aligns with your business development goals and keeps you on track to see results for the practice. Your marketing plan should be your blueprint, roadmap, and checklist to build campaigns, organize promotions, and monitor the impacts. Every PT practice should have at least a monthly marketing plan to ensure that you are consistently communicating with prospective patients and referring physicians.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Build your marketing plan

Your marketing plan should focus on the key audiences that will support your business objectives and the way in which you are going to encourage them to patron your practice. Most practices focus on patients and physicians, but you can also market to community organizations, healthcare centers, and businesses. Once you know your marketing’s recipients, you can identify what campaigns and promotions to use to engage the respective audiences. Below are some examples of different ways to market your practice:

• Mailing a monthly practice newsletter to patients and physicians
• Mailing a monthly physician mailer
• Sending postcards for targeted campaigns and promotions
• Emailing an e-newsletter
• Having a high-quality, responsive website
• Managing social media profiles and posts
• Networking with physicians and referral sources
• Sponsoring community organizations or events
• Having professional brochures, rack cards, and in-office promotions

The above marketing programs require an investment of time and money to develop and execute. In your planning sessions, you want to decide what programs to use to market your practice and how you will implement them throughout the month(s) or year. You can also identify “big” projects, such as redesigning your website or adding a new direct mail campaign, that require additional preparation to get started. Your practice’s marketing plan keeps your efforts on track and working towards the big picture—a busy practice that generates growth and revenue!

The team at Practice Promotions works with you to develop your practice’s marketing plan, complete projects, and monitor the results. We make it easy for you to put together amazing campaigns and programs that help your grow your practice. For more information, call us today at 800-594-7656 or contact us.

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Managing Your PT Practice Marketing Budget

What is the right marketing budget for your physical therapy practice? How should you be spending that budget to get the maximum amount of return on investment? Most practice owners know they have to spend money on marketing, but many struggle with finding the right balance and budget. Answering a few simple questions about your practice can help you define your marketing goals and the budget needed to achieve them.

Is your practice seeing growth, stability, or declines in patient volumes?

Most PT practices experience almost all stages of business development throughout the calendar year so take a look at your quarterly or yearly stats to determine your overall trend. At that larger view, practices tend to be growing, aka seeing more patients, or shrinking, seeing fewer patients. While growth is almost always the preferred state of the business, you can be intentionally scaling back due to market or operational constraints.

If you are experiencing a roller coaster, inconsistent growth or decline trends, it could be related to the effectiveness and consistency of your marketing program. You need to be marketing campaigns and promotions that are attracting new patients and referrals, and you need to be doing so on a regular basis to keep growing. Once you have a solid, successful marketing program, you want to keep investing in it. Monitor your volume of patients, explore new marketing opportunities, and plan your business development to align with your practice’s long term goals.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

What is the right marketing budget for your practice?

A standard rule is that you need to invest 8-10% of gross income on marketing to support business growth. However, many practices spend less than 5% of their gross income on marketing, which can lead to declining patient volumes or stagnant growth. Check your current budget by taking your monthly marketing expenses, without including any dedicated marketing staff, and divide by your monthly gross income.

(Monthly Marketing) / (Monthly Gross Income) = % of Income spent on Marketing

What is your practice’s marketing budget? If it is less than 5% of your gross income, you should try to spend at least 3% more on marketing per month and put that investment towards high return projects. We recommend improving your website, expanding your newsletter, or mailing monthly postcard campaigns. If you are spending more than 5%, you are on track! Closely monitor your data and consider scaling up your marketing budget and programs to align with your business development and growth goals.

Get the most out of your marketing budget and call us today for more information 800-594-7656

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Public Relations for PT Practices

Public relations is the practice of spreading information about your business to the public—focusing on communicating your mission, knowledge, and expertise. Public relations differs from marketing in that PR centers on building awareness of your practice’s brand whereas marketing promotes your practice’s programs and services to prospective clients. The perfect combination of PR and marketing creates compelling campaigns and promotions that encourage new patients, increase physician referrals, and expand business partnerships.

Public relations for PT include:

• Developing a practice mission. This should be 1-3 sentences that convey your point-of-view (POV) on physical therapy and how your practice approaches PT. Share your mission on your website, in printed materials, and in presentations. A good test of your PR and marketing is that each promotion and campaign should be able to relate back to at least one core component of your practice’s mission.

• Building your brand involves increasing its recognition with key groups, such as physicians, medical offices and their staff, and community organizations. You want these individuals to immediately think of your practice when they think about PT.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

• Sharing practice news and updates. This is where PR and marketing can work together to attract new patients. The public relations efforts are directed towards writing press releases and copy for clinic news and updates. The marketing efforts are promoting this content in your monthly newsletter, on your website, and on social media.

• Handling the tough stuff. Occasionally, your practice might make news and not for positive reasons. You need to use PR to influence the media and public’s impression of your practice towards a positive light. Developing media statements, handling inquiries, and ensuring a consistent response keeps your practice looking polished and professional.

Public relations takes your practice’s brand and shares it with the larger community—helping you be known as the PT experts who achieve great results for their patients. For help with your PR and marketing, call us today at 800-594-7656 or contact us online. 

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2 Steps to Brand Your PT Practice

A brand is defined as a particular identity or image regarded as an asset of your company. The way your company looks and its messaging should be the same across all communications and platforms—from your website to your newsletter to your letterhead and envelopes. Your practice’s brand image defines the impression that potential patients and referring doctors will have of your practice. Thus, it needs to be professional, consistent, and memorable.

1.      Choose your brand image

Image is everything—from first impressions to conversion to loyal customer. Both consciously and unconsciously, people demand a certain look and professionalism from a business or service. So what is the right look for your practice?

First, it depends on your patient population, types of services and treatments, and location/demographics. For example, a pediatric clinic is going to have a different image as compared to sports physical therapy as compared to a physical therapy practice for Medicare patients.

Pro Tip: Make sure your colors are eye-catching and complimentary. Choose your inspirations from your natural environment and have a palate of 2-3 logo colors.

2.      Define your brand message

A brand message should be your practice’s tagline—a short 3-5 word phrase that epitomizes your mission and promotes your services. Look for positive, inspiring, and motivating words that encourage action. Be sure to include a concrete term or result…movement, motion, health, wellness, active, lifestyle etc.

Convey your expertise in a patient-centric and approachable way! Promote how you achieve exceptional results with your patients.  Use patient testimonials to add credibility and authenticity to this achievement.

Pro Tip: Stand out from the crowd with a brand message that is innovative and inclusive. Your practice’s demographics and services may evolve over time so you want to your brand to be able to flex with your changes and growth.

For more marketing tips and to talk to the experts, give the team at Practice Promotions a call today!

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5 Ways to Increase Physician Referrals to Your PT Practice

The best way to increase physician referrals is to have a rock solid answer to the question, “Why should a physician refer to your practice?” You need to be able to provide a quick soundbite that you can easily share.  Your soundbite needs to convey your expertise and success at helping patients feel better and get healthy. You also need to build the providers’ trust that your practice coordinates patient care and referrals effectively.

Make your physician referrals process easy

1. Have a “Physician Referrals” page on your website

This page should be prominently visible and easily accessed via your website’s navigation. It should include information about how to refer patients to your practice, phone numbers, fax number, and a frequently monitored email address. To increase the promotional messaging, consider having a patient testimonial and/or physician testimonial on the page to add credibility.

2. Have a dedicated phone number or extension for your referrals coordinator

Just like your own front desk, the doctor’s office staff is often busy multi-tasking and anything to streamline their efforts increases the likelihood of them referring patients to you. Even if your practice does not have a dedicated referrals coordinator, you should have a phone number or extension that is exclusive to physician communications. Use this number, in addition to your primary contact number, in your doctor marketing and be sure to check the respective voicemail box throughout the day.

Promote your services throughout your physician marketing materials

 

3. Provide informative content about the benefits of PT

Many physicians are aware of physical therapy at a general knowledge level, but they might not know all the benefits. The challenge is to present educational and specific information in a way that comes across as enlightening and helpful. Especially for physicians that specialize in areas that commonly refer to PT, you should list the specific benefits of PT for their patients and conditions. A physician mailer can be a great marketing campaign that allows for monthly topics that can appeal to different medical specialties. Physician mailer topics can include back pain, shoulder pain, post-surgical rehabilitation, and more.

4. Showcase patient success stories and physician testimonials

Patient success stories instantly add credibility and personalize your practice’s marketing. Be sure to include at least one patient success story in each campaign and, if possible, tailor it to the specific topic you are promoting. Another excellent marketing resource is to solicit physician testimonials or feedback from physicians who frequently refer to your clinic and whose patients have seen great results. These build your practice’s reputation in the medical community and can distinguish you from other PT clinics. Physician testimonials should include the providers name, specialty, practice name (if in a multiple provider group), and their recommendation of your care and services.

5. Include your referrals information on your print marketing pieces

Every marketing piece has the potential to generate a referral—so it is important that your referrals information is on there. Physician marketing campaigns should treat the referrals information with the same prominence as you would a patient promotion. Use appropriately larger fonts, bolded typeface, and noticeable designs to draw the physician’s attention and encourage them to refer their patients to your practice.

Physician referrals are one of the most reliable sources of new patients to your PT practice. Optimize your marketing to information physicians about your services, build credibility about your care, and encourage physicians to refer their patients to you.

For more information on building your physician referrals program, give us a call today!

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