I was reading about a Schlitz Beer ad campaign in Claude C. Hopkins’ book My Life In Advertising when it hit me that marketing beer wasn’t so different from marketing physical therapy. Claude C. Hopkins, a famous advertising guru, ran a marketing campaign for Schlitz Beer at a time when all the beer companies were doing pretty much the same thing – talking about their beer being “Pure”. No one was really telling the story of why their beer was pure or what they did to ensure the pureness of their product. 
Claude Hopkins decided to simply tell that story. In the new marketing campaign he talked about how the machinery was cleaned twice a day to avoid contamination, and how they got their water from wells that were 4000 feet deep to ensure purity. He explained how the beer was cooled in a room with filtered air so the beer would not be contaminated by airborne pollutants. The interesting part of the story is that all brewers basically did the same thing! How did his strategy work? Schlitz Beer jumped from 5th place to “neck and neck” with the top brewery in just a couple of months. 
Why was the Schlitz campaign so successful? Hopkins’ explanation was that because Schlitz was the first to tell the story, everyone marveled at the process and assumed that they must be the purest because they were the only ones who actually explained how they ensured the purity of their product. 
Being the first to tell the story is the key here. Because Schlitz was first in telling the story, they became the default in people’s minds whenever “Pure Beer” was talked about. Being first also puts all of their competition in the position that if they try to tell the same story they are just a copycat.
So what does this have to do with health care? Before I relate directly to PT’s, let me share a real life story about this same type of scenario with dentistry.
We were working with a dentist client that did sedation dentistry. Sedation dentistry is becoming a pretty common service that is offered by most dentists but no one was talking about it in their advertising…that is except one. This dentist was on about 4 different radio stations, in the local newspapers and even on the local cable TV channel touting the benefits of sedation dentistry. Was he saying they did anything different than all the other dentists in the city? No. He was just the first to tell people about it in his marketing. 
Our client was located on the opposite side of Calgary, a city of about 1 million people, so we thought “Why don’t we try to do the same thing on our end of town?” Well, it didn’t matter how hard we tried or how many ads we ran, or even that the “Sedation Guy” was not really a competitor, we couldn’t get people to think about our client first when it came to getting sedation dentistry.
So what did we do? We decided to do the same thing with mini implants and became the “Mini Implant” place in about 6 months.
Now, how does this relate to PT’s? To begin with, most physical therapy clinics don’t do any marketing to consumers, so being the first in your area to do so will get you a good chunk of business. But even if you are already marketing to consumers, most physical therapy materials talk about all the services they provide but never tell the story about what it is they really do. Typically you will see a list of services, a nice photo, and a phone number to call. Does that tell any kind of story that makes you unique, or does it position you as being exactly the same as every other physical therapy clinic out there? I am not saying you need to talk about being better than your competitors, but I am saying you need to tell a story about how physical therapy helps treat specific ailments. 
You are probably thinking, “Specific ailments? How can I possibly market the specifics of all the ailments we treat?” You can’t, at least not all at once. Choose an ailment you know you are really good at treating and have a track record of getting good outcomes. Put together materials (website, patient guides, ads, letters, etc.) that explain how you go about treating this specific ailment and give it a try. If it works, and I am sure it will, you will be busy treating people for an ailment you know you can get results for and have set yourself up to be “the place that treats ______”. 
I can almost hear some of you saying, “we treat all kinds of stuff so what about those things?” What would you rather do, be busy treating people for one specific ailment or wondering how you are going to bring people in the door because your marketing isn’t doing its job? You can always market your other services later, but do it one at a time, giving your prospects enough information to really understand what you do for their specific problem. All people want is enough information to know that they are making a good decision. By being specific you can give them exactly what they want. Isn’t that what being a good provider is all about, find out what people want and give it to them?
For more information on how to create a marketing program that gets results download our Clinic Owners Guide To Marketing or sign up for one of our introductory webinars.
 
New: Physical Therapy Mastermind
The PT Referral machine is now taking applications for our new Physical Therapy Mastermind groups. These groups will take you through the steps of building a winning marketing program over a 6 month period and consist of at least 6 non-competing clinic owners and a PTRM facilitator. Concepts will be presented by the facilitator, discussed by the peer group and then you will develop your own materials based on what was discussed that week. At the end of 6 months you will have a marketing program custom built for your clinic with the assistance of your peers and a professional marketing consultant.

Find out more here.