How I Got 21 New PT Patients From a One-Hour Workshop

Do you want to magnetically attract more New Physical Therapy Patients?

Are you trying to treat more PT patients who are out-of-network? Direct Access? Or Cash Pay?

If so, then a rock star workshop can help you do that.

In talking with Private Practice PT Owners in the US and abroad (physios in Australia and Canada), one of the most commonly used marketing methods is hosting a “Workshop.”

(One of the main attractions is that if we have a successful Physical Therapy workshop, we no longer need to rely on physicians for referrals.)

Some PTs will call this a “Seminar” or “Clinic”. You get the idea. It’s an event where potential clients come into to get information from you.

I’ve been doing Workshops for over 8 years now and have made a ton of costly mistakes along the way.

And have wasted thousands of dollars in marketing and had only 1 or 2 people register for an event or even worse, ZERO Registers.

It churns my stomach just to think about that.

On the other end, I’ve hosted a Workshop with 106 registrants (86 people showed up and we had two trucks snow plowing the parking lot as people were showing up just to give you an idea of the bad weather people overcame to be at the event).

And when I look back, Workshops were the #1 main reason my Private Practice grew 600% in 30 months (after 4 years of little or no growth).

So from my experience of hosting PT Workshops in the trenches of Private Practice PT, here’s what I’ve learned…

(I’ll break this down into 4 parts over the next 4 blogs: Marketing for the Event, the Event Set Up, and the Conversions from Workshop Attendees to Paying New PT Patients).

Here’s Part 1

How to Get People to Register for Your PT Workshop

If you’ve read my past blogs on Private Practice PT marketing, you realize that I prefer a scientific approach (this is often called, “Direct Response Marketing.”)

“Hey, we’re all scientists in the clinic so why not be scientists with our marketing investments into our private practices?”

Anyhow, let’s start with the BIG Goal of Your Super Successful Workshop:

You are hosting Workshops that a ton of people attend who are willing and able to pay for your PT products and services.

They’re so impressed with your PT knowledge and expertise that they respect you as an authority, schedule an appointment with you, follow-up with a full plan of care, achieve all of their PT goals, and become a Raving Fan – referring all of their family and friends to you.

And you want to do this in a way that is profitable to you and your Private Practice.

So here’s a Physical Therapy Workshop Checklist to Promote Your Event

1. Decide what you want to attract.

Who’s going to be in the audience at your Workshop?

(I have a more extensive list of variable to consider in Module 1 of the Killer Marketing Course I teach…here for the sake of this article, we’ll keep it super basic and focus on Diagnosis).

So are you going to host:
A Runner’s Workshop?
A Balance and Gait Workshop?
A Neck Pain and Headache Workshop?
A Vertigo Workshop?
A Back Pain and Sciatica Workshop?

Before you move on…pick this now. This is your “Market”.

2. Select a Media to advertise in.

This should ideally match up with what your Market regularly uses and responds to.

It could be:

Radio
TV
Print ads
Postcards
Social Media
Email
Patient Newsletters
Green Ink Letters

(If you would like the exact Physical Therapy Marketing postcard, green ink letter and print ad that is now my “Control”. The same postcard I’m using at Madden PT. You can click here to have it mailed to you).

3. Write your Copy.

In the Classic Marketing book, “The Robert Collier Letter Book”, he shares, “Always enter the conversation already taking place in the customer’s mind.”

This is key to the success of your Physical Therapy marketing piece.

(Again, if you have a copy of my postcard green ink letters or print ads, you can go through and see exactly how I did that. It works.)

Most copy is written in a “Problem-Solution” format.

And you’ll want to stick to that here as well.

(I’ll assume you’re like me and never had any formal Marketing training in PT school especially not advanced copywriting. I do teach 2 copywriting formulas that the best marketers use. I share them in the Killer Marketing Course but here, we’ll just stick to the basics).

So with the Problem-Solution format you present the problem.

Then offer a solution.

All successful copy does this to some degree.

You can check out the present “Control” I’m using to promote my PT Workshop by clicking here.

So that’s it for Part 1.

Stick to these 3 Steps to Attract your traffic.

I didn’t have room to cover this here, but you could also test promoting the event to your Past Patient list VS. the general public VS. both.

It’s also important for success that you promote your Workshop for at least one month prior to the event (a Sales Letter 21 days before the event PLUS a Postcard 10 days before the Workshop usually works best.)

Next time, in Part 2, I’m to cover how to set up and plan your Workshop room so people who attend your Workshop become paying patients.

For now, you can swipe, steal and copy my Workshop Postcard by clicking here…

Hope this helps you,

Chad