How To NOT Market Physical Therapy To Seniors & Potential Patients

How To NOT Market Physical Therapy To Seniors

I got a ton of great feedback from last week’s blog post on how to attract seniors to your physical therapy practice and the PT marketing strategies that have been successful.

In some cases, too effective especially if your PT practice doesn’t take Medicare…

Problem: How To Attract Seniors But Not Medicare

Solution: A simple, yet effective formula that you can use in your ad to not only attract who you want to attract, but also to repel who you want to repel.

Anyways, I got this question from Practice Owner Hina Sheth asking…

“We are a cash-based practice that does not take Medicare. From the pics and posts it seems like many of the workshops that are successful are attracting seniors. Any tips to attract patients that are not Medicare?”

That’s a really good question…all of us want more patients but we also want patients that can pay us (since some of us don’t accept Medicare)

Killer Marketing member Dave Wilderman responded to Hina and said…

“Same problem with me, Hina. I did not designate an age range in my first attempt at a newspaper insert. I got 27 responses, 25 of whom were Medicare. So my next ad I just put at the top ‘If you are between the ages of 35 and 64, this workshop will specifically benefit you.’ It goes in the Sunday paper on Easter so we will see what kind of response I get.”

DAVE NAILED IT.

Dave played off of what we talked about in last week’s blog, which was how can I attract seniors…

It is the same exact principles except the facts are changed a little bit here.

Facts Can Change. Principles Always Stay The Same.

Marketing_Triangle

Last Week, we talked about Dan Kennedy’s Market-Message-Media Match triangle.

You need to have all 3 in place to have an ad that is successful…
I don’t care if you are talking about Google AdWords, a Facebook ad, newspaper, postcard, anything at all… you need to have these 3 items in place.

And they all must be in alignment.

Last week, if you recall, I broke it down the age categories into 45 to 54, 55 to 64 and 65 and up.

Basically, we can assume that Medicare is going to be this group…65 and up….So we don’t market to them.

There is a formula that I want to share with you that you can always use in your ad to not only attract who you want to attract, but also to repel who you want to repel.

The formula is:

  • Who This Is For…
  • Who This Is Not For…

The way that you complete this formula is to just spell it out….

At BPTM, we use the strategy like this:

  • BPTM is for private PT practice owners.
  • BPTM is not for POPTS practice or hospital PTs.

Very, very simple….you can use that over and over again.

Make People Feel Exclusive

headerImage-exclusive

There is one book written in 1923 by Claude Hopkins book called Scientific Advertising. This book has timeless principles that are still extremely relevant today.

Anyway there is a line in there, and I am going to paraphrase, but he says that a person, a reader, somebody who is going to respond… they are much more likely to respond to something if they feel like they are part of a selective group.

I believe the example that he uses in Scientific Advertising is somebody who is a serviceman or in the military.

(By the way, I can get you a free copy of Scientific Advertising…just email me at [email protected] with the subject “Scientific Advertising”)

It was some sort of discount in the ad that he was talking about. It might have been like 10% off at a Five and Dime store if you worked in the military.

There is something about that… that because we feel like we belong to an exclusive group, we know that this is for us and it is not for other people, we are more likely to respond to it.

It is really in the form of who this is for and who this is not for.

Again, the psychology behind it is you are making them feel like – hey, you are part of this 45 to 54 or 55 to 64 age group… This is for you.

Again, go back and watch that video if you haven’t seen it already where I talk about how the language will be a little bit different for that age group.

Shake, Shake, Shake Up The Mediagiphy

Another thing that you can do⎯a thing that I also covered last blog post⎯is shake up the media is a little bit different.

You are going to be able to get away with Facebook (most 65 year olds and above will be less likely to respond to). In fact, on Facebook, you can go in and do very specific demographic advertising.

We are testing that right now for our workshops from the ages of 35 up to 65 and above.
So we are testing all of that with different campaigns to see what works and what doesn’t work… then we will be able to release that to you as well.
I hope that makes sense to you.

When In Doubt, Be Specific!

Remember, when in doubt, if you want to attract a very specific person, you can just write out who this is for or who this is not for.

At the top of your ad, I think it would be safe to say or even in the close, “This is not for you if you are of Medicare age or a Medicare recipient.” Or “Medicare recipients do not qualify,” or anything along those lines

Hope that makes sense and the formula helps you out.

A Real Example For You To Try

Now you know about Market-Message-Media Match, attracting seniors and repelling others that you do not want to respond to your ad…I want to show you something that is proven to attract affluent, Direct Access Patients to your practice.

I have a POSTCARD that has been perfected over the 8+ years to bring in 100’s Direct Access Patients to Workshops… and I want to give it away to you for FREE (You Just Pay 9$ Shipping & Handling).

Click Below To Get A Closer Look Of The Postcard

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This is my Highest Converting Postcard that has attracted 100s of Direct Access patients to my practice…but EVEN BETTER it has attracted patients to 100s of other practices too…

Here is what it did for Sarah…

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To your success,

Chad

PS. Sarah is just one of the Practice owners who has used it to get results…click here to see the results and testimonials from other PT owners’ workshops.

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