It’s easy to say you just want to push out SEO blogs or want to run as many social media ads as possible. But here’s the harsh truth: without a plan in place, you’re on a road trip with no map. This isn’t just a saying, it’s proven by data. Businesses that document their marketing plan are 313% more likely to report success than those that don’t. So what’s the big deal? Let’s break it down.
What exactly is a marketing plan?
The first important thing to note is that a marketing plan is not the same as a marketing strategy. A strategy is a long-term vision closely tied to your business goals and brand positioning based on target market research. A marketing plan, however, is a short to medium-term roadmap with the precise steps to execute that strategy. It outlines your specific objectives, campaigns, and timelines. Simply put, if the strategy is the “why,” the plan is the “how.”
Typically, your marketing plan needs to be reviewed at least once a year and adjusted based on what has been working and what hasn’t, changes in the market, your service offering, brand positioning, marketing trends, budget, and more.
Why do physical therapy clinics need a marketing plan?
While it is possible to wing it and make it up as you go along, that means relying more on blind luck than anything else. Without a plan to implement your strategy, you’re likely to waste resources on marketing efforts here and there that ultimately fail to deliver ROI because they’re not part of a greater plan.
A plan helps to ensure you stay consistent with marketing efforts, regularly setting and meeting goals. It also helps identify areas where your marketing material isn’t enough to actually result in revenue, such as a social ad campaign without a landing page, and execute more robust campaigns.
What is included in the typical marketing plan?
Every marketing plan is unique and should be based on what your physical therapy clinic is trying to achieve at that point in time. If you are just starting and this is your first marketing plan, here’s a rough outline of what to include.
Develop your communication strategy
In order to create lucrative, results-driven marketing campaigns for your business, the first priority is to set a solid foundation based on strategic insights. Before creating any marketing elements, it’s important to establish a few factors. This includes the target audience you’re trying to reach, your competitors, your brand identity, and what your messaging sounds like.
Establish Your Unique Brand Look
You’ve got your voice down and know exactly who you’re talking to. Next, you’ll need to determine how you visually want to represent your physical therapy clinic. This is when you decide on logos, brand typography, cover images, letterheads, business cards, and more.
Create Marketing Collateral
Once the “planning” part of the plan is done, you’re all set to start making high-converting marketing collateral. This involves identifying what supporting materials are needed to convert your target audience and producing that, so you can leverage them later in the plan.
Set Up Your Social Media
By this time, you should have social media icons and images, a brand script that explains what you do, a few taglines, and an understanding of where your target audience spends most of their time. This part of the plan involves setting up social media profiles for your physical therapy clinic. Because you already completed the first and second steps of your plan, you will have a consistent and professional image on social media.
Create Your Website
Because your website is often the first or second point of contact a prospect has with your brand, it must clearly communicate who you are, what you do, and why they should choose you. During this stage, you basically put together your entire website, its content, and backend settings.
Optimize for Search Engines
With the website up, you now need to ensure you show up in front of the people actively looking for physical therapy clinics in your area. This includes doing SEO keyword research and optimizing both on and off-page content.
Initiate Direct Marketing Efforts
The branding, website, and materials are done. Now things are taking shape. By this stage, you should be ready to start building your clientele! This is why you need to set up your email marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to start reaching out to people.
Establish a Reputation Management System
Having put all this effort into establishing a reputation as a top-notch physical therapy clinic, you don’t want it ruined by one bad review that could have been avoided. There are a few steps involved with managing your reputation, which involve proactively monitoring and asking for reviews and ensuring that all citations of your business are updated and correct.
Track, Analyze and Improve
Last but not least – the data. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. This is why it is crucial to track all your marketing efforts. With the right tracking tools in place, you can eliminate what doesn’t work, do more of what does, and ultimately course-correct based on data.
How to generate your free marketing plan in minutes
You don’t need to spend endless hours putting together a marketing plan for your physical therapy clinic. Our quick and easy-to-use marketing plan generator puts together a tailored marketing plan based on your specific business goals. It includes definitions of each step and a full breakdown of tasks and timelines.
You can create a fully-developed marketing plan in just a few clicks.
- Step 1: Visit our free marketing plan generator and provide your basic business details
- Step 2: Click on “Build My Plan”
- Step 3: Review your plan and adjust timelines accordingly
Are you ready to develop your roadmap to success?
