If you're new to my page or haven't met me before, I'm Taylor Kirk, a former clinical physical therapist turned content marketing consultant. My journey has led me to help pelvic health practices flourish through the creation of exceptional content that resonates with their target audience. Today, I want to dive into the topic of why having a niche is so important for starting or enhancing your physical therapy practice.
Throughout this post, I will walk you through what a niche is, why it’s important, how to define your niche if you don’t have one, and how to avoid mistakes I’ve seen other cash based practice owners make in the past.
Understanding the Essence of a Niche
First, we need to understand what a niche is. Essentially, a niche is a specialized service that you provide within your field of work. Some examples of niches within a physical therapy practice could include a PT who specializes in working with:
CrossFit athletes
Runners
Pregnant and/or postpartum moms
And so much more
No matter your niche or the specialized service and problem you solve, your niche should speak clearly to what you do, who you help, and the problem you solve. With that being said, it’s impossible to be too specific when defining your niche.
The Pitfalls of a Generalized Approach
During my time of working with different practices, I’ve seen some common mistakes be made when it comes to marketing with the hopes of acquiring patients. Typically, the practice owner who struggles the most is the one who:
Wants to help anyone and everyone
And has no defined niche
Trust me, I understand where these practice owners are coming from. In theory, the more spread of individuals a practice owner “can help,” the more prospective clients that would be interested in working with that practice. Unfortunately, but also fortunately, it’s actually quite the opposite.
These practice owners, which I identify as “generalized” practice owners, struggle to fill their caseload because they are not specific to who they help and the pain point they address. Let’s walk through why these individuals seem to suffer so much.
First, the provider themselves isn’t sure who it is they actually help – because they want to help everyone. Second, because they want to help everyone, their marketing message is quite unstable and doesn’t speak to their ideal customer. This results in the potential client base being unsure if working with that PT is right for them. Ultimately, these potential clients don’t end up buying the service that is offered.
I want to mention that I am laying these mistakes out there because I want them to be something that other practice owners are able to avoid. Time and time again, this is where a practice is struggling to gain traction when it comes to building their client base. Don’t worry, I am going to get to how to avoid these mistakes – just keep reading.
Overcoming the Fear of Niche
Let’s talk about how to overcome the fear of “niching down.” In a way, when you pick your niche and stick with it, you are pigeonholing yourself to solving a specific problem for a specific prospective customer. Like I’ve said before, this may feel like the opposite of what you want to do, but I promise it’s not.
Think about it like this: There are hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of practices out there that are all claiming that what they offer is the best. They also claim that a certain aspect of what they offer is what makes them stand out.
Because of this, it can become very overwhelming for potential consumers to navigate through all of this information. Typically, the consumer then takes no action meaning no money for you as the practice owner.
Identifying Your Niche
Now that we’ve addressed this importance of establishing your practice’s niche and some of the barriers that other practice owners have faced in the past, let’s dive into how to identify your niche.
Whether you're a physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, chiropractor, or other healthcare provider, you know what you are and what your license allows you to provide. Moving from there, start thinking about what you’re passionate about and what drives you to wake up everyday excited to help others. Why did you start your practice in the first place and what types of people do you love helping?
To give you some ideas, here are some examples of niche specialties as a healthcare provider:
Runners
Dancers
MMA fighters
Stay at home moms
Outdoor recreational athletes
Violinists
The list is really endless
The key to defining your niche is deciding on something that you are truly passionate about. Remember, when selecting your niche, you’re building a brand, a practice, a marketing message, and building trust through this niche. You want to love it and be excited about it.
Evolving Your Niche
I also want to mention that once you select your niche, it’s important that you stick with it for a while, but you’re not married to it. The niche of your practice can evolve over time based on your experiences with clients, expertise, training, and so much more.
To help put this into perspective, let’s say that you started your practice with the mission of helping MMA fighters and injury prevention. During your time working with this population, you start to notice a common recurring injury that MMA fighters face – knee injuries. Because you’ve recognized this common need and then have developed a solution to this problem, the niche of your practice ends up morphing.
When this happens, be sure to adapt the offer you provide and the marketing message you have developed to match the niche specialty you provide as a practice owner. Looking for cash based practice marketing tips? Check out my blog post here.
Target Audience and Unique Selling Point
Once you've identified your niche, defining your target audience becomes straightforward. Think about the buyer persona you want to reach and the problem you are hoping to solve. Once you have your niche and target audience, you can then begin developing what is called the “unique selling point” or USP.
Your USP defines who you help, the problem you solve, and the solution you offer. Here are some examples of USPs for different practice owners:
I help stay-at-home moms return to exercise with leakage
I help CrossFit athletes combat shoulder pain and improve their snatch PR
I help outdoor recreational athletes thrive on their hiking adventures without need for pain medication or surgeries
Your niche, target audience, and now USP set you apart from other practitioners helping potential consumers receive clarity that you are the right therapist for them.
Giving Your Practice a Facelift
Once you’ve officially niched down and feel comfortable with the specialty service you provide, it’s time to give your practice a facelift. Start with updating your social media platforms, products and services you offer on your website, and start creating relevant pieces of content such as blog posts and the use of social media marketing to clearly showcase your niche. Learn how to optimize blog content for your practice in my blog post here.
Make the information of who you are, who you help, and what problem you solve easily identifiable so that potential clients can quickly understand what you offer.
Developing Your Offer and Marketing Message
When updating your website, make sure to update the offer or sales pages you have. Craft your offer around the problem you solve and how you solve it for your target audience. Once you’ve created your offer, post it on your social media and tell your family and friends about it to start spreading the word.
In that same token, develop a marketing message that revolves around your niche. Create content that answers questions your ideal client could potentially have, provides solutions to their problems, showcases your personality and authenticity, and helps your audience to grow to know, like, and trust you. Check out my blog post here and learn why every PT should be doing content marketing.
The Good News and Embracing Growth
Whether you’re a brand new practice owner or have been at it for a couple years but struggled to gain traction with your practice, making these niche edits could help you. It’s never too late to better your business and better yourself. After all, being a business owner is a process of growth both personally and professionally.
Wrapping Up
In closing, I know it can be hard to take the leap into niching down when it comes to your cash based practice and as I mentioned before, doing so can seem scary. At the end of the day, if you’re looking to grow your practice and help more patients, you have to know who it is you plan to help and the problem you plan to solve. It may seem backward, but you’ll help a lot more people by making it clear that you only help these “certain” kinds of people.
I encourage you to take some time and assess your own practice. Think about where you are right now:
Do you have a niche?
Do you have a unique selling point?
Are you treating the type of patients you want to be treating?
Or are you treating a reduced caseload, solving problems you’re not passionate about?
Making niche edits may be a good place to start.
If you're interested in watching the video associated with this blog post, check it out here.
If you’re feeling stuck or overwhelmed as a practice owner, or if you want to learn more about how I could help you and your practice, get in touch! I’d love to get to know you, learn about your practice, and help you meet your goals!
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