Marketing sits with reception
Reception answers the phone, runs the diary, greets patients, and is somehow also expected to keep the clinic's social presence alive. It gets the leftover minutes of the week. On a busy week that means none.
Physiotherapy & MSK · England
Social Media Marketing for Physiotherapy Clinics
Physiotherapy clinics do not have a marketing problem. They have an ownership problem: marketing is nobody's job, so it happens in the gaps between patients or not at all. We take ownership of the social channel and run it on a monthly cycle that fits clinic hours.
Recurring work, owned by someone outside the clinic, approved by the clinicians who are accountable for it.
(01) The Operational Reality
Three bottlenecks, none of them a marketing skill problem.
Every one of these is an ownership and sequencing problem. They do not get fixed by posting more often, and they do not get fixed by adding a tool the clinic has to learn.
Approval waits on a clinician who is treating patients
A post about a treatment approach needs a clinician's eyes, and that clinician is with a patient. Drafts sit for days waiting on sign-off, then the moment they were written for has passed, so they get published anyway or dropped entirely.
Enquiries arrive without a source
New patient enquiries land by phone, direct message, website form, and referral. Almost none of them carry a channel, so nobody can say which work brought anyone in — and the next decision gets made on gut feel.
(02) Patient Journey Touchpoints
Five points where social content meets a patient.
Most clinic content is written for stage one and stops there. The stages where a patient is deciding — and where they are already messaging the clinic — are usually unmanaged.
- 01 · First awareness
What the patient does
Notices a post shared by someone they know, or a clinic account answering a question they had themselves.
What the clinic usually has
A profile that exists, updated unevenly.
What we do here
Keeps the profile recognisably active and useful, so the clinic is a familiar name before the patient ever searches for one.
- 02 · Consideration
What the patient does
Checks whether this clinic treats their problem — a specific joint, a sport, a post-surgical rehab pathway — and whether the tone feels credible.
What the clinic usually has
A services page that lists specialisms in clinical language.
What we do here
Turns each live service line into content that answers the pre-booking question in plain language, with the clinician's own framing.
- 03 · Enquiry
What the patient does
Calls, or sends a direct message with a question that is half logistical and half clinical.
What the clinic usually has
Reception answering during opening hours; messages waiting until someone has a minute.
What we do here
Answers what is safe to answer, escalates everything clinical to a named person immediately, and logs what was routed.
- 04 · Booking
What the patient does
Chooses between this clinic and another, often on the strength of how the first contact felt.
What the clinic usually has
A booking path that may or may not work the same way from a social profile as it does by phone.
What we do here
Keeps every published route to booking consistent, and flags when a channel's booking path diverges from the clinic's actual process.
- 05 · After the first appointment
What the patient does
Explains what they have already tried, and whether they intend to continue a plan of care.
What the clinic usually has
Clinical follow-up owned by the treating clinician.
What we do here
Produces content that supports the home-exercise and education side of care in general terms — never personalised, never patient-specific.
(03) Attribution
What we can measure, and what we refuse to claim.
A physiotherapy clinic gets patients from places no social report can see: a consultant, a running club, a colleague who was treated here. Any agency that reports a clean attribution line for a clinic is guessing. Ours is split into three tiers, and the third tier is published every month.
What we can trace
Signals that arrive with a record attached. These are reported as measured, and only where your clinic already has the tracking in place to produce them.
- Link clicks and profile visits on the channels we manage
- Sessions and enquiries that arrive from a tagged link
- Enquiry-form submissions your clinic can match to a channel
- Volume and type of comments and messages handled or escalated
What we can only infer
Patterns that line up in time but cannot be proven from the data. These are reported as inferred, with the reasoning shown, so you can discount them if you disagree.
- Enquiry themes that appear in the same month as specific content
- Seasonal shifts in enquiry mix that follow a planned campaign
- Changes in how patients describe where they heard about the clinic
What cannot be attributed
Real sources of patients that no social report can honestly claim. We name them every month rather than leaving a gap that gets quietly filled with a guess.
- Word of mouth and patient-to-patient recommendation
- Referrals from GPs, consultants, sports clubs, and employers
- Walk-ins, car-park signage, and local print
- Anyone who saw the content but arrived through a search or a direct call
(04) Tailored Workflow
Four adjustments we make for clinics where the approver treats patients.
Interview-first content
We capture the clinical thinking once, in a scheduled interview, and build a month of content from it. Your clinicians' time goes in as a block, not as a steady drip of micro-decisions.
Approval built for clinic hours
One consolidated review round per month, sized to be read between patients. A single clinical approver is named, and a deputy is named alongside them so nothing stalls when they are away.
Reception-safe escalation
A response protocol agreed with your practice manager: what we may answer, what we route, and who we route it to. Reception and clinical staff see the same rules we work to.
A monthly read, not a dashboard
One page a month: what was published, what was routed, what was traced, what was inferred, and what remains unknown — plus what we propose changing next month.
(05) Fit
Who this is built for — and who it is not.
Owner-led physiotherapy and MSK clinics in England, with more than one treating clinician and no in-house marketing function.
A fit if you are…
- 2–20 clinicians, employed or self-employed associates
- Owner-led — the owner is also treating patients
- England-based MSK, physiotherapy, rehabilitation, or allied health practice
- One or two social channels already in use, however irregularly
- Enquiries currently handled by reception, or by the owner after hours
- A named clinician who can approve clinical claims
Not a fit yet if…
- Multi-site groups that already run an in-house marketing team
- Practices looking for paid media buying at campaign scale
- Clinics outside England — see the geographic boundary on our editorial standards
- Anyone who needs guaranteed patient volumes, enquiry numbers, or revenue outcomes
- Clinics that cannot name a clinician to sign off clinical claims
(06) Next step
Private Clinic Social Media Operations Review.
Tell us how an enquiry currently travels through your clinic — from the first message to a booked appointment — and who owns each step. We will tell you where it breaks, which parts we would take, and whether we are the right team for it.