When Melbourne entered the world’s longest coronavirus lockdown in 2020 the first action for many physiotherapists was to set up Internet telehealth as a way to provide services to their clients. Sports & Exercise physiotherapist Tony Beecroft got on board and to his surprise found that nearly half of his telehealth clients were located internationally. Tony soon realised that the distributive power of the Internet gave him an opportunity to reach a global market.
To effectively scale up to a global Internet business Tony had to switch from the usual business strategy. With bricks-and-mortar businesses the aim is to sell as much as possible to the finite number of customers within reach. A wide product offering is a necessary growth strategy of the finite market that resides within a physiotherapy practice’s usual three suburb reach.
By digitising his services for transmission over the Internet, Tony would be able significantly broaden his market beyond Melbourne. But to achieve cut-through in a very noisy marketplace he would have to keep his product range as specific as possible.
Tony has a personal passion for surfing and he knew from his physiotherapy experience that the most common injuries in recreational surfers occur in the back and shoulders. So Tony created two online self-education programs for recreational surfers to address their injuries and pains; plus an online consultation package for those who need individual care.
Tony built a website to promote his education programs and chose the short and punchy domain name www.surf.physio. The exact match nature of his domain means that it doubles as his business name, so could be built into the logo. Tony’s short domain name is easy to say, easy to type and easy to remember, especially for the surfer!
Whilst it might be tempting to broaden his range of products, Tony understands that there are greater benefits in staying narrow. There already exist multiple online providers of physical training and skill acquisition for surfing, and to compete in areas where he is not the best can have a negative effect. By keeping his offering tight, to surfing injury treatment, Tony can partner with these complementary businesses and piggyback on their existing databases to quickly reach a receptive audience.
With www.surf.physio Tony is dipping his toes into the water into the digital world. Once he has successfully mastered this wave he will be able double back and repeat the process on the next one.
Recent Comments