February 2002

(More) Top Marketing Ideas For 2002
Part Two of Two Parts (view Part One Here)
Compiled by Tara Stultz

From Our Readers...

Return to Sender
A recent marketing idea I had was to write a letter to all my patients that I haven’t seen in a while, a very personalized letter. Along with the letter, I sent three pre-printed postcards with my name, practice name, and phone number. Each card was good for a free consultation and exam.

I explained in the letter that I was attempting to reach those individuals who always find some excuse to put off getting treatment for pain, etc., and that the recipients should pass these cards on to those loved ones, family, friends and co-workers who they felt could benefit from care. In return, for each card sent back to me by a new prospective patient, the patient who made the referral receives a free visit.
Dr. Tracy Parrino
New York, N.Y.

Back to Basics
When I was a student in the late 1970s at Cleveland Chiropractic College-Los Angeles, I had a dynamic instructor named Dr. Dorothea Towne. She presented marketing strategies that I have used and found profoundly successful and quite simple.
They include:

• Be the best chiropractic doctor you can be by studying your preferred technique and being up-to-date on new developments in healthcare.
• Care for your patients with your heart and soul and make finances secondary and their care, and your concern of their health, primary.
• When you are with your patients, give them 100% of your attention and energy. Be familiar with their conditions and follow up with help when they are not in the office.
• Always remember the patient is the employer and the boss; we work for them and need to please them with our care, or we might be replaced.
Dr. Charles L. Blum
Santa Monica, Calif.

Satellite Doctors
My partner and I have a weekly T.V. show modeled after “Body Break, with Hal and Joanne.” We have local health-oriented companies sponsor us as we go to local locations to talk about ergonomics, safe stretching, chiropractic lifestyle etc. We shoot two shows in three hours every two weeks. We actually now charge $250 per show to locations as an advertising fee, get referrals from viewers, have great follow-up opportunities for screenings and lectures with health-oriented companies and groups. And best of all, we have a blast doing it!

We are in a community (in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada) of about 200,000 people, and the station we use has just gone to satellite all over Ontario. We get full sponsorship from a local company that owns health-oriented retirement homes. Our deal is that we use their facilities or residents for one show per month, but we maintain all the creative input. We have done shows focusing on everything from indoor rock climbing to computer workstations to lawn bowling.

Our time commitment is about three hours every two weeks, plus about an hour of creativity time. We sort of stumbled into the process, but it was extremely easy to set up and the results have been wonderful.
Dr. Doug Lukinuk
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

MD Relationship Builders
We have really opened doors in a medical community that is very conservative and was closed to chiropractic.

Here are some of the basics:

• Provide a quality service that pleases your patients. No marketing works if you do a poor job.
• Refrain from MD bashing. It will get you nowhere. It also looks and is extremely unprofessional, including when they do it to us.
• Discourage your patients from hiding the fact that they are seeing a chiropractor from their MD. We want them to know what is facilitating their chronic patient’s recovery all of a sudden.
• Communicate. Send a copy of your report of findings to each of your patients’ doctors - especially the primary-care doctors. Be professional in the narrative. Avoid frequent use of chiro-jargon. Be certain to include subjective, objective data as well as your assessment and treatment goals and plans. Attach a humble cover letter providing a brief, one paragraph summary. Tell them that you are looking forward to working with them in their patients’ recovery and encourage them to call you if questions or concerns arise. On our initial application for treatment form, we have the question, “May we send your other health-care providers a report notifying them of our findings and treatment plans?” Rarely is this answered “no.” The patients know this provides some accountability for their “new” doctor. Send updated progress reports at each re-evaluation.
• If the patient is an HMO member, call their primary-care provider’s office and ask for a referral as though you just expect it as standard.

We receive about one to two referrals from MDs per week using these procedures. The first couple of referrals were reluctant and took lots of pressure from their patients. Once they gave us a chance, the floodgates opened.
Dr. Roc A. Byrd
Avon, Ind.

Time-Tested, Doctor-Approved
As Dr. B.J. Palmer said: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise!” (from “Below the Bottom,” by Dr. B.J. Palmer, 1950, page 453).
Dr. William E. Hancock.
Ft. Myers, Fla.

Just a Phone Call Away
This is what we do in our offices. My wife (who is my office manager) and I run two offices in two towns. Each one has a phone line, and then we have a phone line at our home, of course. Since we spend a lot of time going from one office to the next and to our home, we forward all the calls from the three phones (the two offices and the house phones) to a cellular phone.

This way, we do not miss any calls, since every call is a potential patient. It does not matter why the person calls:
We share the Big Idea with every caller and invite them to discover chiropractic. This form of marketing works very well for us. Think about it... how many calls do you miss while you are on the road or simply not in your office? Every missed call is a missed potential new patient in your practice.
Dr. Amalio Jimenez
Arecibo, Puerto Rico

Industrial Injury Prevention
I teach industrial injury prevention programs. This has gotten me in the door of several private and public organizations that I would not have been able to access otherwise. I recently signed a three-year contract with our local utility company to train 3,000 employees each year at $50 per person.

I also have other groups to work with, but if I never trained any other group, this one contract gives me at least 9,000 contacts with working people. That exposure helps bring in several hundred thousand dollars in additional revenue. My return on investment is well over 100 times (10,000%), and I'm being paid to make credible face-to-face contact with thousands of potential new patients. Even if none of them became a patient (unlikely), I’ve been compensated for my time.

Injury prevention consulting is not a get-rich-quick scheme, because there is a fair amount of time and work involved, but the payback is tremendous. I provide a professional service that enhances the profession’s and my own image in the community, and I’m being paid well for it. This has become a profit center that complements my practice, provides access to a vast number of previously inaccessible potential new patients, enhances my exposure and reputation as a credible authority on biomechanics among our community’s business leaders, and allows me to make serious money while having some fun outside of the office.
Dr. Jim Blumenthal
Santa Monica, Calif.

Stamps of Approval
This is not an original idea (I believe I originally read about it on Amazon.com), but it’s one that’s worked very well for my office. This idea can only be used when the price of U.S. stamps go up, but it’s a great one to keep in your files.

Last time stamps went up one cent, I put together a letter and sent 10 one-cent stamps to patients telling them that now they have one less thing to do (going out to buy one-cent stamps for the 33-cent stamps they already had on-hand), which of course gave them more time to come in and get a chiropractic check-up (see letter, next page).
Dr. Lloyd Fielder
Schaumburg, Ill.

From the Experts...

The Three-a-Day Game
The Three-a-Day game is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to attract referrals. To play, choose three people from your appointment book each day, and the challenge is to get them to refer someone. It costs no money and takes less than five minutes a day. Pick the three patients you think will be most likely to refer, and educate all of your patients throughout the day, but only close these three times.

If you ask for referrals three times each day, five office days per week and four weeks per month, that’s 15 attempts each week and 60 per month. If you close 10%, that would be six additional patients each month. Get to 20%, and that’s 12 new patients; 33% would be 20 new patients each month. This is a consistency game - you must play every day to make it work. Also, don’t mistakenly think if three a day is good, five a day is better. You’re better off with fewer trials and more focus. Try it for three months and see.

When you get good at this, you can expand the game to play outside your office - it takes more skill, but is very exciting. You can play the Three-a-Day Game inside your office, and One-, Two-, or Three-a-Day Game outside your office - just play the same number each day, and keep track of your results, for planning purposes.

For example, if you play Three-a-Day inside and get 15 new patients out of 60 trials, that would be a 25% closing ratio.

If your goal is 15 new patients, then that’s all you need to do. If your goal is 30, then you need to plan other activities to bring in the other 15, like expanding to an outside game, and/or improving your “batting average” by refining your communication skills. However you choose to play, this is one of the most productive new patient attraction techniques you can learn.
Dr. Dennis Perman/The Masters Circle

Reactivate Inactive Patients
Always remember your “Acres of Diamonds” are your inactive patients. Your internal marketing should include at least two calls per day to inactive patients. The calls should be made personally by you or another doctor in your practice. You should voice your concern that you have not seen the patient since (last appointment date). If you get an answering machine, let this inactive patient know whom you are and why you are calling.

Offer the patient an appointment for re-evaluation. You can leave an appointment date and time on the answering machine, and ask the patient to call your office to confirm whether he or she will be keeping the appointment.

Aftewards, follow up each call with a handwritten note, with your business card enclosed. This type of personalized marketing shows your patients how much you care and how concerned you are about their well-being, even when you haven’t seen them in the practice recently.
Dr. Charles Ward/Ward Success Systems

Become a P.R. Guru
Be your own public relations guru. Find out the names and contact information for your local media. Call and introduce yourself to these editors and producers and identify yourself as an excellent source for any upcoming chiropractic/ nutrition/pain management stories they may be planning. In addition, press releases that deal with timely events are always of interest. Think about what is newsworthy about your practice that will yield media attention without appearing self-serving.

You should try to touch base with the media every two weeks and make sure that they have your CV and a link to your website. Remember, websites are a key marketing tool... no chiropractor should be without one!
Katherine Rothman/KMR Communications, Inc.

Play Dress-Up
One thing that all offices should be is upbeat and friendly. To help promote this attitude, you and your staff can have fun and dress up on holidays or special occasions. At one office, the doctor’s wife had a birthday. She handles the collections in the office. The office manager and staff got together and dressed up in medieval attire. They paid homage to the

birthday “queen” all day, and even brought in a knight in shining armor. The patients loved it!

There are many other holidays and events that the staff and office can dress up for, such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, etc. This playful attitude can greatly increase the morale of the office and make it a more pleasant place to work and to visit as a patient.
Ed Sharp/Sharp Management

Get the Word Out
The best advertising in the newspaper comes by using 81/2 x 11 inserts into the paper. Have the insert printed on golden yellow or light green paper (try to get the paper at a warehouse outlet if you can). Offer something free in your inserted ad, such as a free consultation visit, or a free screening examination. Put the word FREE in capital letters, and be sure to provide an action step, such as: “Call our office today for your FREE exam.”

Keep it short, and use large print. It’s preferable to work with a daily paper rather than a weekly paper. If your local paper uses zone marketing, have the insert added to editions in several zip codes around the office, ideally within five miles or so. A good day to do an insert is on the day when the paper usually runs grocery ads, such as Wednesday or Thursday. Repeat two times a month for at least three months to get an idea of how the promotion is working. Be sure to document the sources of all new patients so you can track your return on investment (ROI) for this marketing strategy and others that you implement.
Dr. Barry Markson/Creative Options Management Systems

Shout It from the Rooftops
One of the best-proven marketing strategies is to give talks to as many people and groups as possible within your community. A great target audience is teachers. It is well-known that teachers are some of the most stressed-out people on the planet. There are many other professions that also have high stress levels.

You can put together a Stress Management Workshop that will teach the audience natural ways to combat stress. You will identify the differences between physical, emotional and chemical stress, and help the group gain a better understanding of how these different stressors can affect their health. You can then discuss methods of decreasing stress, both in the workplace and at home.

In order to become a “new patient magnet,” you must show the audience that you are sincerely enthusiastic, passionate and caring. You should strive to create a fun and interactive environment (including stress-relieving techniques, visualizations and breathing exercises), and have useful information prepared to hand out (stress-related articles, a bio on you and a brochure about your practice, and a stress-management survey). Getting involved with the local school systems is a great marketing strategy, because teachers tend to make good long-term patients, and are excellent at referring family and friends.
Michelle Geller-Vino/MGV Marketing, Inc.

The Host With the Most
Identify a small office or business in your area. Invite the employees (and management) to lunch at your clinic on a given day. Explain that you are simply trying to get better connected in the community and that you would like to better understand their business and how to steer them more customers. Explain that lunch will be ready at a certain time and they will be back at the office by a certain time, and you are providing lunch at no cost to them.

That pretty much removes all objections, except the ones who need to keep the business open during lunch. In those cases, you can do two lunch “shifts,” which allows the first set of employees to come and eat while the second group keeps the business open, and then the second shift comes over. Ask about food allergies, preferences, and vegetarians.

Arrange the menu and have a designated staff person pick up the food or have it delivered prior to the guests’ arrival. Don’t forget ice, forks, napkins, salt/pepper, ketchup, drinks, plates, dessert, etc. When your guests arrive, the first item on the agenda is a brief but informative tour of the office. Ideally, you should explain chiropractic with a spinal model in your hand and then palpate someone or check posture, or otherwise demonstrate a brief analysis. If they tour the office first, the majority of the lunch conversation will be from their questions about chiropractic and the health conditions you treat.

Now move to the lunch area (usually reception room) and serve the guests. The conversation will turn to the wonders of chiropractic with very little effort from you. Before you are done, be sure to ask how you can better understand and refer to the other business. It is rare to have folks come into your office, get a demonstration, share a meal, get to know you and your staff, and then not have one of them become a new patient or refer others to your practice.
Dr. Joe Siragusa/Clarus Consulting

The Personal Touch
Most patients like to brag about their new doctor. A phone call in the evening to a new patient who has just been in the office can be an unexpected “value-added” service. It really impresses patients that you took the time to check on how they are doing. They’ll brag about you even more.
Chris Hadley/Hadley & Associates, Inc.

Capture the Moment
In an attempt to maximize services and make the client feel comfortable after two to three weeks of treatment, a patient is asked to stand next to the doctor, and a picture is taken. Copies of the photo are made, and with written permission from the patient, one of the photos is put out in an reception area photo album. Another copy of the picture, which has the date of birth written on the back of it, should be sent to the patient on his or her birthday, along with a birthday card and a coupon for a free gift.

The patient sees his or her picture in the photo album in the reception room, and feels like “part” of the practice; plus, other patients are reminded of how many others have received treatment for their health problems at your office. In addition, patients will often have forgotten about the

“Kodak moment” by the time the copy of the photo and the birthday card are sent. This reminds the patients that the clinic and the doctor are still thinking about them.
Dr. Daniel H. Dahan/Practice Perfect

Meet Up With Moms-to-Be
Why not contact the local organization that is teaching childbirth classes in your community? These women want
a prepared childbirth and are concerned about their babies and their own health. Who better to talk to about the changes going on in their bodies and the changes to their spine?

Also the La Leche League, which helps mothers who want to breast feed their babies, is a great resource. These are also women who are concerned about what is best for them and their babies... the best kind of patients!
Stanley Greenfield, RHU
Greenfield’s Financial Power Program

Mind-Body Connection
Introduce a mind-body program of wellness with a mental-health practitioner. The paramount area of interest with respect to healthcare for the Baby Boomer generation is anti-aging medicine. Mind-body programs teach people how to reduce stress, thereby increasing effectiveness in their work and everyday lives.

Such a program can be instituted via seminars within or outside of your office. Working with another practitioner who is an expert in a related field will add credibility and overall effectiveness to the program. It also increases the target market, which translates into many new patients for both practitioners.

The most effective marketing strategy for every chiropractor is to add revenue centers to the existing practice -the more services you have to sell, the more you increase the practice income. The percentage of overhead should decrease as you add revenue centers, because costs go down as a percentage of gross operation as income rises. You should always check with your state board prior to implementing any new marketing program to ensure compliance with state and federal laws.
Dr. Martin Green/Integrated Holistic Solutions

All in the Family
The Family System is an important aspect of your practice. Many teams only ask for the family members to get checked when they happen to remember. That will give you scattered results. Create a system that makes sure all new patients have an opportunity to get their families checked. First of all, the family members should be listed on the travel card or note system. You should always know who your patients’ family members are.

You should make it routine to share this short statement at the end of the report of findings: “Judy, now that you’ve made a commitment to your health, I want to share with you an opportunity I give all my new patients. That opportunity is for your children and husband to have a health check-up through chiropractic. I do this at my expense, because my mission is to make sure they, too, are as healthy as possible. This is something we will do in the future, because today I want to focus just on you. I just wanted to make sure I shared that with you.”

Now you need a system to follow up and get the other family members scheduled. On your travel card or note system, count down six visits and highlight in blue where the date is written or stamped in. This way, each card is always highlighted. When the front desk CA pulls that card for the day and sees the highlighted visit, he or she will approach the patient: “Judy, good to see you today! I’m going to send you back to see the doctor in just one moment. I thought this would be a good time to schedule your kids for the health check-up with the doctor. What will work best for you, morning or afternoon?”

The CA should not have to explain “why” the family members need to get checked. The doctor has already done it. The CA just does the follow-through. This system will ensure that all your patients’ families are given the opportunity to see you.
Heidi Farrell/ChiroAdvance Services

At Your Fingertips
Many patients ask about various things when they come into the office, from specific conditions that a friend may have, to what you think about magnets or room purifiers. In our office over the years, we developed a very comprehensive file of many questions patients asked. We then organized them into categories and put them in file folders in alphabetical order.

After a patient asked about them, the staff would go to the file, copy the information, and mail it to the patient with a sticky note saying, “We talked about this. and I have enclosed some information for you.” The positive response was always overwhelming, particularly if it was not specifically related to chiropractic treatment (i.e., humidifiers, ear plugs for traveling, magnets, etc.), because the patients knew we were listening to them. This is a powerful concept, costs next to nothing, and provides a wonderful service to patients.
Dr. Lou Sportelli/Practice Makers Products, Inc.

Marketing by Massage
You can build a synergy with massage therapists (in your office, or in your area) to help market your practice.

A great way to thank patients for referring other patients to the office is with a free massage. After the new patient’s third visit, send a letter to the referring patient giving him or her a free massage.

In addition, be sure to encourage local massage therapists to refer patients to you for a free chiropractic posture exam/analysis.
Dr. Steven P. Weiniger/BodyZone.com

Glove-Box Emergency Packet
Your clinic can provide patients and prospective patients with a Glove-Box Emergency Packet, which is an informational tri-fold brochure that can be used in the event of an accident. This brochure should include room for the driver to enter all emergency numbers, such as insurance agent, chiropractor (your name/number should be printed in the brochure), medical doctor, towing company, body shop, rental car agency, and next of kin. You can also co-op the publication with local businesses such as body shops, towing companies and car rental agencies, and in that case, their information would be pre-printed on the brochure along with yours.

The emergency packet will also allow the driver to list specific allergies and other needed medical information. The brochure includes a generic accident diagram on which details can be documented, and a checklist of things to do after an accident. The checklist comes in handy for any victim dazed from the shock and trauma of an accident. The emergency brochure should be printed on brightly colored paper and placed in the glove box of the car.
Sam Reader/S.G. Reader & Associates, Inc.

Get Your Brochure To Work for You
An effective brochure is almost more important than your business card, since a business card cannot convince a person to come into your office.

Lead those prospects directly from your brochure to your doorstep with these tips:
• Mail before the first scheduled visit.
• Mail to convert phone prospects.
• Leave behind at talks.
• Give to your patients for referrals.
• Help your staff be salespeople.
• Promotional aide to secure speaking engagements.
• Assurance to new patients they’re in the right place.
• Leave-behind material when meeting new people.
Dr. Timothy J. Gay/Ultimate Practice Systems

Get Organized
It’s difficult to be successful until you are organized.

Here are some simple tips that will make a big difference:

• Unclog your front desk. Many front desks have a tendency to gradually become “clogged” with extra paperwork. Gradually, processing paper or entering data into a computer can begin to seem more important than working with patients. Get rid of extra work on the front desk, and allow the front desk staff to spend more time working with patients and generating referrals.
• Front desk purpose. A primary purpose of the front desk is to get and keep the appointment book full. Go over this with your staff, and trim away extraneous work that is not related to this job, get your front desk staff focused on this purpose, and watch your practice grow.
• Planner. A marketing planner or calendar is to marketing what your appointment book is to the front desk. Until a marketing project is scheduled, it is just a wish. Give all marketing projects a due date, even the ones planned six months from now.
• Delegate. All marketing projects should be delegated to a marketing coordinator and/or other staff and doctors. Avoid letting projects suffer from neglect; make sure they are assigned.
Ed Petty/Petty, Michel & Associates

Help Patients See the Light
Based on a survey of more than 500 chiropractic patients, the three things patients want most from their doctors of chiropractic are: 1) to be listened to, 2) a thorough examination with a simple explanation, and 3) to be empowered - how can you help me help myself.

This simple neurological test is a tremendous empowerment tool, as well as very effective for patient recall. The doctor and patient stand about two feet apart, with both arms flexed and index fingers pointing up. The doctor tells the patient to, “Look at my finger and touch my finger. Look at my finger, close your eyes, and touch my finger.”

Do this on both sides. If the patient cannot touch the doctor’s finger(s) with his or her eyes closed, the patient needs a cervical adjustment. Adjust the appropriate area, and they should then be able to perform the test.

When the patient is responding and decreasing the frequency of care, give the patient your card and tell him or her to tape it on the wall just above a light switch in the patient’s kitchen (usually right next the phone). Every morning upon waking, the patient should, “Look at the light switch and touch the light switch. Look at the light switch, close your eyes, and touch the light switch.”

The day the patient can’t touch the light switch, his or her neck is subluxated, and it’s time to call your office for an adjustment. Tell the patient not to wait until there’s pain. Give your patients this empowerment “tool” so they can monitor themselves.
Dr. William M Austin/Foot Levelers, Inc.

Editor’s Note: Our request for “Top Marketing Ideas For 2002” turned up some of the most innovative new patient recruitment and retention strategies we’ve seen yet. This “clip-and-save” collection of marketing tips includes the best of the best ideas from our readers, as well as the “experts” - chiropractic firms and companies that specialize in providing marketing and management advice. We ran the first part of this two-part feature in the January issue, and we will continue to bring you more ideas throughout the coming year.

The readers whose ideas are listed here, along with the readers whose tips we ran last issue, will receive cool prizes to help them market their practices, from ChiroPower (www.chiropowerinc.com), HMI Marketing (www.hmimarketing.com), Patient Media (www.patientmedia.com) and Practice Makers Products (www.practicemakers.com). To contact those companies or any of the consultants or companies listed in this article, be sure to check out our newly designed website at www.chiroeco.com. You’ll find addresses, phone numbers, faxes, e-mail addresses, website links, etc., in our site’s “Marketplace” section. We hope you enjoy this special section as much as we enjoyed putting it together! If you have feedback – or a great marketing idea of your own – please contact Tara Stultz, editor-in-chief, at 440-234-5221 or tarastultz@aol.com.