Issue 1 - January 2003

Marketing on a shoestring
How to promote your practice without spending a dime
by Peter G. Fernandez, D.C.

Faced with reduced insurance reimbursements, high overheads and skyrocketing advertising costs, you may be forced to operate on a very tight marketing/promotion budget. If you don’t find ways to promote effectively without spending a lot of money, you’ll have no choice but to cut down on promotions – and that inevitably slows down the growth of your practice.

So – how can you keep promoting your practice in spite of increased financial challenges? The answer is simple – do shoestring marketing. Here are some ways to do this:

Use your phone
Your telephone can be one of your most effective referral-stimulating tools. Doctors using the following telephone procedures for stimulating referrals, have found that the more calls they make each day, the more referrals they receive.

• Make thank-you calls. The first referral-stimulating telephone call should be a “thank you for referring” call to the referrer of each new patient you received that day. Surprisingly, most doctors never thank their referrers. Referrers who do not feel appreciated or do not feel their referrals are welcomed, do not refer often or stop referring all together.

Call and personally thank your referrers. Without discussing the patient’s health problem, simply thank the referring patient and tell him/her that you’ll take real good care of the friend or relative.

• Call the referrer again. The next referral-stimulating telephone call takes place six weeks after the referred patient begins care. Call the referrer with a brief update on his/her referred friend’s or relative’s progress. Again, don’t discuss the referred patient’s physical condition, but tell the referring patient that because of him/her, their friend/relative is regaining their health. Congratulate the referring patient for taking the time to help his/her friend /relative find the care they need.

• Call every patient at least once a year. An organized and consistent recall program using your telephone is yet another free and effective marketing strategy. The most effective referral-generating procedure I used in my all referral practice, was my annual telephone call to each of my patients.

I used this call to let them know I was still concerned about how they were doing and that I would always make room to see them if they needed my services. This “I care” telephone call kept my patients coming back, and motivated them to refer more of their friends/relatives.

E-mail Newsletters
Keeping your name in front of your patients is important, whether they are currently under active care or not. Traditional newsletters are costly to produce, print and mail out. But e-mail newsletters eliminate those costs. To implement this program:

• Ask for e-mail addresses. Many people have e-mail today. Ask for the address and permission to send a newsletter.

• Prepare your newsletter. Keep in mind that effective e-mail newsletters are short, interesting and frequent. You’ll find there are many sources of e-mail newsletters (some free) available.

• Send a new newsletter every two weeks. There are several e-mail broadcasting programs available. Cost – free to a couple hundred dollars.

Response program
Design a referral-stimulating response program that uses what the patient states or asks as a springboard to make a plug for referrals. For example, the patient may say, “You sure are busy today.” The response would be, “We are, because of good people like you and we appreciate all the friends and relatives you are referring to our office. And no matter how busy we are, we’ll always make room on our schedule to take care of your friends and relatives. Thanks for your referrals.”

To design your response program:
• Make a list of common statements and questions. Brainstorm with
your staff.

• Prepare referral-stimulating responses for each statement. Use your staff’s input.

• Study and practice this program. Work with your CAs until your responses come automatically and sincerely.

Cost for responding to patients in a referral stimulating manner – free!

Table Talk
You have a captive audience on your table – are you making the most of it? Turn “table talk” into a referral-stimulating, patient-education session.
• Discuss the subluxation – the nerve it is pinching and the health problems it can cause.
• Describe the fix. Tell your patient you are going to fix their subluxation, which will allow the affected nerve to heal and whatever is at the end of that nerve will respond.

This “table talk” procedure works just as great today as it did for the old timers who referred to it as “touch and tell.”

Cost for referral-stimulating table talk – free!

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Dr. Peter G. Fernandez, president of Fernandez Consulting, www.drfernandez.com, has been in practice consulting for 22 years.