Issue 5 - April 2004

Quick Marketing Tips

Join the Chamber

The most effective way to market your practice in the shortest time for a great return on investment is to join your local Chamber of Commerce.

For your membership fee of approximately $200-$300, you’ll get:
• A mailing list of like-minded people who also want to grow their business;
• Monthly newsletters in which you can advertise your office events;
• After-hour networking opportunities;
• Opportunities to get involved in the community and get your name known.

— Wendy Cruoglio, CA
First Choice Health Group LLC
Brick, N.J.

Seeing is believing

If you have the technology to do a nerve scan, use it as a marketing tool. Offer your patients gift certificates to give to family and friends for a free nerve scan and consultation. When new patients compare the accuracy of the scan to their symptoms, they generally choose to come in for treatment.

Using this technique, in one month we generated 14 consultations and seven new patients for our office and made two referrals to offices closer to the homes of the patients.

— Dr. Howard M. Brown
Wappingers Falls, N.Y.

Double-duty holiday letter

Send out your holiday letter right after Thanksgiving. At the bottom of your letter, write: “Have you met your insurance deductible for the year? If you have, there is no better time to get an adjustment. Don’t put it off until next year!”

— Dr. Tyler Mandel
Lancaster, Penn.

On call

New patients who find your office in the Yellow Pages often will not leave a message on voice mail. Instead, they go on to the next chiropractor in the phone book.

To avoid missing calls, you need a cell phone, PDA and call forwarding:
• Forward all office calls to your cell phone in the evening.
• Turn your cell phone on at 7 a.m. and don’t turn it off until 8 p.m.
• Back up you patient schedule to your PDA so you are always ready to schedule an appointment.

Using available technology, you won’t miss new patients and you are able to provide better customer service to existing patients also.

— Dr. John Heggie, president and co-founder
Lakeside Chiropractic Seminars, Inc., www.dcseminars.com

Ask with confidence

One of the perceived obstacles to marketing an in-house health enhancement talk is getting patients to attend. I performed an experiment in a patient-education class at Sherman College to determine how students invite people to health talks.

During an hour of role playing, 76 percent of the 26 students in the class used phrases similar to “You might learn something,” “Come if you can make it” and “Maybe I’ll see you then.”

When students used words like try, maybe, might and if, the invitations were perceived as weak and unimportant. When they used positive assertions, such as “I’ll see you at the seminar,” the results were significantly improved.

You’ve heard the saying, “You’ve got to ask to receive.” More appropriate is, “You’ve got to ask with confidence to receive.” u

- Dr. Jon Schwartzbauer, instructor
Sherman College of Straight Chiropractic