27 tips to jump-start your 2005 marketing

To jump-start your marketing efforts in 2005, Chiropractic Economics asked practice-management consultants and practicing chiropractors to share their marketing quick tips.

We sorted through their secrets and picked out 27 proven ideas for you to mull over, massage and manage in your practice. (We'll publish more tips in future issues of Chiropractic Economics.) Here are the tidbits of marketing advice our experts gave:

1. Brand yourself. If you want more new patients, don’t walk around the mall camouflaged in regular street clothes. Instead of advertising Ralph Lauren’s polo player, get your practice logo embroidered on golf shirts. Or have T-shirts silk-screened with statements such as, “Naturally Chiropractic” or “I know why chiropractic works!”

The logos or statements create opportunities for prospective patients to identify you as someone involved in chiropractic and start a conversation with you. Carry plenty of business cards to give to your new acquaintances.

— William D. Esteb,
Patient Media, Inc., www.patientmedia.com

2. Endorsement strategies. Include alliance marketing to enhance your marketing campaign. Alliance marketing uses one professional to endorse another — for example, a dentist sends out a letter recommending you to his patients.

Professional endorsements are dynamic authority-creating vehicles that drive new patients into your practice and cost nothing more than reciprocal endorsements from you.

— Peter Fernandez, DC,
Fernandez Consulting, www.DrFernandez.com

3.  Press on with press releases. A great idea to promote your office and chiropractic is to send press releases announcing the advanced knowledge and skills you have acquired from the conference you just attended.

However, take care not to make the press release self-serving. Instead, focus on the great health advances that are happening in chiropractic and how this knowledge is helping people in the community.

Give the press release to your patients; send it to local businesses; post it at the library; and send it community clubs, as well as to your local newspaper.

Don’t be afraid to boast about the courses you are taking every year. Education is what prospective patients use as a criteria to build their confidence. Patients are impressed with continuing education and are attracted to doctors with the most knowledge.

—Joyce Battaglia, DC,
Lakeside Chiropractic, Huntersville, N.C.

4. Perks for gym members. My clinic is in a fitness center. Several times a month I offer “perks” for gym members — a free 15-minute massage with consultation, spinal screening and a stretch class. I post these on a monthly calendar and have an area on the calendar available for them to sign up.

— Farid Rooh, DC
Chirosport USA, Milpitas, Calif. www.mgvmarketing.com.

5. Dress the part. Your staff’s uniforms should speak to your target audience about what you do.

For example: If you have a practice promoting wellness care, what is the more appropriate choice of clothing — “scrubs” or golf shirts?

Answer: Golf shirts.
Why? Scrubs are the uniform dress in the medical model. A practice that is focused on wellness should look like wellness — not critical care.

— Bruce A. Parker, DC
The Practice Advantage,
www.the-practice-advantage.com

6. A sporting match. Our clinics are located in fitness centers that aggressively market new memberships and have a large membership base.

As part of our arrangement with the gym, we offer a sports medicine/chiropractic evaluation to all new gym members. This marketing advantage brings people to our doors who may have never sought chiropractic care.

— Daniel L. Wymer, DC
sportsMED,
Chesapeake, Va.

7. Ask for accountability. As you determine how to distribute your advertising dollars (10 percent to 30 percent of gross revenues) on radio, television, billboards or Internet advertising, for example, ask your advertising representative:

• “How long will it take to reach my growth objectives?”
• “How will I know what portion of that growth is because of the money I will spend with you?”
• “What absolute accountability can you provide me?”
Make your decisions on the best use of your advertising dollars based on the answers you get.

— Dennis Nikitow, DC,
Certainty Practice Products,
www.certaintyproducts.com

8. Go to work! Many chiropractors close their in-house spinal workshops with a request for new-patient referrals. Consider another approach: Ask for the opportunity to deliver educational workshops in the workplace.

Here’s how to do it:

• Pass out an “employee enhancement” form instead of a referral request sheet.
• Inform your patients how the topics you speak on can strengthen work teams, reduce time off and elevate team connectedness, morale and health.
• Ask for those who know their HR directors to raise their hands.
• At the end of the class, meet privately with each individual who is willing to give out the form and arrange a follow-up meeting.

— Dean L. DePice, DC
Team and Life Conditioning for Superteams
www.tlc4superteams.com

9. Target a referral market. Instead of targeting your marketing to individual patients, think about targeting a large potential referral market.

For example: Consider targeting rheumatologists by positioning your practice as specializing in therapy for fibromyalgia. Or, aim at orthopedic surgeons, who are now recognizing the benefits of working with chiropractors for cross referrals.

You get much more for your advertising effort when you market to referral sources because each one of these sources can send many patients into the practice.

— Marc Sencer, MD
MDs for DCs, www.mdsfordcs.com

10. Co-op mail. Consider a co-op direct-mail campaign. A co-op campaign includes two or more pieces of mail in the same envelope, such as a stack of packaged post cards. The costs of the mailing are shared with other market-ers, providing a much lower cost per thousand circulation. A possible downside: Although the cost is lower, the individual response rate may also be lower than if you conducted your own direct-mail campaign.

— Susan Taylor
staylor25@wi.rr.com

11. Become involved. Are you in the Lions Club? Chamber of Commerce? Rotary? Other community-service organizations?

Are you active in them?
Involvement, not just membership, is key to becoming visible in your community. Becoming active in your community increases your visibility. In return for your time, you will find your waiting room filling up.

— George Thompson, CSLC
The Office Coach, www.theofficecoach.com

12. Swing into golf’s opportunity. Golf, golf, golf and more golf. It is “the” sport in our community, which has six new golf courses. With such an emphasis on golf, we thought it might offer us a marketing opportunity. Here is what we did:

• Prepared. We ordered some pamphlets on golf and chiropractic, as well as ice packs and tees with our name.
• Advertised. We advertised in the newspaper, radio and at the local courses that we would help golfers improve their game.
• Demonstrated. We held our first demonstration event at a local driving range. We educated the golfers on the benefits of getting adjusted and we performed range-of-motion screenings on golfers.

The event ended with many people making appointments. Everyone who attended left with a better understanding of the importance of getting adjusted to prepare the spine for a long day of golf.

• ‘Rewarded.’ We gave each person an ice pack and some golf tees engraved with the office name and number.

Establishing a presence at the golf courses has led to many referrals for struggling golfers who want to find solutions to their golf problems as well as their health problems.

— Carolann Klingert, office manager
Klingert Family Chiropractic Center
Egg Harbor Township, N.J.

13. Have testing, will travel. If you do not have adequate testing facilities in your area, consider using mobile on-site testing.

The small town in which my wife and I practice has no advanced testing facilities. The nearest hospital location for such tests is 45 minutes away — an inconvenient distance for the three to five patients a week we referred for testing.

To facilitate diagnostic assessment of our patients, we began to use on-site mobile testing services, which is done under my supervision.

As a result of offering this service, we have seen both patient and physician referrals to our clinic increase significantly.

— Drs. David and Jill Batencourt,
Body Dynamics Chiropractic,
Guthrie, Okla.

14. Budding artists and patients. A pediatric practice is an excellent place to display the work of budding artists from your local elementary and preschools.

Contact the schools and tell them you would like to display their students’ artwork on your office walls. Most schools will alert their faculty and parents about your “gallery” in their school newsletter. The gallery will also boost your image as a pediatric chiropractor in your local area and your patients will love it as well!

— Alithea Corter, DC
BAC to Health Chiropractic
Beverly Hills, Calif.

15. Advertising: As easy as 1, 2, 3, 4. To get the best return for your advertising dollar you need to maximize four basic components:

1. Targeted audience. Don’t try to have a “one size fits all” message.
2. Carefully selected medium. Choose the medium that will reach your target audience the most efficiently.
3. Catchy words. Your ad needs an attention getter (words or graphics). It also needs to tell the buyer about the services and benefits — what they get out of it and what makes you better/different than the rest. Close with a strong call to action (what you want them to do.)
4. Results tracking. Measure your ad response so that you can modify or cease the ad if you are not getting your predetermined response.

— Tom Deters, DC
Thomas C. Deters & Associates, Inc., www.tomdeters.com

16. Create a unified look. Don’t overlook these ways to incorporate your brand into a unified theme:

• Hang pictures with an integrated theme in your office;
• Provide shirts embroidered with your practice name to your staff;
• Print the report-of-findings on paper with your logo on each page.

— Tom Berish
CLA, www.subluxatin.com

17. Screen for carpal tunnel. Put a sign on your door or in your window that reads:

As a public service, we offer a free five-minute carpal tunnel screening. Stop in and ask for details.

When people stop in, ask them fill out a mini questionnaire and do a quick screening. This screening usually develops five to nine new patients per month and costs almost nothing.

— Glenn Winnestaffer, DC, DIBCN
Progressive Health & Rehab
Columbus, Ohio

18. Keep it legal. It’s important to remember compliance when speaking of marketing. Some inducement-oriented marketing programs may violate state or federal insurance fraud statutes.

Become informed before you market. Review the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) August 2002 Special Advisory Bulletin entitled, “Offering Gifts and other Inducements to Beneficiaries.”

— Michael Miscoe
Practice Masters, Inc., www.winpmi.com

19. Pay-per-click advertising. Make use of paid-inclusion ad campaigns by utilizing Google and Overture. A $100 monthly investment may attract as many new patients as a yellow pages ad costing $1,000 a month.

For example: In September 2004, more than 3,600 people performed a Web search for “New York chiropractor.” The chiropractor whose name came up first in the search spent approximately 42 cents for every click on his or her link.

If only 1 percent of Web searchers (36 people) clicked once on the advertiser’s name, the cost would have been about $15, easily recovered if only 5 percent (two new patients) scheduled a visit.

— Jeff Pasternack
Dynamic Consulting Group, LLC, www.TheDCG.com

20. Keep the MD in the loop. After you finish your new-patient consultation and examination, send a letter to the patient’s family medical doctor (with the patient’s permission).

Your letter will showcase your skills to the MD and will help the MD understand how chiropractic helps the patient.

In your letter, include your findings (consultation and exam), your diagnosis, recommended diagnostic tests, goals and the treatment plan.

Keep the MD up-to-date with the patient’s progress and encourage the doctor to call you with questions.

— Marty Kotlar, DC
Target Coding, www.TargetCoding.com

21. Multi-education. Learning doesn’t happen after just one exposure to new information. Most patients are so inundated with the medical/ sickness model that few will “get it” after only one or two educational sessions with you.

Think in terms of creating multiple educational opportunities by planning a number of different exposures, such as:

• Daily patient education,
• Health talks (basic and advanced),
• Special office events,
• Waiting room videos,
• Posters,
• Cassettes/CDs and
• Messages on waiting room boards.

— Fred J. Blum, DC
Clarkesville Chiropractic
Clarkesville, Ga

22. Automate your follow-up process. Use a patient follow-up marketing and referral system that works in conjunction with a contact-management system.

These types of systems automate much of the follow-up process by matching patient-management activities with stages of a patient’s treatment plan.

Not only does this type of system allow you to monitor a patient’s treatment, but it also tips you off when it is time to ask patients for referrals.

A good system frees staff from less productive activities and allows them to focus on your patients.

— Deborah Olinger,
Breakthrough Coaching, www.mybreakthrough.com

23. Build trust with employers. Position your clinic as a provider that will help employers reduce lost time and productivity from on-the-job injuries and accidents. Offer to give safety programs to employees to prevent injuries.

Helping to prevent injuries builds trust and sets you up as a provider of choice when injuries do occur.

— Brad Feldner, DC
Corporate Health of America
www.corphealtham.com

24. Fat chance. The number one killer in the United States is obesity. As an enhancement to your wellness focus, concentrate on weight management. Provide your patients with nutritional counseling and consistent, easy-to-use weight management program.

When you expand your practice to this area of wellness, you open your doors to treating 66 percent of the population instead of only the 10 percent who currently go to a chiropractor.

— Dallas Humble, DC
Dallas Humble, Inc., www.dallashumble.com

25. Gain name recognition and market dominance. Name recognition is equal to market dominance. If your name pops into a person’s mind every time chiropractic is mentioned, your practice will boom.

Some ways to accomplish this name recognition: Write a regular column for your local newspaper, host a TV show on public broadcasting or talk radio, join and lead an active service organization or host a charity walk.

— David Singer, DC
David Singer Enterprises, www.davidsingerenterprises.com

26. Dinner talk. We consistently attract more than 40 new patient prospects each month to our practice through our “New Patient Dinner Presentation.” We invite our patients, their friends, the community and businesses to hear a free dinner talk about chiropractic healthcare.

The results speak for themselves.

— John. H. Madeira, DC
Madeira Success Strategies
www.MadeiraSuccess.com

27. Let your newsletter ‘talk’. Put a 21st century “spin” on the old monthly newsletter idea. A monthly newsletter keeps you in touch with your patients (inactive and active). But many people don’t like to read.

A solution: Use technology to your advantage. Create a “talking” newsletter on CD.

About 50 percent – 70 percent of your patients will listen to this CD. Only 10 percent – 30 percent read newsletters. And they are more likely to pass it to a friend or co-worker.

To create a talking newsletter, you need a microphone, recording software and CD burner. Recordable CDs cost less than $1 each. Your staff can burn and label CDs in house or you can hire a company to make as many copies of your CD as you need each month.

Suggestion: To find out if this idea is right for you, survey your patients about their preferences in receiving and reading a newsletter.

Len Schwartz, DC, ChiroPractice Marketing Solutions, LLC, www.chiropracticemarketingsolutions.com