New technologies that can help you diagnose more easily or help patients heal faster are making their way into chiropractic. Implementing technology into your practice is good.

But if you are depending upon technology alone to grow your practice, you will be disappointed.

Technology can’t do that; growing your practice is up to you. You can, however, use technology to your advantage in your marketing strategy.

Technology can be viewed as a new solution to old problems, and new solutions always have appeal. Use that appeal to attract patients.

Here are four ways to market this “new” solution:

1. Conduct lectures and seminars. When LASIK surgery for vision correction was first introduced, ophthalmologists found they needed to conduct seminars and give demonstrations to reassure people of the procedure’s safety.

The same principle holds true with technology: Do a “show and tell” to introduce your technology to the public. Schedule lectures and seminars to provide information and possible demonstrations of the technology you have incorporated. Let patients and potential patients see firsthand what will help them.

2. Advertise. Either in conjunction with or in addition to your presentations, plan an advertising campaign. Consider flyers, newspaper inserts, radio ads, CDs or DVDs, and direct mail to announce the technology and educate the public.

Plan the advertising campaign as you would any other: Calculate how much return-on-investment you need to make for the campaign to be successful. Do not make advertising a one-shot effort; plan the campaign to send consistent information to educate potential patients about the technology and how it can help them.

3. Ask for referrals. Referral is a tried-and-true method of acquiring new patients. When people are excited about a product because they have experienced it or seen it demonstrated, they tell others.

And their “telling” is an endorsement of you and your product.

Ask patients who have benefited from the technology to refer others to you.

4. Use your internal database. New technology — whether it is diagnostic or therapeutic — can bring inactive patients back to your clinic. If you have lost patients who feel you cannot help them, they will not return. But if you offer them a different solution, you may give inactive patients a reason to come back.

Send out letters and/or newsletters (or e-newsletters) to your database of patients, including inactive patients, announcing the new technology and what it offers. Educate and invite them to come in to see the technology for themselves.

CONSIDER SEPARATION

If the technology you are incorporating lends itself to be a separate business unit, consider separating its use from the usual business of the clinic — separate hours, delivery of service, and marketing.

In other words, continue doing business as you always do, but add the new product or service at separate times of the day — or even better yet — on different days. Keep the two completely separate until you know all the possible ramifications.

For example: Let’s say you have an insurance-based practice, but would like to convert to a cash practice. If you tell all of your patients you no longer accept insurance and they have to pay cash, you may lose clientele.  

Instead of trying to convert old patients, introduce the cash concept to new patients. If the cash concept is well-received, you will not have damaged what you are already doing. If it is a disaster, you still have your original practice.

David Singer, DC, is the founder and CEO of David Singer Enterprises, which focuses on helping practitioners achieve personal and practice goals despite managed care.

He can be reached at 800-326-1797 or through his Web site, www.davidsingerenterprises.com.