Chiropractic Economics’ Point-Counterpoint is where doctors of chiropractic and health care industry professionals debate the industry’s hottest topics. This issue: Surviving COVID-19
Are you planning to keep your practice open, or close during the coronavirus pandemic, and what are some of your strategies? The following responses were posted to the Chiropractic Economics Point-Counterpoint page on Facebook.
Survive by marketing
“I am remaining open as long as my health department allows and it is economically viable at least to break even. Why? I am here to serve — chiropractors went to jail so we could serve people, we don’t take that. We are here to serve the people and be a voice of reason in these crazy times!
As far as marketing my practice, here is what we are doing as a checklist:
Mailing Recall Letters — goal is 100 handwritten letters per day.
Email Patients — email open rates haven’t been this good in 10 years. We are seeing 40% email open rates; these rates haven’t been seen in 10 years. I had a client yesterday getting 50% open rates. It’s the right time to be emailing. You can do recall emails, COVID-19 updates, general messaging, etc. I do a message, our current promotion, and thank you for referrals for the month.
Social Media — Facebook is re-surging like crazy! The platform was floundering and now it is exploding! We just had a post get over 4,000 shares, and engagement of 40,000 people with zero payments in a town of 10,000. GET ON SOCIAL!
Handwritten Cards — All staff are instructed to handwrite 10 note cards per day to patients. Either saying we miss you, or congrats on the baby, great to see you, etc.
Video — All chiropractors are doing four YouTube videos per day. It’s the time to fill up your channel, answer questions and get video content done.
Video Email Recall — Chiropractors are all sending their patients a video, and personally sending a message to their patients, maybe giving them some stretches, and directly emailing to them.
Catch Up — Clean and maintain. Catch up on the office maintenance and cleaning.
This too shall pass! In your own spare time, brush up on your marketing. Develop your marketing calendar for the year, plan all your events! Docs always tell me they do not have enough time to do marketing, now is the time! Second is systems. You need checklist and procedures for everything in your clinic, do it now!”
— J. Fedich, DC
“Talking to our local health department today. We may shut the doors for the next two weeks. Just not sure if we will be able to open the doors again after an economic hit like this. Only time will tell.”
— C. Williams, DC
“Our college has mandated we cease all ‘non-essential’ visits immediately. Almost every office is closed until further direction. Very challenging times.”
— A. Di Paolo, DC
“Sanitizing. A lot of sanitizing.”
— W. Wood, DC
EDITOR’S NOTE: A poll conducted in late March by Chiropractic Economics showed that roughly 83% of doctors of chiropractic planned on keeping their clinics open as the U.S. prepared to weather the COVID-19 virus. For more economic and business updates, resources and articles on coronavirus for doctors of chiropractic, go to the CE COVID-19 resource at chiroeco.com/coronavirus-covid-19.
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