Get by with a little marketing help from your CA

Many doctors are in charge of their own practice marketing programs and seek little outside help in this crucial business endeavor.

But sometimes the marketing assistance you need can be found right inside your office doors. With the proper training, office managers and chiropractic assistants (CAs) can lend a hand in spreading the word about your services and allow you to spend more time caring for patients.

Enlisting knowledgeable help from your staff

With some in-house education, CAs can make chiropractic care relevant and useful to patients. As a direct liaison between patients and the doctor, CAs have the opportunity to explain the benefits of chiropractic in understandable terms. These conversations are usually the first interactions many new patients have at the clinic.

When a patient suffering from lower back pain walks into a practice and begins asking questions about the treatment process, a knowledgeable CA can offer basic answers.

“The key here is that doctors must have employees who have some ability to assess individuals and describe what isn’t normal … the importance of addressing the issue, and how chiropractic (and whatever other services you may provide) can help,” said Victor Adam, owner of Axiom Health and Fitness, and a former marketing director for a chiropractic clinic.

“The most important thing to take into consideration when deciding where or how to market is that you must effectively communicate the need for your services to the audience,” Adam said.

Adam recommends educating staff members with basic information about chiropractic care and how the assessment process works for new patients. If your clinic participates at marketing events and tradeshows, knowledgeable CAs may be ready to help by interacting with potential new patients and explaining how chiropractic care can help them.

Keeping patients informed and engaged

“What is the point of social media? Social proof,” Adam said, “The most cost-effective and useful way to build this is to get your current patients involved.”

To build patient participation, CAs and marketing staff can encourage patients to interact with your clinic’s social media presence. Adam recommends using drawings for prizes or other fun competitions to bring your current patients into your social marketing initiatives.

Social media pages do not always provide a strong return on investment for inexperienced marketers, Adam says, but can be useful for engaging with current patients. These platforms also provide an online outlet for sharing information and news about your practice.

Your office staff should keep basic online information pages up-to-date, rather than simply leaving them blank or with the default information collected by the website. The Google My Business page, for example, allows you to post information about your clinic that connects to Google Maps and keeps the search engine updated. If someone is using Google to find your clinic, your correct information will appear.

Your CA or office manager should check online directories such as Google Maps, Yellow Pages, and Manta to make sure your clinic’s information contact, address, and other information is accurate. Some of these sites also allow visitors to post reviews of businesses, and you may want to know what these reviews are saying about your clinic.

Evaluate your ROI

Engaging your staff with marketing should begin to bring measurable results for your practice. If not, you may need to revise your marketing strategy. There are a variety of different ways you can get CAs and office managers involved in your marketing if your first attempts are unsuccessful.

“Just like everything else in business, efficiency should be measured in ROI,” Adam said.

Knowing how many new patients you need to reach will help guide your CAs and provide them with measurable goals for the marketing activity, as Adam suggests.

Communication is key

By starting a dialogue with everyone working in your practice, you begin to set clear expectations for your outreach activities, and soon you’ll be able to seamlessly ask for marketing help from your CA. Ensuring your staff members know how to effectively reach patients will enhance your ability to focus on the clinical components of your job.