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Marketing
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Marketing
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Written by Peter G. Fernandez, DC
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Monday, 25 March 2013 17:36 |
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There is a big difference between marketing a new practitioner and marketing an established practitioner.
 Marketing is made up of these elements: Money: The more money a doctor has, the more he can spend on advertising.
Time: The more free time the doctor has the more one-on-one networking he can do.
Reputation: The longer a doctor has been in his community and the better his reputation, the better his advertising and marketing will work.
Referrals: The more patients a doctor presently has, the more referrals he can stimulate.
Effort: The more effort a doctor is willing to expend to get known in his community, the more his marketing and advertising will produce.
Experience: Almost everyone wants to go to a doctor who is very experienced at caring for their health problems. Almost no one wants to go to a novice.
Money
The established doctor usually has money in the bank, an enhanced ability to borrow money and cash flow from his practice to invest in advertising. A new professional usually has a severe shortage of money; therefore, must market with his time and effort.
Time
A new doctor usually has fewer patients, less money, but more free time than an established doctor. Therefore, he must use his free time to meet more people to make up for his lack of money and reputation. The more time he invests in meeting the public, the more likely he will succeed. The less time he invests in meeting people, the more likely he’ll fail … or starve.
The new doctor has to go from being totally unknown to being extremely well known … quickly! And, that’s a big leap.
The established doctor is usually treating patients all day and doesn’t have the time to circulate throughout his community, but has more money. Therefore, advertising is his best option to attract more new patients.
Reputation
The established practitioner already has years in his community and has established his reputation. He knows many people and when he advertises, the people that know him or have heard of him, will say, “I’ve heard of this doctor … he has a great reputation.” Then his advertisements will attract many more new patients because of his known reputation.
There is a famous ophthalmologist on the West coast of Florida. He has the reputation of being the “best” in Florida at removing cataracts. He established his practice out in the boondocks…nobody lives there. His office is a 7-story building, like a little hospital. Almost everyone from the West Coast of Florida goes to him to get their cataracts removed. They drive by 50 – 150 other ophthalmologists to get to this doctor. And, yes, he advertises. But, everyone that reads his advertisements also knows his reputation. Therefore, when he places an ad, it attracts many new patients.
No Reputation
Now let’s discuss the new practitioner. Nobody knows him. He has no reputation, so when he advertises, his ads will attract less new patients than the same ads would for a doctor who has an established reputation.
A new doctor has to counter the difference between the established doctor’s reputation and his lack of reputation. He does so by meeting people … not one or two, but hundreds and hundreds. The established doctor knows thousands of people and the new doctor must quickly meet thousands of people if he wants to attract a similar number of people from the community.
Referrals
Since the new doctor has very few patients, he cannot hope to compete with established doctors on patient referrals. Few patients produce few referrals.
Effort
The new doctor, in order to compete with established doctors, has to meet thousands of people and motivate them to know and trust him. Being a “couch potato” waiting for people to come to him won’t work. Instead, a new doctor must invest a massive amount of his time on meeting the people of his community.
Don’t believe for a second that a new practice can become successful without effort … lots of effort. An easier way will not become available.
How a new doctor gets known is usually determined by the doctor’s personality. Some new doctors will do public speaking … most won’t. If this describes you, join Dale Carnegie and Toastmasters.
These organizations will teach and coach you on how to do public speaking. It is not hard to get speeches. Every Civic Club, church, synagogue, mobile home park association and condominium association is looking for speakers. A new doctor could easily be speaking at 4 – 5 clubs per week. The cost is right … nothing! And, the clubs will usually provide lunch.
Scheduling screenings is also an effective way to meet people, but more difficult because the doctor has to look for events in which spinal screenings would be acceptable, like health fairs, home shows, vitamin stores, back product stores, etc.
Experience
When a new doctor advertises, his ads should feature the knowledge he has. Remember, a new doctor is competing against doctors with 10 to 20 years of experience. A new doctor can’t say he has 20 years of experience, but he can say that he has the latest knowledge on how to take care of various health problems. The fact that he has the latest knowledge gives him the credentials he needs to compete against the experience of the established practitioners.
Passive Marketing
New practitioners, due to their lack of experience, usually utilize marketing that is passive in nature rather than marketing that would be considered active. Passive marketing is when a doctor does something that doesn’t require him to meet anybody. The passive marketing doctor hopes that someone will react to his passive marketing and become a patient.
Passive marketing is web sites, social media campaigns, PDF advertising, writing articles for magazines and newspapers, sending out emails, direct mail campaigns, fax campaigns … anything that does not involve human contact on the part of the doctor. Unfortunately, passive marketing doesn’t work very well.
Passive marketing also requires a lot of patience on the part of the doctor. It can take days, weeks, months and even years to produce results. If a new doctor has a lot of money in the bank, which most new doctors don’t, he can wait for his passive marketing to work.
Active Marketing
Active marketing is when a doctor meets non-patients and sells himself and his services to the strangers.
If a new doctor wants to generate new patients quickly, he should concentrate on active marketing. This includes public speaking, spinal screenings, one-on-one networking, giving out “How to Lift” and “Heimlich Maneuver” posters, etc.
Many doctors have used their leisure time to do active marketing, eg: playing in softball leagues, coaching Little League, football, being a team doctor, etc. These activities can produce an instant flow of new patients when done professionally and effectively.
Active marketing takes “guts.” Passive marketing is for the wimp. In essence, active marketing is doing the activities the passive doctor doesn’t want to do and is unwilling to do. Active marketing chiropractors are more successful than passive marketing chiropractors. Which are you?
In summary, the established doctor, not having available time, yet having experience and a good reputation should concentrate on advertising and referrals to market his practice.
The new practitioner, who is usually short on money, experience and reputation, should concentrate on active marketing techniques that require time and effort. When he does advertise, he should only use ads that are professionally designed and with the advice of a new-practice coach who can direct him on what advertisements work best and where to place them.
Dr. Peter G. Fernandez is known as the “Start-Up Coach” and is the world’s authority on starting a practice. He has written 20 books and over 200 articles on starting a practice, and has consulted in the opening of over 3,000 new practices. This experience has revealed what students and doctors need to know to start a successful practice. Please contact Dr. Fernandez at The Practice Starters® Program - 10733 57th Avenue North, Seminole, Florida, 33772; 1-800-882-4476;
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or visit www.PracticeStarters.com
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Marketing
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Written by Paul S. Inselman, DC
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Sunday, 24 February 2013 23:01 |
I f I were to say Mercedes-Benz, would it conjure an image of an expensive, reliable, and safe car? What if I asked you about the qualities of the Red Roof Inn versus the Ritz Carlton Hotel? Do they look different in your mind’s eye? How about your clinic? What image comes to the public’s mind when someone mentions your name or your clinic’s name?
 Marketing for businesses has changed quite a bit over the past thirty years. Advances in technology and marketing techniques have allowed businesses to take advantage of better market penetration at lower costs.
Compare marketing techniques of general businesses to chiropractic marketing and you will see that we employ virtually all of the same methods used in the late 1970s when Dr. Jim Parker revolutionized our profession. If you have been practicing for more than ten years, what are you doing differently in marketing that is fresh and new? Are you still doing health care classes, patient appreciation dinners, monthly events, and screenings? Are you performing them differently than in years prior? More importantly, are you getting consistently good results that lead to more quality new patients?
This article will discuss some steps that you can take to improve marketing efforts. I teach my clients that a strategist will slaughter a tactician every time. This is why I teach my clients to deploy strategic-based marketing instead of tactical- based marketing. Let’s explore the two methods.
Most chiropractors are familiar with the technique of tactical-based marketing. Do a health care class, do a screening, do a patient appreciation dinner, and do a newsletter. In short, throw enough stuff against the wall and hope something sticks. While that methodology might have served our profession well in previous economic times, in this economy it won't work as well, and maybe not at all.
Strategic-based marketing takes all of the methods from above and creates specific marketing campaigns that have a beginning, middle, and end. The campaigns are measurable to make sure that they accomplish what they set out to do, as well as giving you a return on investment in either time, money, or both.
To illustrate the two techniques, let me give you some examples. Let’s say that you want to do an e-mail marketing campaign. A tactician will develop or buy an e-mail marketing list and send out a thousand e-mails to prospects describing his wonderful services. The tactician now feels that he is marketing via e-mail, and that is correct. The real questions, though, are about the quality and effectiveness of the marketing. How is it being measured? How can it be tweaked and improved? On what basis would you tweak or change it?
A strategist implementing an e-mail marketing campaign first determines what strategies to deploy before the first message is ever sent. Will this campaign be for brand awareness or the procurement of new patients? Will the target group be headache sufferers or lower back pain sufferers, or both? Will they be in an age demographic of 30-40 year olds, or one of 70-80 year olds? What type of follow-up will come after the campaign? How often will the follow-up occur? How will results be tracked to know if the desired response and return on investment (ROI) are reached? Once a strategist answers those very important questions and sets up a tracking system, then it is time for the actual deployment of the technique or strategy.
Like it or not, chiropractic is a personality-driven business.
Like it or not, chiropractic is a personality-driven business. What that means is people buy you, not chiropractic. It is vastly different for medicine. When someone goes to a medical doctor, the patient buys the field of medicine, not necessarily the practitioner. Think about patients who come to you complaining that their medical office staff was mean or rude and kept them waiting for hours. You politely ask, “Why do you go back?” They reply, “Because the doctor is really good.” What if we kept our patients waiting or our staff was mean or rude? Not only would that patient not return, but also that person may never go to any chiropractor again because all chiropractors must be bad. That is what I mean when I say chiropractic is a personality-driven business—people buy the chiropractor not necessarily the field of chiropractic.
When you market a chiropractic practice, I want you to think of yourself as being a politician. How does a politician get people to vote for him? He goes out and tells his message to as many people as possible. He uses radio, television, billboards, books, late-night talk shows, direct mail, e-mail, etc. Now we probably don’t have the budget or skill sets to do radio or TV or go on a late-night talk show. However, we have plenty of methods within our financial means to get our message out there. You may utilize the following checklist to help your marketing efforts:
- Determine your “end game.” What do you want to see happen as a result of the expenditure of time and money put into this marketing campaign?
- Create a measurable beginning, middle, and end to ensure that goals are being met.
- Have a specific goal in mind for the campaign. Don’t just say, “I want new patients.”
- Create budgets and stick to them.
- Measure your ROI. If you fail to get a return, either tweak your campaign or abandon it. Don’t throw good money after bad.
- Create a minimum of five and preferably ten independent strategic-based marketing campaigns.
- Create meaningful ongoing follow-ups.
- Determine every objection that can possibly come up and create an answer to the objection.
- Expect your campaign to work—85% of what we get is what we expect.
- Keep expanding and improving your campaigns.
I have good news and bad news. First, here is the bad news: this economy is unforgiving. The success of your marketing efforts will determine the success of your practice. The good news, though, is that the economy is not good. A bad economy causes more stress for people. As you know, stress causes subluxation. We are the only health care providers that fix subluxation. Do you think if you marketed your practice properly, with the profession also being marketed properly, chiropractors could thrive? I know we can because every day I coach successful chiropractors that are getting sick people well and creating a great economic life at the same time. Don’t give up—you can do it too!
Dr. Paul S. Inselman, President of Inselmancoaching, is an expert at teaching chiropractors how to build honest, ethical, integrity-based practices based on sound business principles. From 2008-2012 his clients’ practices grew an average rate of 145% while the general profession was down 28%. His twenty-six years of clinical experience coupled with ten years of professional coaching has allowed him to help hundreds of chiropractors throughout the nation. He can be reached at 1-888-201-0567 or
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Marketing
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Written by Jennifer Michelle
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Monday, 03 September 2012 22:02 |
Y ou may think of burnout as stemming from having a workaholic approach to your practice or from experiencing a major life trauma.
 That’s not necessarily the case, though. In fact, one of the easiest ways for a chiropractor to burnout is by doing the wrong marketing.
As dedicated as you are to the values of chiropractic, what will make or break you is something much more mundane: how you grow your practice.
Being a chiropractor is being an entrepreneur – and nothing burns an entrepreneur out faster than a badly planned, ineffective marketing strategy.
It’s easy to see why: you studied for years to make it through chiropractic college. You put everything on the line when you opened your practice – and if you don’t get any patients, it all disappears.
When that happens, it’s a tragedy – and it often comes down to a bad marketing strategy.
So, here are the three most common marketing mistakes chiropractors make. Be sure you’re marketing your practice differently.
Mistake #1: They lack focus.
New chiropractors think they have to be everything to everybody. Experienced – and, more importantly, successful – chiropractors know better.
You need to know your strengths and define your specialty accordingly.
Dr. Brian Stensler of Dream Wellness in California says, “You can’t be a jack of all trades and master of none. You have to specialize.”
Having a specialty helps you set yourself apart. Whether you choose sports injuries, pediatric chiropractic, or neck and back pain, having a specialty helps define what you do and it gives people a clear indicator of when they should come to see you.
Mistake #2: They emphasize gimmicks and ads.
Being a chiropractor is being an entrepreneur – and nothing burns an entrepreneur out faster than a badly planned, ineffective marketing strategy.
Chiropractic is a patient-centered business. That means your marketing has to focus on relationships, not gimmicks. People who come to see you because of a great deal on Groupon are less likely to feel a bond to you and are, therefore, less likely to stick with you over the long-term. That leaves you with a new patient who pays less than your usual rates and is more likely to stop seeing you – leaving you having to go out and recruit more new patients.
What you need as a chiropractor is to emphasize marketing strategies that build relationships and allow people to connect with you. People want to go to a chiropractor they like and the last thing they need when they are in crisis is to go looking for one. That means, once they bond with you, they are very likely to remain loyal to you, assuming you provide good care and customer service.
That’s why Groupon, as well as ads, are less effective. You aren’t announcing a sale on handbags; you are providing health care. Instead, get out in your community and get to know people. Pass out your business card whenever you can. Attend events, give talks, volunteer. Let people know what you do (here’s where your specialty will make you memorable) and build the friendships that lead to lasting patients, the kind who stick around and tell their friends about you.
Mistake #3: They don’t build a referral network.
Businesses don’t exist on their own, and they certainly don’t thrive that way. That means, even beyond networking to meet potential patients, you also need to network in order to meet referral partners.
A good referral partner is someone in a complementary business whose clients are often looking for exactly your services. So, if your specialty is back pain, a physical therapist or orthopedist might be a good choice. If you run a wellness center, then a nutritionist, acupuncturist, or fitness studio might be a strong match. Ideally, you’ll be able to pass referrals back and forth, so everyone benefits from the relationship.
Dr. Chris Perron of Perron Chiropractic in Virginia says he refers his patients to physical therapists, nutritionists, and even other chiropractors if they need something that isn’t his specialty, and they refer to him. That’s the kind of situation you’re looking to build.
A good referral network creates a framework to bring in future business without all the effort. A win-win situation for everyone involved, they are well worth investing the time to form.
There’s nothing like spending a lot of money on marketing tactics only to find you’ve brought in no new business. It’s a recipe for both financial disaster and burnout. Luckily, by avoiding these three mistakes, you can create a marketing strategy solid enough to grow your practice - and make it thrive.
Jennifer Michelle works with chiropractors and other health professionals to create thriving practices while maintaining their passion for what they do. She received her MPH from Tulane University and specializes in patient-focused marketing strategies, as well as burnout prevention and recovery. For more information, please visit her at: http://jennifermichellecommunications.com/ or call 802-310-0130
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Marketing
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Written by Claude Cote
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Monday, 03 September 2012 19:13 |
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Marketing: Keep your actual patients first.
D uring my 22 years of experience working in chiropractic offices, I have seen offices growing with just 10 new patients per month, while some others need 50 new patients per month to grow. Why is that? It really depends on how you manage your new patients versus your actual active patients. Basically, it is no use to spend tons of money to attract new patients if they do not accept your care or drop your care prematurely. Before you make your next marketing plan and allow a big budget to achieve it, make sure you have a plan for your existing patients and new patients. Your management software is a great tool to use in that plan.
 New patients should accept your care and recommendations.
You have a new patient and his exams are clearly showing that he needs intensive chiropractic care. You are convincing and give him all possible explanations. In your mind, he is in. But in reality, he may not be. He won't tell you, but he may never come back, and most of the time it has nothing to do with your explanations or exams. He might be convinced by his spouse when he arrives home. Or he may see an article against chiropractic in general. You don't believe that this is happening to you right now? Go into your actual management software and print the list of all new patients within the last 3 months who had 1 or 2 visits in your office. Make sure you are well seated before you do this. Then pull out their patient files and try to remember these patients. You will probably find there are more patients than you think and will be very surprised at who has not been following your care recommendations. Don't get negative at this point; use this list to fix the problem instead. Try to find out why they quit before starting care. And then make sure your presentation of care to your new patients improves. First, make sure new patients have a great first impression of the office and staff. Make sure a new patient has a nice office tour that shows him everything you have to help him for recovering his health. Put simply: Impress him. Second, make sure you have good communication with the new patient. The more you know about him, the more trust will be built between the patient and yourself. Every month, generate a list of new patients with 1 or 2 visits and make a regular analysis. This will take only a few minutes per month, but it will help you maximize your new patient conversions on a regular basis.
Prevent Actual Patients From Dropping Care Prematurely.
When the doctor talks about the next appoint-ment to the patient, he may detect a hesitation from him.
When patients start thinking about dropping their care, they will not tell you anything. But patients will show clear signs before dropping their care. One of the signs is when they leave without scheduling their next appointment. Most chiropractic software automatically tells you if your patient has another appointment or not. If not, the doctor should talk to the patient about it and make sure the patient will stop at the front desk to schedule his next appointment. The doctor should do this, not the chiropractic assistant. When the doctor talks about the next appointment to the patient, he may detect a hesitation from him. If this happens, the doctor should ask more questions to make sure that everything is going well and the patient is really committed to his chiropractic care. The doctor has knowledge and power that the chiropractic assistance does not have, and this is normal.
What is the use of running after new patients if you are not maximizing the care for the ones you have now? If you keep losing more active patients than the new ones you gain, your practice will shrink. Sometimes, we put so much energy into generating calls to the office that we forget about the patients we have, and analyzing existing patient data can be a key element for growing your practice.
Claude Cote is an expert in EHR systems, insurance billing and chiropractic clinic management for 22 years. He has installed EHR system in 18 countries over 5 continents and nationwide in USA. He is the President and Founder of Platinum System C.R. Corp (www.platinumsystem.com). For comments or questions, please email to
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Marketing
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Written by David Lemberg, D.C.
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Thursday, 30 August 2012 00:47 |
C hiropractors now have access to a broad range of powerful social media marketing tools, the same tools that helped topple dictatorships in the Middle East. What Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and YouTube did and are doing for social causes and concerns worldwide, they can do for your practice in terms of marketing and acquiring new business. Thanks to the Internet, social media offers unlimited marketing opportunities at very low cost. The only real limits are time and imagination.
 Your WebsiteYour practice’s website is the foundation for your online presence and all your social media marketing activities. When a new visitor (and potential future patient) arrives at your website’s home page, it’s as if that person was walking through your office front door for the first time. You want to make a positive, professional, lasting impression. There are several key strategies for creating such an experience.
First, a well-designed and inviting home page captures your visitors’ attention and interest. “Content is king” is a time-honored principle of Internet marketing. Your site’s internal content - informative, useful articles that add value to user experience - causes your visitors to return again and again to your site. The ultimate result is brand loyalty. In other words, your visitors become loyal to you - and when your site visitor or a family member has a health problem, he or she will think of you and your chiropractic services.
You want to speak clearly and directly to your visitor’s perceived needs. Key content items include a succinct professional biography; your practice’s location, hours of operation, and contact information; treatment recommendations for selected common conditions such as headache, back pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome; and important value-added content such as exercise protocols and nutritional guides. Content must be compelling, unique, and specific to your region. For example, an article on preventing surfing injuries would not be suitable for practices located in Kansas or Nebraska. Similarly, content offering tips on staying fit throughout cold Northeast winters would not be helpful for visitors based in southern California. You get the idea.
Search Engine Optimization
It’s important to consider where your visitors are going to come from before you begin creating your site content. Some of your visitors may be current patients and others may visit your site after having been given your business card. Others will arrive via Google search, provided your site content has been “optimized”. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the term given to activities that raise your site in Google search rankings and possibly cause your site, over time, to be listed on the first page of search results.
The most effective SEO activity is to focus on one or two “keyword phrases” and include either or both in every content page posted to your site. As a basic example, if you want to be found by people searching for a chiropractor in San Diego who treats sports injuries, include the keyword phrases “San Diego” and “sports injuries” in your text. Over time, as you con sistently increase the number of content pages on your site, your position in Google search for those keyword phrases will consistently improve.
Social Marketing
Facebook, Google+ and Twitter have become powerful social marketing tools and can help increase your brand awareness and patient base. By providing truly valuable and unique information on a consistent basis, your Facebook, Google+ and Twitter feeds will attract new “friends” and “followers” and your brand (your practice) will become recognizable and familiar. Over time, many of these contacts will convert in one way or another into patients in your office.
Media Marketing
“Internet time” moves very fast. A human “generation” is 25 years, but if an Internet industry has a lot of buzz, generations can turn over in 6 months or less. Media marketing is such a phenomenon. A not-so-new platform is YouTube, but even though this service is ancient from the perspective of Internet time, its importance continues to grow. YouTube is constantly expanding its reach and upgrading the organization of its listings. You can post numerous content-rich videos featuring all aspects of your practice. Now that HD cameras are affordable, YouTube provides the opportunity to reach a targeted audience with professional-quality video.
Managed Services
Building a website. Creating valuable, useful, entertaining content. Managing your Facebook, Google+ and Twitter accounts. This sounds like a great deal of work. In fact, social marketing is notoriously time intensive. Luckily, outside firms are available to manage your social media presence and help maximize your connections to targeted Internet communities. When you hire such a company, you’re hiring the equivalent of decades of experience and expertise in social media and social marketing, helping ensure that your Internet presence turns into increased volumes of new and repeat business in your thriving chiropractic practice.
Dr. David Lemberg has a decade of experience in Internet content development and marketing. He fondly remembers the long-ago days of DOS-based Internet email and iconic UNIX Internet tools such as archie and gopher. For additional information on how to create an effective social media marketing program for your practice, please contact
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