Thursday, October 13, 2011

Chiropractic Marketing 101

What you most likely didn't learn about chiropractic marketing in chiropractic school: No matter the location or size of your clinic, or the relative success you've experienced to this point in your career, I would be willing to bet a pretty penny that you probably have at least some attention on the number of new patients in your practice. In my years of putting 100% of my attention into the area of chiropractic marketing and new patient acquisition, I have some gems to help you fast forward to a new level of patients that you serve in your practice.

Before I go too deep into the technology of chiropractic marketing, I want to first let you know why I have a fascination with chiropractic new patients procedures. In my practice, I have spent the last 6-7 years solely working 'on' my practice, rather than 'in' my practice. What I mean by that is that I have put in place specific executive tools that have enabled me to be anywhere I want, whether it be at home, on a vacation or in a coffee shop masterminding, and my practice will actually grow in my absence (currently statistics: averages 22 new patients per week and serves over 500 patients per week). This is certainly not to boast, but simply to show you what is possible in the owning and operating a chiropractic 'business' rather than just a 'clinic'. It is not magic, just simply application of some solid, proven business systems.

Anyway, my point being, I have had endless amount of time over the past 7 years fully committed to piloting and testing new chiropractic marketing methods, techniques and programs. In my journey and experimentation I came across some very specific points that I feel are extremely important and must be understood for a chiropractic marketing program to succeed for long-term growth of the office.

Here are some things you should know about chiropractic marketing and attracting new patients into your office:

    * There is an exact technology on how to attract new patients into a chiropractic office.

    * You just need to learn it and apply it. The better that you and your staff are trained on chiropractic marketing and new patient acquisition, the more control you will have over the number of new patients your practice gets.

    * Every factor limiting the number of new patients you currently get is an internal factor-meaning it's not because of the economy, or your town, or anything else outside of your practice. This is good because it means you have control and can be 'at cause' over the expansion.

    * Any chiropractor can learn how to get high numbers of new patients on a consistent basis. We have proven this at the Chiropractic Business Academy...even if you 'hate' doing the chiropractic marketing!

    * If you feel your service is valuable, you should share it with more people! We need more chiropractors serving more people to help them heal and grow naturally with the chiropractic wellness lifestyle. I am sure you agree that our current national healthcare system is not healthcare at all.

Chiropractic Marketing Has a Recipe

Some doctors are surprised to learn that there are exact formulas and strategies that will literally guarantee you see more new patients. I teach these exact chiropractic marketing strategies to my clients through the Chiropractic Business Academy Marketing Courses, through the Academy Workshops and One on One Consulting. Although the exact marketing strategies are reserved for our clients, I can share with you some basics.

Your marketing success starts with your viewpoint on chiropractic marketing. To find out what your current viewpoint on chiropractic marketing is at this moment, try this simple exercise:

Write down in single words or short phrases how you feel about 'marketing' your practice. Successful chiropractic marketing is going to require application. So, you can start now by doing this exercise. Please take a minute and write down your feelings about marketing, before reading on.

Take a look at what you wrote. Do your responses indicate that you are excited about introducing chiropractic to new people? Can you see evidence in your responses of back-off to creating a strong marketing effort? If so, you'd really benefit from handling those points.

One of the most effective ways to change your viewpoint is to acquire correct data in that area. The more you know about chiropractic marketing for instance, the more logical your conclusions will be when making marketing decisions. And let's face it, if you know how to be successful at something, don't you feel better about it?

A rock-solid chiropractic marketing program has multiple sources, or we refer to them as Legos, of new patients coming into your office. For example, our Signature marketing courses and webinars cover over 40 ways to market a practice. Knowing and understanding multiple techniques makes it easy to attract 60, 80 or 100 new patients per month, or more.

Chiropractic Marketing Foundations

Here are some examples of a couple foundational approaches our clients use:

    * A program or method to acquire as many names and phone numbers of local people as possible. To do this we teach our Public Gift Certificate program. This specific technique has 5 different approaches and gives our clients endless leads to contact for introductory services. What form of introductory service can you provide to the public? How can you make that introductory service known to the demographic that you want to attract to your office?

    * Multiple strong Business to Business, or corporate programs. This is an alliance with a local business or major corporation which allows you to farm leads from their clientele or employees. We teach numerous ways to do this including Lunch Lectures, Corporate Massage programs, Wellness Events and other introductory programs. The key is to offer a truly valuable introductory service as businesses will literally be calling you to come over!

    * An Internal Referral Program. This should be a truly engaging, active, strategic (and fun) activity. In communicating with each patient you must direct their attention in a very precise manner-for instance, using symptoms, conditions or circumstances. Each week or every other week providing a new viewpoint on a specific unwanted condition. Your goal is to get a name AND contact information of the referred person with that unwanted condition-so you can mail them more information about their symptom or condition, as well as invite the referral into your practice.

No matter the target audience or the strategy used, there are some key factors on which to build a consistent chiropractic marketing effort:

    * Structure each chiropractic marketing activity so that it can be done by a non-doctor. This will allow you to pass the activity to another staff member and you can further your progress of becoming the CEO or executive director of your 'business' rather than running every single activity in a one-man/woman-show 'clinic' (we have all been there before!).

    * The more you market, the more new patients you will have. There is actually a direct quantifiable relationship between the number of hours and attention allocated to chiropractic marketing and the number of new patients a practice sees.

    * Whatever chiropractic marketing you do must communicate a concept which the consumer will understand and be interested in.

    This last point is one of the most important but least understood aspects of chiropractic marketing. Additionally, to separate your identity from the other handful, dozens or even hundreds of chiropractors in your city, town or valley, you must clearly establish your uniqueness alongside with this concept.

As you become more established with your 'Legos' of chiropractic marketing you see this pay off for the long-term. What makes you different from the other chiropractors in your area?

In summary, I am happy that you are a chiropractor and are here to help a lot of people in your community. We definitely need to be helping more of the people in our towns find the best natural and holistic way to enhance their health: chiropractic! As a chiropractic coach, my goal in the chiropractic management game is to get you to the finish line first. I truly hope this article stimulates and inspires some of you into action with your chiropractic marketing so that you can reach, teach and touch more of these people!

To learn more ways for effective chiropractic marketing approaches or developing stronger chiropractic marketing strategies and chiropractic business systems, give us a jingle at the Chiropractic Business Academy at 1-888-989-0855.

Dr Eric Huntington, DC is a national chiropractic speaker, ICA State Assembly Representative, Maryland Chiropractic Association Board Member and President of the Chiropractic Business Academy

By Dr_Eric_Huntington,_D.C.