Increase your new patient base and gain the loyalty of your current ones with a health newsletter

Most chiropractors do their best to communicate clearly and thoroughly with their patients and train their staff to be as warm, efficient, knowledgeable, and helpful as possible. But to really reap rewards from this positive communication, put it in writing.

That is right, start a chiropractic health newsletter to send on a regular basis. If you think that you do not have the time or ability to do it, consider the benefits and look for ways to make it an easy, ongoing part of your practice.

When delivered to your patients’ homes, a newsletter is like a reminder postcard. Your name, face, telephone number, and address right on the kitchen counter is a powerful tool to remind your patients to continue their care or come in for a tune-up.

If you send the newsletter via email, it be easily forwarded to other people.

Also, your patients may not know that you treat certain areas or have just received advanced training in, for example, pediatric chiropractic techniques or extremity adjusting.

The health information serves as a great advertisement for new patients. Your current patients can pass an article on to someone they know if it applies to their situation.

Newsletters have staying power. It can be filed in a binder at your office for reading by new patients, mailed to businesses in your area, sent home with supplier representatives or delivery persons who come to the office, and inserted in employee benefit package materials of large corporations. Your newsletter will go further than its original audience.

These are just a few reasons to send your own newsletter. But you need to go the next step and put in a little time up-front to make the project an effective and manageable job.

Consistency is extremely important. Many practitioners will publish one or two issues and then stop. By then, they may have run out of initial ideas to use, or feel they are not getting appropriate feedback. Plan on sending at least three issues before your patients start to notice.

In marketing, repetition is a necessity. With the barrage of mail people receive each day, it is easy to see why several issues of a newsletter would have to reach the mailbox before most people would start to pay attention. To ease your own workload, do not begin with a monthly publication. Instead, choose a seasonal, quarterly, or bimonthly schedule. Whatever you decide, be consistent.

Do not go to the trouble of designing a logo and masthead (the section that has the staff and other information about the publication) without making the newsletter long enough to include useful information. After the first job of reminding your patients who you are, the next job is to include interesting and pertinent health information to pass the newsletter on to friends or take it to work and leave it in the break room.

Each issue should include a few short articles with large pictures or displays. Fill the rest of the space with regular features. Choose several, and in no time you will have four pages filled.

Include features such as healthful recipes, a nutritional supplement spotlight, special limited-time discount offers on secondary profit center items, and new exercise descriptions in each issue with photos or images to demonstrate.

In a different section, focus on a specific area of the body. You can write about the feet, wrists, knees, or elbows. This demonstrates your abilities to help in more than one area.

Many chiropractors can relate a story about a patient who, for one reason or another, represents a challenging case. The body-area focus section of your newsletter can help overcome some of these problems for your patients.

Fit to Print

Look for specific shortcuts to get your newsletter designed, printed, and mailed. A recommended length would be two pages front and back. Go to a copy shop and have someone design an attractive template with a banner and colors. Use the same heading style and picture placement in each issue for a uniform look. This makes the project easier to produce. You will know how long the articles should be and how many pictures, drawings, or charts you need. Make sure your email, Web site, phone number, and address are large enough in the footer or header of more than one page, so people can contact you for more information. Keep the writing in laymen’s terms. Avoid slipping into your “doc” or technical talk if you want your patients to read it.

For health articles, keep a file and photocopy or highlight the ones of interest to your patients. Then, collect them for a month or two before starting your first issue, and keep collecting as you go. The problem will be choosing from your reading. Once you do an issue or two, you will get a feel for the type of news that can be easily adapted to your newsletter, or you may have a prioritized list of patient education issues you want to write about. Map article ideas out for the entire year (only six to eight articles) in one sitting.

Ask your patients to contribute to the newsletter. Have a drop box in the office and ask for favorite recipes, stories of improved health, or favorite exercises. Since these columns are short, in a couple of days you’ll have enough information to run through several issues.

If you decide to highlight patient success stories, get their permission. You can let them tell about their success in your office. People in the community may know them and relate to the face behind the story.

Keep your newsletter simple—you can always add to it later if you determine that it is generating positive response. Be consistent with this marketing tool. Soon, your patients will come to expect your newsletters and look forward to receiving it. CP

Jeffrey D. Olsen, DC, is a 1996 presidential scholar and summa cum laude graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic. He has been in private practice with his two partners/brothers since 1997 in Roanoke, Va. Olsen has also instructed as an adjunct faculty member at the College of Health Sciences in Roanoke, teaching anatomy and physiology in the Physician Assistant Department. He can be reached at (800) 553-4860, or via email: olsen@footlevelers.com.