In today’s fast-changing health care environment, it is more important than ever for chiropractors to begin to think strategically about their marketing efforts.

For chiropractors who have not begun to market their practices in any meaningful way, the time has come.

The fact is, there have not been as many challenges and opportunities presented at once since marketing became a useful tool for chiropractors.

Consider:
1) Chiropractic is showing up on more and more health care plans as it moves more into the mainstream of health care. This is an opportunity.

2) Public acceptance, appreciation, and trust of chiropractic—and chiropractors—is at an all-time high. This is an opportunity.

3) Pharmaceutical companies are developing an increasing number of medications to ease the symptoms of the complaints usually voiced by chiropractic patients, thereby depriving chiropractors of the chance to see these patients. This is a challenge.

4) The Internet has greatly increased the number of patients who self-diagnose, which may decrease their initial reliance on medical doctors. This is an opportunity.

Whether your practice is facing more challenges or opportunities, consider some important steps before launching a marketing campaign.

Plan for Success
The single most important marketing task a chiropractor can undertake before spending even one marketing dollar is to develop a marketing plan.

The chiropractic-practice marketing plan should be based on the following:

1) Goals. Give careful thought to how much growth you want and how much you can absorb without making any major changes such as adding an associate or other staff—that is, unless adding people as you grow is one of your goals.

2) Marketplace. Here, it is important to take an objective view of the chiropractic world around you, usually about a 5-mile radius. Some questions to consider are: Is there a lot of competition? Is there sufficient disposable income to fuel your growth? Is yours an area in which the pool of prospective patients is sufficient to support your growth?

3) Lifestyle. Successfully marketing your practice may present you with more patients, but that may also mean that you will be working more hours. Your professional marketing efforts should be at a level consistent with your personal goals.

4) Budget. There is no use creating a marketing plan that costs so much that it cannot be implemented. Take care to estimate costs so that you are getting the most bang for each buck.

Branding and You
The overarching concept in any marketing plan is that of branding, a term that you have no doubt heard before but only when it is applied to well-known brand names.

The fact is, branding your practice—branding yourself—is at least as important to you as it is to them. In many ways, it is more important.

So, what is a brand? In a nutshell, a brand is a promise you make to your patient. Your brand—whatever it is—tells your patient that he or she can expect the same type of care on a consistent basis. It tells your patient that you are of like minds, and that what is important to them is also important to you.

Finally, your brand runs through the fabric of your practice, not just your ads. Your brand is delivered clearly and consistently through your advertising, your internal marketing, and your relationships with your patients—and your staff’s relationships with patients, too.

So whether you are the friendly chiropractor, the caring chiropractor, or the experienced chiropractor—or all three—you must deliver that message to each patient each day.

Let’s say, for example, that you are the chiropractor who is focusing on seniors (not a bad move these days as our population ages). A tagline, or slogan, to support your brand may be something like, “Gentle care for your golden years,” but you have to support that claim with gentle treatment.

Or you may be the very accessible practice, willing to see anyone at any time. If you claim as your brand that, “We’re here for you 24/7 … Because pain doesn’t know what time it is,” you’d better be ready to take more than your fair share of emergencies.

Internal Marketing
Internal marketing is defined as anything that reaches out to your existing patient base. That could include a letter; a postcard; brochure announcing a new associate, new equipment, or a new technique; an offer for a free wellness check; or a patient-satisfaction survey that you undertake.

All of these, and countless other internal marketing tactics, are designed to ensure that you are the chiropractor of choice whenever a patient needs chiropractic care or when a patient needs to refer a chiropractor to friends or family members.

 One key component to an effective ongoing internal marketing effort to support your brand is an organized, systematized referral program. Asking for referrals is crucial to a successful internal marketing program. But for many chiropractors, asking for a referral is difficult. That’s because by doing so, they believe they may appear “needy” or “greedy,” and it will negatively affect their reputation.

In reality, your patients will not mind that you have asked for a referral, and many of them will be delighted to do so. But you have to ask.

So, how do you ask for a referral without damaging your reputation? First, you must wait until the patient has expressed some satisfaction with you. When your patient says, for example, “My back feels much better,” that’s the time when you ask.

You say, “I’m so glad to hear that, Mrs. Smith. If you know of any friends or family members who need our services, I want you to know that we will give them the same level of care we have given you.”

Implement quarterly touch points. Keeping your name in front of your existing patients by developing a newsletter, e-newsletter, or copies of relevant articles keeps you “top of mind,” and also screams, “I care.” When all is said and done, saying you care does not hold a candle to showing you care.

Develop a “thank you” program of rewarding patients who refer people to you. Even something as simple as a thank-you note will be appreciated, particularly when you consider that they may have never received such a note from any health care practitioner.

It does no good to develop an internal marketing program that does not have your staff on board, because they are critical to your success. Your staff must hear clearly and directly from you about your branding and practice goals, and about how you want them to create a good experience for every patient.

External Marketing
External marketing is defined as any marketing that is done to attract new patients to your practice. This is usually done through advertisements in local magazines and newspapers.

Today, external marketing includes not only print ads and the near-mandatory Yellow Pages ad, it also includes e-marketing to promote your brand.

Creating a winning print ad is not easy. If it were, you would not see a proliferation of advertising agencies offering their services.

Although no magic print ad formula exists, certain elements, over time, will make ads successful.

1) State a problem. Your headline should address something near and dear to your prospective patient. In most cases, that near and dear subject is relieving some physical pain.

2) State a solution. This is where you get to crow about yourself but in a way that has meaning to your prospective patient. So, for example, when you state that you have a “state-of-the-art” facility, it has meaning to your prospective patient when you add, “for the latest, up-to-date treatments.”

3) State an offer. You should not run a print ad unless you are going to include an offer. Your offer should be something meaningful to your prospective patient. In other words, if 80% of your patients have back-pain complaints, and back cases are profitable, enjoyable, and show results, don’t run an offer for a free wellness screening.

Practice marketing is a lot more than a Yellow Pages ad or sending out appointment-reminder cards. Good practice marketing requires that you carefully create a plan and stick to it.

Steve Smith is vice president of marketing for Practice Builders, a private-practice health care marketing firm in Irvine, Calif. Contact him at (800) 679-1200, ext 261 or www.practicebuilders.com