Why Chiropractors Must Actively Market their practices

One of the cardinal laws of marketing your chiropractic practice is that it takes 8 “touches” before a potential patient will pick up the phone and schedule an appointment.  An email newsletter is a tried and true way of delivering those essential “touches”.

Aweber is an email newsletter service provider that has a post on their blog about 4 reasons why physicians must actively market their practices more.

While this post is targeted towards MD’s, it makes for an interesting read, especially for the chiropractor who may be feeling like chiropractors are the only ones who need to engage in patient education. Indeed, chiropractors are LIGHT YEARS ahead of their MD counterparts in the area of practice marketing and patient education.

In the post, reason #4 should stand out as a red flag check point for the chiropractic professionals.

Written from a consumer’s view point, the post says,

#4. We haven’t got the time

Finally, something that might actually have as much to do with doctors and your offices as it does with us.

Most physicians operate during “normal” business hours - that is, during the same hours that many of us work.

Whether it’s a fair generalization or not, doctors’ offices have a reputation for frequently running behind schedule. Which means we expect to:

* Sit in the waiting room for a while
* Move to the examining room and wait some more

With the doctor eventually showing up (often preceded by a nurse and some more waiting), taking up more of our time and then sending us back to the waiting room or reception area, possibly to be called back later.

There’s no way we can get through all of that on our lunch break. And we don’t want to burn a vacation or personal day on a trip to the doctor’s. So we just don’t bother.

Are your patients left in the waiting room for hours on end? Are they greeted professionally by your reception staff?

In his book “How to Become a Marketing Superstar” author Jeffrey Fox spends the first half of the book focusing on factors INSIDE THE BUSINESS to achieve marketing superstar status. Jeffrey Fox doesn’t mention a single advertising medium… a single marketing tactic…. he doesn’t even encourage you to map out a marketing strategy…. instead, he pounds home the point that any business that doesn’t enjoy repeat customers has no business investing A SINGLE PENNY in marketing or advertising.

An email newsletter is a GREAT tool to remind patients of who you are and what you offer. Providing a resource which provides answers for your community is a GREAT marketing tool, the best! However, if patients are greeted with a surly receptionist and a long wait in your waiting room….. you might find it a better investment of your time and money to correct those problems within your office before extending an invitation through marketing to new patients.

All that matters is what’s important to the patient

Nobody knows more about building a successful chiropractic practice than Dr. Jean Murray, of DCPractice Success. According to Dr. Murray marketing success for chiropractors is rooted in the following:

“It’s not about you and what you think you’re doing (Activator, for example). It’s what prospective patients think they are getting (freedom from pain, for example.)”

If you were to go back to school to get your MBA, you would learn that an important part of marketing is to focus upon a product or service’s benefits instead of features.

One of my favorite examples as a way to illustrate this point is talking about the reasons any given person may have for purchasing candles. One person is purchasing candles as a way to decorate the home, while another is purchasing the candle to provide lighting in an emergency. Yet a third is purchasing a candle as a way to cover up odors in the home. Three different people, all are buying candles but all have a different reason for buying those candles.

If you’re selling candles, then you’d better know ALL the reasons why your patients are buying candles so you can focus your communications with potential customers to focus on those REASONS to buy.

If you’re selling chiropractic services, the same is also true.

Like it or not, creating practice success is all about communicating the BENEFITS of what you do effectively with the people who live and work in your community. In the case of the chiropractic professional, those benefits are largely focused upon the relief of pain and the restoration of health and well being.