By Marc Swerdlick, D.C.

Dr. Swerdlick is a graduate of Palmer Col lege of Chiropractic and practices in the Chicagoland area.  He practices CBP® Tech nique and is the author of a soon-to-be released book for the consumer about the benefits of CBP® chiropractic care and two additional books in production that cover cash practice and practice promotion.

Practice Promotion

Promoting a practice can be one of the biggest challenges for a chiropractor.  Without batting an eyelash, many in our profession commit to large yellow page ads, newspaper ads, mailers, telemarketing and coupons.  For many, these efforts pay off by drawing a steady flow of new patients through the door.  But for others, especially those lacking a large advertising budget, frustration can draw many advertising and promotional endeavors to a halt.

            At a recent seminar, we asked attendees to compile and bring with them the results from their advertising efforts from the last year (given that they had actually taken the time to track the return on their investment).  What we found was that a big budget spent on traditional advertising was not necessarily money well spent.

             Now, we realize that those who make their living selling yellow page ads, coupons or telemarketing may disagree, just as chiropractors who have just shelled out a great deal of money on a “guaranteed program” and have had some degree of success (without considering their actual return on investment) are also likely to disagree. 

            The fact of the matter is that promoting a practice doesn’t need to be expensive to be effective.  This is not to suggest that people abandon some of the advertising opportunities mentioned above, but instead, consider spending a respectable percentage of your advertising budget on alternative promotional strategies that create a greater market presence or greater “staying power”(the ability of your advertising efforts to have continued effectiveness over a period of time).

            In our seminar, Perfect Practice Promotion, we emphasize selecting advertising specialties that deliver exceptional “staying power.”  We’re not speaking of crooked pens, buttons or stickers.  Instead, we suggest that you consider advertising specialties like you would any serious investment.  Consider for a moment a high-quality t-shirt.  Seems rather simple, but how could anyone look at a t-shirt as an investment? 

            Two years ago, we conducted a very successful campaign that involved printing an attention-getting catchy phrase on the front of a t-shirt and our logo, location and telephone number on the back.  While we certainly gave them out to all of our patients, we went one step further by distributing them to people who were regulars at our health club and regular morning walkers along a popular trail in our town. 

            We followed the same distribution with high-quality sport bottles (water bottles).  Because of this and similar campaigns that followed, our name was everywhere!  To this day, we still see people working out and walking around with our shirts and water bottles...some who aren’t even our patients! 

            When we tracked the results of our “investment,” we found that many of the new patients that followed, saw our name on the back of a t-shirt or a water bottle. T-shirts, jackets, towels, water bottles and magnetic automobile signs are examples of what we consider to be moveable billboards.

            Advertising agencies spend millions of dollars per year on billboard advertising, hoping that you and I simply catch a glimpse of their product or service.  These select ad specialties simply replicate this same strategy, but on a much smaller scale.

  What do you do with an inexpensive crooked pen once the ink dries up?  That’s right, into the trash it goes (hopefully, the recycling bin)! 

            What really amazes me is when I see chiropractors placing large ads in the daily local newspaper.  If they only took the time to look at the distribution (the number of paid subscribers of the paper) and considered how many people will actually read the newspaper and view their ad (especially during the week), they would probably fall over.  People are so busy running around during the week; they hardly have time to get to the newspaper.  At the end of the day, the newspaper gracefully ends up in the recycling bin.  

            In our seminar, we discuss and are big advocates of newsletters.  Once again, there are many chiropractors who subscribe to a service that produces a standard “canned” newsletter that allows for partial customization (the name and location of the practice, the doctor’s bio, a testimonial, etc.).  For many, these newsletters work very well. 

            The problem with some (not all) of these newsletters is that they take up too much valuable space on information that will not specifically benefit your practice. These newsletters are also very expensive, especially when you consider the minimum commitment and the mailing fees.  Additionally, the information in these newsletters is general chiropractic information that can be found on ten year old brochures.  That’s great educational material, but not on your dime.

            If you’re promoting CBP® and corrective care, a blurb about the benefits of acupuncture may not be the best use of space and your hard earned money.  Every article should, directly or indirectly, have some tangibility to your practice.  Also, newsletters are not as likely to be thrown away as compared to coupons and the daily newspaper.  Because they contain valuable information (not just solicitation), they have exceptional “staying power.” 

            If you’re graphically challenged but have the ability to write, take some time to talk with a local printer about helping to build your newsletter. Yes, it’s a little more work, but once you get into the swing of things, you’ll probably enjoy putting together each issue.

            A secondary benefit of locally publishing your own newsletter may be the development of a nice relationship with the printer and a new patient.  Remember, printers deal with a lot of local businesses and schools.  This in itself may lead to additional avenues of distribution of your newsletter.  This is networking at its very best. 

            Our office newsletter is published bi-monthly.  At first, you may only want to your newsletter every quarter.  As you become more proficient, you may want to publish bi-monthly.  If you’re really aggressive, perhaps you’ll publish on a monthly basis. 

            Our newsletter includes articles that correlate headaches, neck pain, back pain and other conditions with poor posture and the need for corrective care.  We also add patient success stories and nutritional information. 

            Each patient is given a newsletter in office, but again the larger balance of the newsletters are distributed to local health clubs, the chamber of commerce, coffee joints, health food stores and any free corkboard space in a ten-mile radius.                    No, it’s not as glamorous as having someone else do the work for you, and I’m sure that these large newsletter producers will argue that your time is worth more than the time it will take for you to do it on your own.  But it’s important to remember that the newsletter need not be a work of art. 

            Many word processing programs like Microsoft Word® and publishing programs like Microsoft Publisher(r) include templates that make building a newsletter a breeze. Print it, make copies and you’re on your way.  Just make sure it looks clean and be sure to check both spelling and grammar.

            These are just a few of the very powerful, yet cost-effective means of promoting your practice.  These strategies have delivered droves of new patients, while also building and extending our presence in the community.