Marketing 101
A must-read primer
for growing your practice
By Pattie Stechschulte
It is a familiar story heard around the industry. A new chiropractor will graduate
from chiropractic school and open a practice and wait for the patients to come
in. With one or two business courses under their belt, they lack the business
knowledge of how to attract new patients into their practice using strategic
marketing.
“Marketing is observing the needs of the marketplace and offering services
that meet those needs,” said Dennis Perman, marketing expert from The Masters
Circle. “It may include advertising, public relations, the creation of
strategic alliances, group presentation or simply asking for referrals, but
the essence of marketing is about solving a problem in the mind of the marketplace,
regardless of the form it takes.”
Through developing a marketing program, you will gain a better understanding
of your customer base and what they want. A marketing strategy is simply a plan
for generating income, so it is absolutely necessary for any business to have
one in place.
Understanding a Marketing Concept
A marketing concept is just a management plan that takes into account all the
marketing components of a total business plan, and just like a well run business,
a marketing plan needs effective preparation, organization, direction and control.
To use the marketing concepts, chiropractors need to do the following:
1. Market Research –
determine the needs of their potential and current patients;
2. Market Strategy – study the competition;
3. Target Marketing – focus on specific markets;
4. Market Mix – figure out how to satisfy the patients needs; and
5. Marketing Performance – evaluate how well you have served the patient.
“Strategic planning
is just being smart and knowing who your core customers are. For chiropractors
it is really going to come down to where they are located, what the population
demographics are and also what they are seeing their health plans covering—what
are the major carriers and their benefits,” said Deanne Kasim, president
of DPK Marketing Solutions.
Market Research: The purpose of gathering market research is to find out who
the potential patients are, what they want, where and when they want it. The
research should also analyze the competition, especially finding the areas that
they do not service to fill a niche.
The research should also examine any trends in the local area including population
age shifts, changes in the local economy, typical lifestyles, etc. With proper
research information, chiropractors should be able to determine their market
share and the possible effectiveness of certain advertising and promotions.
To access this information, contact groups such as the local Chamber of Commerce,
local library and national chiropractic associations. Gathering data can also
be done through telephone surveys, mail surveys, one-on-one questionnaires and
customer service cards.
Marketing Strategy: A smart strategy implies that a chiropractor cannot be all
things to all people and must study the markets and their strengths they can
focus on the target market they can serve best.
Many businesses move in and capture a significant part of the market from competitors
by offering a service in an area that has been ignored by the competition. A
few examples of this would include having extended office hours, providing massage
therapy in the office, offering lower rates or giving better customer service.
Target Marketing: Promoting your practice will be easier once you understand
your target markets.
“You just want to be smart about your marketing and decide who it is that
really needs and can have your services. I think that is the key in health care,
particularly for chiropractors, because their marketing dollars are very limited,”
said Kasim. “Insurance has really cut back on what benefits they are going
to provide, so many look at chiropractic services as a luxury in some cases.
That is really the challenge.”
Concentrating on specific target market segments is the root of target marketing,
which may be broken up by geography and/or by demographics. By identifying your
potential patients, chiropractors will be able to establish a practice with
services to better serve their needs.
Market Mix: A well thought-out marketing place will combine different marketing
and communications projects that will include advertising, promotions, public
and media relations and sales.
“Most people, who are new to marketing, tend to think if I take an 8-inch
by 10-inch ad out the whole world we’ll see me—that is not necessarily
the truth,” said Kasim. “ I have seen that some places do the Valpak
coupons, but I would just caution that chiropractors not necessarily build themselves
as the cheapest practitioner out there because that questions the credibility
of chiropractic.”
Different aspects can include a promotional campaign with a planned out media
plan and advertising calendar that can focus on seasonal health advice or special
community events. It is important to choose media avenues that will be most
cost effective in reaching the selected target market segment. The most popular
methods include radio, newsletters, classifieds, posters, word of mouth, press
releases, direct mail, special events, brochures and neighborhood newsletters.
“There is a lot of information available in the public domain for marketing
and health care. Perhaps the best approach is to spend a hour or two with a
consultant to get a plan in place that takes into account what their population
is, what they are trying achieve, insurance and locality information. That is
what I would recommend for the biggest bang for your buck,” said Kasim.
Marketing Performance: An important, but often overlooked, portion of a marketing
plan is to document and evaluate how each marketing project performed. Did it
bring in new patients? Did it have a good return on investment, or was it worth
the cost of the program?
“The bottom line is to know your clients, know your locality, and be very
savvy about insurance benefits. What are the trends with the major carriers
in your area? The affordability of these benefits is going to be driving this
in the future. Chiropractic offices that offer multi services, like physical
therapy and massage, are getting patients coming in for one service, then fall
into chiropractic care,” said Kasim.
Classic Marketing Pitfalls to Avoid
• Don’t try
to be the cheapest chiropractor on the block by using special offers and
coupons. Instead of sticking a coupon in somebody’s packet, do a pre-targeted
mailing. Investigate professional mailing lists and target your demographics
very carefully before purchasing a list. Also, send a simple postcard with
a clear message with contact information that can be read quickly, compared
to a detailed letter which people will likely toss in the trashcan.
• Be wary of contacting advertising sales people of media outlets.
Be careful of their pitches and presentation offers because they may be
selling you something that may not fit your marketing niche or into your
marketing plan. Make sure you can back up their claims.
• Avoid falling into the “seduction vs. attraction” trap.
As a rule, new patients actually respond better to someone who is “attractive”
as a caregiver—denoting qualities of loving, honest, service-oriented,
passionate and professionally excellent; rather than someone who is “seductive”—offering
free services, cut rates and special deals.
Steps
to Developing a Marketing Plan
Perman outlines five important
steps that chiropractors should follow to help with their practice marketing.
1. Identify the types of patients you want to attract. Selecting the types
of people you prefer to serve helps you focus your attention on people who
are good candidates for your practice. Gender, age, socioeconomics, selected
occupations or hobbies, methods of financial compensation, philosophical orientation
and condition all may play a role in this process.
2. Locate where these kinds of patients are likely to be found. Decide where
there are likely to be high concentrations of your chosen ideal patients and
then look there.
3. Increase your visibility in those locations. Through advertising, personal
speaking engagements and/or visits, the idea is to get some attention from
the people who are ideal patient prospects, so they notice you.
Learn to close effectively. Develop a simple motivating speech that will lead
a potential patient to come in for a visit.
4. Develop an office procedure that serves those people well. Choose office
procedures and policies that are consistent with delivering a quality service
to your ideal patients.
5. “Most doctors erroneously believe that if they just had enough new
patients,” says Perman, “they’d have a busy practice. The real
truth is that busy practices come from solid practice management, consistency
with chiropractic principle, and most importantly, the vision and identity
of the doctor.”
Cost-Effective
Marketing Tips
• Hire a freelance
media consultant to contact local community paper editors who are in charge
of the health beat to position you as a local expert for back pain, chronic
pain, rehabilitation, etc. You can take out the biggest ad in the newspaper,
but it won’t nearly have as much credibility if you get a two sentence
quote in an article.
• Learn to communicate the chiropractic message clearly, concisely and
with enough confrontational tolerance to persuade a potential patient that
chiropractic care is in their best interest. Keep it simple; show how what
you do meets a need.
• Contact larger businesses in the area and volunteer to do free evaluations
in the lunchroom or lobby where your practice information and business cards
are on display.
Elements
of an effective ad
Many people find a chiropractor
by coming across an advertisement in the local newspaper or magazine, so it
is essential to create a quality ad.
Before you get started designing an ad, there are a few things that you must
look into. Do your research. Examine your competition’s advertising.
Analyze their ad design and focus to see how they are marketing themselves
within the community. Be careful not to duplicate your competition’s
ad, but do try to focus on a market segment they might not have addressed
in their ad.
Do not rely on the staff of a publication to design your advertisement. Instead,
hire a local graphic designer on a freelance basis to create your ad—you
will have more control on the design. After placing an advertisement, your
office staff needs to track the results. Ask each new customer how they heard
about you.
Every advertisement should contain these five design elements—headline,
copy, benefits, visuals and closing copy.
Headline: Make it an eye-catching headline or phrase—perhaps the
practice’s tagline. It should be short and memorable.
Copy: Long copy in an ad will look more informative, but more graphics
and/or photographs can be used with shorter copy. Most graphic designers believe
that less is better, and that cluttered ads make readers move on.
Benefits: The copy should focus on your strengths or area of expertise,
highlighting that you are a specialist. Give a list of reasons on why a potential
patient should schedule a visit.
Visuals: Including a visual element in your ad (people work best) will
attract more readers and noticeably increase your results.
Closing: The closing copy should include any special offers. Don’t
forget to include the contact information, hours of operation and general
location.
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