A fundamental component to marketing your chiropractic services is communicating a reason, rationale, or a purpose for why you are marketing.

For example, if a store has a SALE each month with a discount on some of their items, you might think: “So what? Just another sale.”  So the department store thinks up some reason for the sale. It could be “Back-to-School” sale, a “Food Drive” sale, or a St. Patty’s Day party.

This is why many businesses over the last 15 years have used donation drives, or special causes, to help promote their services. Buy a bottle of water at Starbucks and a percentage of it goes to poor African children.

This works as long as the customer thinks it is a legitimate reason, but as soon as they find out that it is questionable, they stay away.  The Starbucks Ethos Water program, for example, has been discredited for a number of reasons. First, the retail bottle goes for $1.80 but only five cents goes to African kids.   The water bottles are manufactured by Pepsi and do not contain recycled materials. Plus, plastic bottles are ecological problems as they are reported not do decompose for a thousand years.

Over the Holidays, many businesses have sales and claim it is in conjunction with “Food for Families”, “Toys for Tots”, etc.   These are now so numerous that one can wonder about the genuine nature of such campaigns.

But donation drives are great. They can be effective, as can any promotion. But for any promotion to be effective, it helps if there is a reason behind it that is appealing and believable to your market. You should be genuine.

We recommend that all of your marketing have a topical theme. In our marketing materials, we have many, from Organic Health Care Week (in conjunction with Earth Day), Mother’s Day coupon with flowers, Neuralgia Awareness Week, etc.

But behind all of these themes should be a more dominate reason for your marketing. The better your staff, your patients, and your community understand this reason, the more active they will be in responding to your marketing efforts.

What is the underlying reason for your marketing?

Money, of course.  More new patients? Of course. But, as a doctor, what is your reason?  We suggest you work this out and communicate it to your patients and staff, and even your community.

(For our clients, we have written a sample letter (Why We Promote – A Letter to Our Patients) which you may access on your Member’s web site under “New Stuff.” (need password.))