Chiropractic Marketing Ideas for Fall Promotions

Here are a few ideas for promoting your chiropractic services during the end of the year.  There are many more, of course, but these can get you and your team thinking of what you might like to do over the next several months. (For a PDF version of this article.  REVISED AND UPDATED- 9/2014)

Schedule the special promotions first – the big events. Get these on a large Marketing Calendar and plan them out. Promote them before the event.  Ideally, you should promote the event four weeks before it occurs, but people often forget and make spur of the moment decisions. Therefore, promoting even a week before the event has worked.

You can find customizable posters and detailed information on how to do many of these projects on your chiropractic Marketing Manager System Toolkit and on your PM&A Member’s site. Depending on the level of your program, we can also put together simple posters to help promote your particular project.

Then, look at the more basic marketing procedures, those that are recurring. These should be on a list which you review every few months.

You can also sprinkle in some minor but fun promotions, such as having a Crazee Dayz.

General Marketing

  •  Recurring Procedures. The most important marketing procedures are your usual, recurring procedures that you do on a daily and weekly basis. Many of these are already embedded in your routine procedures.  These should be on a list that your review every three months.
  • Calendar. Make sure you have a large calendar to post all of your scheduled upcoming promotions.
  • Assignment. Assign a staff member to be in charge of each promotion. Each team member has a marketing responsibility.
  • Communication. In the end, marketing is all about communication. Therefore, promote your events with your newsletters (electronic and hard copy), fliers, Facebook, Internet updates, bulletin boards, web site and most of all,  through friendly one on one personal communication in the office.
  • Motivation.  All procedures work to some degree, depending on how well they are organized and on the intention behind them. If you and your team are not motivated to make these procedures work, they won’t.  Keep your purpose strong and your energy high.

Crazee Dayz
Select a day and make it special for your patients. Only one day a week is necessary otherwise it’s not special.  It can be once per month or every week. Serve extra treatsYou can have the staff dress out of uniform coordinated to the day.  These can add some extra fun to the office and help with retention and long term referrals.

  • Muffin Mondays – Serve up a selection of health bran, banana, blueberry, etc muffins
    Two for Tuesday – Bring a friend for a complimentary spinal exam and offer the patient a free adjustment.  “Two Fer Tuesday.”
    Whacky Wednesdays – gag gifts for patients,  “adjust-a-mints”, etc. (http://www.bannermints.com/)
    Thirsty Thursdays  — Organic apple juice served in plastic wine glasses with a sliced green apple on the rim. NA margaritas.
    Fruity Fridays  – Bowl of local fruit.

OCTOBER
October is National Spinal Health Month
(Now called National Chiropractic Health Month) This can give a you a reason to do many different promotions.  (Read about it at the American Chiropractic Association web site here.)

  • A banner in your office for patients to bring in family members for a free “Check-up.”
  • Reactivation Month – send postcards to all inactive patients who have not been in for at least one year or more for free spinal checkup.

Chiropractic Opportunity Week  (“The doctor is having a COW.”) (patient referrals and advertising new patients)

  • Free consultation, exam, and x-ray if needed.cow

 Hair Dresser/Beauty Salons/Spas (new patients and business referrals)

  • Offer a workshop on “How to Stay Fit While You Clip.”
  • Free massages (and screenings) for customers
  • Set up a customer appreciation program with the business owner and provide the massage and or food and screenings

 Local Health Fairs (new patients and business referrals)

  • Contact all the locations you have held events in the past year and schedule events for the New Year.
  • Contact local businesses for health fairs in the New Year and get them scheduled
  • ghost

 Kids and Halloween Party (patient retention and referrals)

With Casper as inspiration, a kid’s Halloween party with a friendly ghost theme has the right mix of tricks and treats. Invite the young ghouls to come dressed up, but you can also have them make ghastly masks as part of the fun. Other ideas include spooky decorations, scary snacks and a friendly ghost hunt.   Free spinal and scoliosis checks for all guests.

 

 NOVEMBERturkey

Thanksgiving Turkey Drawing Poster(patient referrals)

  • Refer a friend and enter the drawing for a free turkey
  • Special for Organic Turkeys – announce in your newsletter
  • Make arrangements now with your local supplier

Donation Drives (patient referrals, advertising new patients)

Holiday time always brings an increased demand for helping those less fortunate.  Within your office set up a collection area for any of the following programs and promote it in your newsletter.

  • Coats for Kids
  • Food for Families
  • Toys for Tots
  • Blood Drive

$25 in exchange for first day services.

  • Also, you can support drives at local church or gyms. E.G. “Free first day services for every donation a member of YMCA makes to the homeless fund.”

Deer Widows Week (patient referrals)

During hunting season or first week of December  offer  complimentary massage for  your patients who refer in a new patient.

 Girl’s Night Out  (screenings)

Christmas shopping/gift exchange

Enlist the help of massage therapist, local spas and direct marketing consultants, Tupperware distributors, etc. Everyone has to bring at least 3 guests. Buy presents from each other rather than at the mall.  In November or first week of December.gifts

Or

  Movie & Margarita (bring a guest for a movie screening and a spinal screening)

Sample movies: The Love Letter, Steel Magnolias, Little Women. Fried Green Tomatoes When Harry Met Sally, anything with Brad Pitt.

 

DECEMBER

Holiday Coupons – Gifts Certificates(patient referrals)

  • Good for Massage, consultation, exam, x-ray
  • Denominations: Free, $25, $25 or food donation to charity.

poinsettiaPoinsettia Give Away (patient retention)

Give away free poinsettias, one per family.  Include in the cards a gift certificate for family members or friends.  (see Member’s site for gift card)

 Saturday with Santa(patient referrals)

  • santa lapSet up Santa in your reception room corner
  • Treats for the kids
  • Pictures with Santa
  • Free spinal check with Doc

Appreciation to External Referral Sources.  

Deliver a fruit basket or other present personally during December with a card of thanks and mention how you are looking forward to another year working together.  This would go to any location where you had an external community services type of event, such as a screening or workshop.  Include: “Looking forward to working with you next year.”

Motivational Tent Poster – Secret to Success – Jiro Ono

Shaw

“Once you decide on your occupation… you must immerse yourself in your work.

You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill.  That’s the secret of success……

Even though I’m eighty-five years old, I don’t feel like retiring.”

    Jiro Ono – Sushi Master, Japan

Preparation for the September 7 switch to NGS Medicare

This shouldn’t be too big a deal, but there are a couple steps I want to make sure you are on top of. Obviously it would be best if you can attend one of the Wisconsin CSW Medicare seminars (here), but these are the basics:

  1. Make sure you have talked to your billing software company and your clearing house and that you have made any changes needed so that your Medicare claims goes to the correct place as of Monday, September 9.
  2. Do your final billing to WPS Medicare on Friday, September 6. That is the last day you can bill to them. Starting with dates of service September 7 or later, send those to NGS Medicare.
  3. You and the doctors should review the diagnosis that NGS Medicare allows for chiropractic claims. I have heard that there are slight differences, so this all has to be reviewed prior to submitting claims after the switch. Medicare Allowed Diagnosis Codes
  4. The new chiropractic policy for Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois is L27350 (here:LCD for Chiropractic Services) and has all the diagnosis allowed. Double check these on your Medicare patients. Any Dx not on this list will be denied.
  5. Doctors need to review all onset dates for all current Medicare patients to make sure that they are under active care, that they have an updated onset, and that documentation is in order (see #4 above).
  6. In order to document your objective goals and functional impairment, I strongly suggest you start using an outcome assessment tool every 30 days with all Medicare patients. In speaking to several clients, they like the Functional Rating Index. It is quick, easy for a Medicare patient, and very fast for the staff to score.
  7. You can find the FRI form for free at http://www.chiroevidence.com/FRI.html. There is a two page version or a one page version.

As always, call me if you have any questions, but these are the minimum basics that we have to be ready to move on.

Best, Dave

Pilot of the Wheelchair: The Girl and Her Passenger

This short story may not seem at first to pertain to your chiropractic office, but it does.

In the hot afternoon Sunday traffic, in the right lane waiting to turn right, our lane had stop moving.

Crossing the busy six lane intersection heading toward us was a man in a motorized wheelchair.  His face was full but motionless and looked worn. I couldn’t be sure, but he had that straight-ahead look of someone who was blind. He was maybe upper thirties or mid forties with short hair, perhaps a wounded veteran who paid no mind to the antsy cars that waited for him and his wheelchair.

Sitting on his lap was a thin little girl. Maybe eight years old.  She was curled up, cuddled with one of her shoulders against one of his. As they were crossing the last three lanes, she stretched out her arm with an open hand as if to say “halt, please let us cross.”

She had the look of a girl who had not had an easy life but was happy to be with this person whose immobile legs she rested on.

Once they made it to the other side our lane started to move. The pair moved closer as I moved forward. It appeared as if she was acting as the man’s eyes and told him when to go. I had the sense that he was a family member, perhaps her father, by the bond they seemed to share.

As I passed them in my nice air conditioned car, I looked closely at the girl and waved to her and smiled. She looked at me directly as I drove by. She gave me a wave and beamed a big smile as if to say “Thanks. We just made it across a busy road and me and my pa are having a Sunday outing.”

In my mind, her face reminded me of pictures of Anne Frank, the girl in Amsterdam that kept a diary before being taken by the Nazis to her death in 1945.

I would have liked to stop and help her in some way. Or say “hi” to the man in the wheelchair who looked so stoic. Maybe there was something I could do for them.

But the fact is – they did something for me.

They set an example – of courage, caring and love. They had heart: For each other, for their goals, and seemingly for their adventure.

Not everything can be put into a mission statement or measured by statistics.  No “boot camp” can teach this, and even if all your policies and procedures were followed perfectly, you could still miss it.

Heart.

One office I know has so MUCH heart the whole town loves the office and the office loves the town. The fact that there is a 2-3 week waiting list of new patients is the biggest challenge the office has.

By training and professional experience, I have a bias towards procedures, organizational structure and production.  No doubt, without these, offices would experience anarchy or insolvency. But I have also learned that heart is more important.

We can all become discouraged at times. Emotions and confusions can affect your patients as they do you and this can put a barrier around our capacity to care.  This may be affecting you or your office now.

But this is only temporary and not the real you.

This is what the little girl gave me. Her wave to me was a “thank you for stopping to let us cross the road”, but also, “we are all in this together.”

That is the lesson I am left with.

There is heroism all around us. Simple and quiet examples of selfless caring and love pass us by daily if we were to notice.  People want to help others and want help as well. Why? Because we are all in this together. Because we care. Because we have heart.

Training on procedures such as the report of findings is fine, but your patients aren’t adversaries and neither is your community. They want to get better and they want to help others to get better.   Really care for them, really love them, be honest with them, and have the courage to always do this, and they will never leave you.

Whatever your office mission statement says, if you have one, it should say what is in your heart. And if you follow that, I am sure you can successfully pilot your team on its adventure.

#  #  #

Ed Petty

Be Creative: You Are An Artist in Your Chiropractic Office

As a marketing tip, be creative.

More than ever, genuine creativity stands out and is necessary as your community gets more and more bombarded with ever increasing amounts of data, connections and general “noise.”

But the fact is, aside from marketing, no matter what role you may have in your office, you are an artist. You are not working on an assembly line.

Each day you create many things that were not there before.

Although you follow routine procedures as a chiropractor or team member, you are not a robot.  You add your special ingredients to each outcome you help bring about.

Each day — today in fact — you will create many useful outcomes for people. Depending on your role in the office, it could be adjusted patients, collected receivables, or scheduled patients.

Think of the outcomes you bring about as works of art. They are your creations. They are unique.

 

Two Outcomes

There are two basic outcomes that you create. Your first outcome is obvious — it is defined by your role in the office: adjusted patients, collected receivables, scheduled patients that keep their appointments.

The other outcome that you may not spend much time on — none of us do — is working ON ourselves and ON our office. The second outcome is producing that which is producing your outcomes.

A farmer can’t have apples without an orchard.  A football team can’t win unless it has the right players in the right positions.  A runner can’t win races unless she works on her form and trains.

It’s the oldest story in the book:  the goose that laid the golden eggs.  You need a golden goose to get your golden eggs.  If you “cook your goose,” or at least don’t take care of it, you won’t have golden eggs.

Taking care of your goose that lays the golden eggs is your second outcome you need to work on each week.

 

Takes Time and Continuous Improvement
If the road to your goals seems too long or the travel too tough, keep in mind that it takes time to grow an orchard or to build a winning team. (This is also covered in #6 of Stephenson’s 33 Principles of Chiropractic.)

And it takes a continuous process of improvement working ON your job skills and ON the development of your team and team functions.  If you are a professional musician, you spend time playing music in the orchestra. But you also spend time improving your own music and helping to improve the music of the orchestra.

All artists make mistakes.  That is how you and your team learn. It is part of the improvement process.

But it is art. You are creating something that wasn’t there before.

There is a thrill to be had at the end of each day if you demonstrated the best of your craft – and your team did as well.

In our networked economy, authenticity is more valuable than ever before and is what distinguishes you from all the rest.

Just keep in mind that you have two outcomes, it takes time and requires a process of continuous improvement.  Then, enjoy creatively making each day your new work of art

Teleclass – Revised Schedule

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There have been a couple of changes to the original schedule that was posted earlier this year.  Please check the calendar or click the link to print out a user friendly poster for your staff commons area.  [Link]

If you can catch these classes live, they are free! Otherwise they will be in our vault for those of you who are active with us. Hope to “hear” you in class.

Dave Michel Presents “What Chiropractors Can Expect with Obamacare and Other Upcoming Changes”

Mr. Dave Michel is making presentations throughout the state of Wisconsin covering some of the key elements of the Affordable Care Act. He is also discussing other changes that will be affecting reimbursement in the upcoming months.

Dave is a 30 year veteran of practice management and a partner in Petty, Michel & Associates, a practice management company headquartered in WI. He is especially expert in the area of insurance and chiropractic reimbursement.

“I have been doing this a long time and I have never seen the quantity of changes, or the degree to which the changes will be affecting reimbursement as I am seeing now.”

Some of the topics Dave covered included a time line of new forms and policies over the next 14 months. He also gave advice on what offices should do to make the most from the changes. If done right, he said, all these changes can be of help to the office, to the patients, and to the health of the community.

#   #   #

For more information visit/view:

2013-04-18 12.30 Surviving, Striving and Thriving Through the Affordable Care Act(mp3)

Dave’s outline with references for further study and a list of upcoming insurance events and deadlines

Upcoming Medicare and Reimbursement Changes: To Survive and Thrive – You Need to Study and Train

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”  Alvin Toffler

 

I don’t see this discussed much – at least not enough.

It’s called: STUDY.  Study is similar to training, which includes practice, and both require real personal effort and engagement to be effective.

You may want to study more but just don’t feel like you have the time to do so.  It does take time away from other activities. It can be confusing, tedious, and even seem belittling – sitting down and grinding over information, trying to figure out how something works. Practicing and roll playing can seem even worse.

But the return on your investment is worth it.   And nowadays, you have to constantly study just to stay up to date, let alone get ahead.    For example, for those of you in the insurance departments – patient accounts – you have probably had to learn many new things lately. You may have had to upgrade your computer programs for electronic health records. You have had to learn about “meaningful use” and other new terms.

But wait, there’s more!
INSURANCE
I checked in with our resident billing expert, Mr. Dave Michel, and he informs me you have the following headed your way:
  • June: new CMS 1500 claim form
  • July: PQRS implementation
  • Sept 7: WPS to NGS (Medicare administrator change in several Midwest states.)
  • Oct: new ICD 10
  • January major provisions of the PPACA and required EFT and ERA

For those of you in charge of patient reimbursement, you will have to learn about these new programs, train and then get them correctly implemented.  You have many resources from which to learn, including: association seminars and webinars, the CMS website, Chirocode.com, NGS web site for those of you in the Midwest, the PM&A Members website and Facebook page.  There are other resources as well, but the point is that you will have to study, learn, and work it out and get it implemented.

FRONT DESK AND OTHER CLINIC DEPARTMENTS
This also applies to every other job in your office. Each team member should be able to write a book about their department and job within five years and be capable of presenting a full day seminar on what they do to other chiropractic staff.

The front desk should be experts in customer service, sales for scheduling, and excellent in many other skills.  Therapy and rehab staff should know the physiological affect their machines and protocols produce for their patients. They too need to be exceptional at patient education, customer service, and as compassionate as the patient’s mother.

YOU ARE PROFESSIONALS
These are high standards, but you are professionals. You don’t work on an assembly line at the Ford plant. We now live in a networked economy. We have long since passed the Industrial Age, even though most of our management techniques still seem tied back to when “Father Knows Best.”

There is no getting around it, this is a new age. Alvin Toffler, quoted above, wrote about post the Industrial age for business in his book, The Third Wave. The second wave was the Industrial Age – and the third was and is the Information Age.

It is 2013 and your patients are smarter than patients have ever been and expect more.  They know about you before they call you and report on you after they see you so the whole world knows how you treated them.

You have to be better.  You have to study, learn, train.  In a tough economy, patients will go to the best and  bypass the rest. You have to be the best.

A NOTE TO DOCTORS
This apples to you doubly. Beyond the continuing education credits, I suggest you consider challenging yourself to constantly work on improving any and every aspect of your clinical craft like a true artisan. Like a scientist. And like a philosopher.

But you are also a CEO, which includes an entirely different set of skills. As the owner and manager of your business, you need to perfect your skills as a leader, manager, and marketer.  This is so horribly omitted (or perverted) in many programs as to be either laughable or criminal.   Once you do learn these subjects, you can delegate most of them and we can show you how, but you need to learn them nevertheless.

ONE HOUR PER WEEK
Stephen Covey talks about how you have to “sharpen the saw.”  You can cut a tree much faster if the saw is sharp and that sharpening is called training and study.  According to the American Society for Training and Development, since 1991, annual training budgets in the U.S. have grown from $43.2 billion in 1991 to $156 billion in 2011. Obviously, business sees an ever increasing need for training.

Encourage your team to take at least one hour each week to study some aspect relating to their job.   Encourage them to attend seminars and webinars and tele-classes, and have them give a presentation for the entire team at the next team meeting about what they learned.  You can give them a bonus if they give a book report about a book they read in the Lending Library.

YOUR PATIENTS
Lastly, this also applies to your patients. One of the primary functions of your office should be the training and education of your patients.  They need to take responsibility for their own health and in order to do this – they need to know what you know.  Regular care classes, a “lending library” and of course, warm “table talk” by doctor and staff help.

***SPECIAL TEAM TRAINING TELECLASS WITH PHYLLIS FRASE AND DANA PITTNER TUESDAY, MAY 21, 

12:30pm – 1:30pm CDT – “Dialogues and Dilemmas

Take time this Tuesday to listen to these dynamic ladies discuss solutions to the 10 most common conversations staff often gets stuck on with patients.

Learn how your staff can share and educate your patients on the chiropractic lifestyle.  What you can say at the front desk, in therapy, financials, etc.

There is no charge for this teleclass. For active PM&A members, you will find it on you Members site in a few days just in case you missed it.

JUST RELEASED: New Chiropractic Music Video – “Munson Style”

Just released: A new professionally recorded music video by Dr. Cindy Munson, a chiropractor in Plymouth, Wisconsin.   It features her staff, family, and some of her patients.

The more times you watch it the more little clever trivia you can find. The scenes were well thought out.

What is remarkable about this office, which is actually demonstrated by this video, is the exceptional leadership provided by Dr. Munson.  With her great staff, she has created a true chiropractic “Dream Team” – a group of professionals working together for the betterment of their patients and their community.

Feel free to let Dr. Cindy know how you liked the video or any thoughts or questions you may have.

We are proud to say that we have worked with Dr. Cindy and her team for many years.

www.drcindymunson.com

Affordable Care Act and Chiropractic: A Teleclass with Dave Michel

What is the Affordable Care Act and how will it affect you, your chiropractic business, and your patients?

In this timely teleclass, Mr. Dave Michel outlines the basics of the ACA and demystifies it’s myths and complexities.

Learn how it can affect you and your patients.

Ordinarily reserved for our Members Only confidential site,  we are making this teleclass broadly available for listening and download since this is such an important and timely topic,

 You can listen or down in two formats for your convenience: MP3 or WAV.

2013-04-18 12.30 Surviving, Striving and Thriving Through the Affordable Care Act – 50 minutes (mp3)

2013-04-18 12.30 Surviving, Striving and Thriving Through the Affordable Care Act – 50 minutes. (wav)

 

April Teleclass: Affordable Care Act:How Will it Affect Your Chiropractic Practice?

“2014 will bring the greatest changes to the health insurance industry in our lifetime. This is not bull or scare tactics. The face of health insurance – already vastly different than it was ten years ago – is about to undergo a dramatic and seismic change.” -David Michel

Join us this Thursday April 18th, 12:30 CST to listen to Mr. Dave Michel of Petty, Michel & Associates discuss the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Michel will discuss:

  •  Are your financial plans set for further limits on care?
  •  Can you continue to treat your patients based on your philosophy?
  •  Are you ready for mandatory changes to your Dx, your EOBs, the HCFA CMS 1500 claim form, and HIPAA? All coming in 2014?

If you can catch this class as it happens, it is free! Otherwise they will be in our vault for those of you who are active members with us.

To Register visit: Surviving, Striving and Thriving Through the Affordable Care Act

Finding the Right Mix for Your Chiropractic Promotions

THE PROMOTIONAL RIVER

I sometimes receive emails and calls from chiropractors requesting a quick fix for their lack of new patients.   I often wonder if they ever got the idea of symptomatic care versus corrective and wellness care.

Effective marketing requires more than just a killer advertisement or long copy reactivation letter or a spinal screening.   It has been said that good marketing doesn’t depend on one promotion to get 50 new patients, but rather 50 promotions each generating one new patient.

Generating a high volume of new patients in your chiropractic office requires multiple channels of communication.   Consider how a river grows – through lots of tributaries. The Mississippi starts out like a creek, but then other creeks run into it and it grows and grows.

We call this the promotional mix – the blend of different approaches you use to communicate the benefits of your services.

On the following page, we have listed just a few important categories of effective promotions for your office.  Of course, there are others, but we have found that these work well and can act as a good foundation.

Mississippi

FOUNDATIONS OF PROMOTION

Effective promotion starts with individual and team motivation. It then should be entwined with all of your basic routines each day, from the way the phone is answered to the consultation and patient examination.

Beyond this, you can schedule specific health topics months in advance and offer them as workshops or “Awareness Weeks” where you provide a free screening exam and info.

Occasional special promotions should be scheduled, such as “Kid’s Day”, and community services should also be scheduled, such as screenings, relationship building with external referrals sources, and workshops.

Your presence on the Internet has to be constantly added to.

These are some of the main categories of your promotions, though advertising and public relations events can also occur now and then.

PromoMix(larger image)

KEY PROMOTIONS   


1.   Motivation.  You and your team’s desire to promote the benefits of your services create the energy to make your marketing work. Constantly nurture this.  Start with WHY?

2.   Basic Service and Chiropractic Care Procedures.   This is your foundation. Marketing is embedded in the heart of all the basic duties you do every day.  You should constantly review and try to improve on the marketing aspect of your procedures.  Be ever more cheerful, more genuine, more caring, and giving of extra-ordinary care and service.  Have “Present Time Consciousness.” It is helpful to have a checklist of these procedures to review.  Little things can slip aside and go unnoticed and a checklist helps flush everything out for inspection.  Work on a procedure or two every month so that you are constantly improving.

3.   Special Promotions. These are promotional events that can be internal, external, or both. For example, flowers to women on Mother’s Day, a Kid’s Day, Community Appreciation Day, Anniversary Day, etc.  They can be tied in with holidays, community days, parades, donation drives, etc. Most have an offer for a free service, but not all. These are IN ADDITION to the monthly education themes. Schedule these every other month or so. Promote these on the Internet and in newsletters.

4.   Community Education Program  (Monthly Health Themes) We have found that this program gradually builds momentum and if managed well, brings in more patient referrals, external new patients, and returning patients directly and indirectly. Here are some steps to make it successful.

a.    Select monthly themes around a condition or healthful topic. Can include headaches, kid’s health, motherhood, nutrition, cooking class, exercise, golf clinic, etc.
b.    Schedule a workshop time or “Awareness Week” (free screening exam last week of the month)  at the end of each month.
c.    Customize a poster. Samples on our Members site or make up your own.
d.    Do a YouTube video on the subject the month before. Post on Facebook, web site, YouTube channel and embed in your email
e.    Send out an email notice promoting the event, with a link to the video Health Tip, testimonial, etc.
f.    Send a hard copy newsletter with testimonials mailed to some of your patient files now and then (3 months) and all files every 6 months.
g.    Posters distributed locally and as statement stuffers.
h.    Press releases can be sent to local papers/electronic calendars.
i.    Ads are an option.

5.   Community Services. These are scheduled each month and include screenings, workshops and external referrals source development (MDs, businesses, DDS, auto body shops, etc.)

6.    Keep The Conversation Going: Internet And Newsletter.  Update your Internet presence and post new info regularly. Set a goal of how many hours it gets worked on each month, eg.  1 hr a week.  You could also use a checklist (we have one on our PM&A Members site). This would include Facebook postings, YouTube, directory sites (Yelp, Healthgrades.com. etc.), and search engines (Google, Bing, etc.).  And, of course, your website/blog.  Add patient testimonials, photos, and health tips. Keep posting – but keep most of the info local and “newsy,” just short of gossipy.  Also, send out electronic and hard copy newsletters with similar newsy content and notices for upcoming promotions, talks.

7.   Public Relations and Advertising.  Radio ads and print ads promoting specials events can be helpful now and then. Public relations such as press releases and donation drives can add long term good will and should be done a few times a year

3 Month Marketing Planner [Link]

2013 – Teleclass Schedule – Poster

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We are excited about our upcoming teleclass schedule for 2013 which will start this Tuesday, March 19th.

We have an awesome line-up of teleclasses for you and your staff in the areas of chiropractic philosophy, office procedures and reimbursement.

Class description and registration can be found on the calendar on this site.

We have also prepared a poster you can print and post on the wall in your staff commons area for an easy view of upcoming class.  [Link]

If you can catch these classes live, they are free! Otherwise they will be in our vault for those of you who are active with us.  Hope to “hear” you in class.

6 Reasons Why CalJam is Important for Chiropractic

grandpaskater

1. It is fun and promotes that chiropractic is and should be fun.

2. It’s founder and promoter is in practice, adjusting people of all ages, just like you.

3. It focuses on the purpose of chiropractic and the chiropractic lifestyle.

4. It defines and promotes the unique role chiropractic has in the market place – as a HEALTH profession that works, is not owned or used by pharmaceutical companies or other corporate monopolies, is vitalistic while also being scientific.

5. It promotes the idea that helping people to get healthier does not have to be a grave, stuffy, or serious activity.

6. And just like Dr. Billy DeMoss demonstrates, we all can work on higher purposes – professionally and personally —  while at the same time adjust people daily (APD) and run a business.

There are other reasons, but the ones above should be included.  Please add others below.

I hope you an make it to CalJam this year.

Some of us from PM&A are going and if I see you, let me treat you to the nearest greenest, anti-inflamatory drink nearby, or a piece of buffalo jerky, whichever is handier.

And if you can’t make it, you can always follow Billy on YouTube.

And either way, in your own way, you can always follow your own higher purposes and keep jammin in your corner of the world.

 

Chiro-jamming in an office near you..

Ed, and all of us at PM&A

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CalJam.org

Dead Chiropractors Society