Patient Education Strategies for the Modern Chiropractor by Andrew Cook D.C.
There is very little that will help you stand out to patients and potential patients better than a cohesive brand. This is not as complicated as it sounds, though. You don’t need Nike’s ad budget to help people recognize your business. In fact, with a plan, and some intentional spending, you can have several systems in place that can contribute to many marketing strategies, in before-, during-, and after-unit marketing.
Online and offline marketing: a match made
One of my favorite methods to market my practice is a combination of online and offline marketing, using print material, in-store visits, social media, and email marketing. I’ll outline the whole strategy in detail later in the article. Still, for now, I’ll give some background to the process, which will allow you to visualize the framework to better utilize this strategy.
With content marketing in general, we like to be helpful and informative, instead of talking about ourselves. Furthermore, print marketing offers you a unique opportunity to create helpful content and combine it with modern, or at least timeless design. For instance, you could use an informative brochure instead of a business card when you introduce yourself to people (most likely the general public). At the very least, you could make a small part of your business card, like the back, have a helpful piece of advice on it.
Combining networking, print media, social media, and email marketing
Here’s a brief outline of the strategy.
Bring a brochure or a piece of informative literature to a business you want to network with (running store, bike store, gym, dentist office, etc.). Make sure the information is useful, not about you, and that the brochure is quickly recognizable to those who know your business already. The brochure should also include a link to a landing page.
On this landing page, there should be a bit more information about your business, and the offer of an instructional video (probably similar to the brochure) in exchange for their email address. This connects your strategies online and offline and offers you the opportunity to keep in touch with them.
Their email submission triggers an email automation that delivers the free video, them a chain of emails designed to give them more information, introduce you and your business, and then try to offer them the help they’re seeking. You know they’re looking for something because they decided to look further into your offer.
This strategy can pretty much be used as is, or you can modify it to meet whatever specifics you require.
What do I make a card about?
There is no shortage of information you could use to make a brochure, rack card, or flyer. If a patient asks you a question, you can write the answer as an info graphic and give it out. You can put your favorite three to five stretches on a rack card. You can easily make something specific to an industry you’d like to work within your community. Anything that you’d put in a video can also be made into print material somehow, and that will give you more options for your marketing.
Where can I get the images?
The graphics and pictures you use for this process should match your patient. You can use stock images sometimes, though not really for specific movements. If you’re doing a stretch card, you can use yourself, a staff-person, you could hire a model, you could hire an illustrator. Think about your own aesthetics as well as that of your patient. The style should be yours, but also speak to exactly the person you’ve identified as your perfect patient.
This brings up the importance of planning and strategy in this business. If you’re reading this part and you don’t know who your perfect patient is, this article just became much less important or significant to you, and the process could be more of a waste of time and energy.
The design doesn’t have to be too complicated
This was probably the trickiest part for me and remains that way. I’m not a designer, although I do have creative tendencies, so I enjoyed it enough to keep trying. But the key was to keep trying. I found several tools that made the process a lot easier and gradually made the end- result look better. Some of those tools have free versions, but at this point, I mostly use the paid versions because they’re not that expensive and I consider them worthwhile expenses to the extent that I use them.
I’ve put together a PDF guide that gives you the step-by-step process you can use to create an informative rack card that you could use to introduce yourself at a running store or gym. You can directly copy the image I provide, down to the exercises and the wording, or you can use the information to make your own that fits with your business.
People learn in so many different ways
People can be taught something in so many different ways before they get it. We learn things differently, and we integrate that information individually. With this knowledge, we can expect to benefit as clinicians from the strategy mentioned above as well. If a patient sees that you care enough to try several different methods of communicating with them, they are much more likely to have a great experience in your office. This experience will more likely lead to more referrals (which you could encourage with a system including custom-branded, informative literature).