When it comes to advertising, many doctors don’t even know where to begin. Some start with the local newspaper, which might be a good fit depending on readership, but they often never expand beyond local print advertising.
Here are some tips and suggestions for doctors who are ready to take the next step in Advertising, to help deliver their messages directly to those who may be interested.
1. Find Your Audience
Luckily, in the chiropractic industry, we have access to a lot more information about our consumers than most business owners. So use it! Analyze your data to find trends in age, sex, general health, career and more, and don’t waste your time advertising where your typical patient base would not see it. This exercise can also help you to pinpoint the potential audiences you would like to reach in the future. Think about using your patient data to reactivate patients who you have not seen in some time by using the tools below to tell them about new technology in your practice like the PulStar.
2. Encourage Reviews
In today’s market, a person is likely to at least do a portion of their research on the internet when they are looking for a new chiropractor. For this reason, it’s important that you build a healthy set of reviews on Google, Yelp or Facebook, to help differentiate you from your competitors.
This can be tricky, as consumers don’t often think to write positive reviews for companies outside of the food and hospitality industry, so the key is simply to ask.
You obviously want to ask your most satisfied and loyal patients. Once they start reviewing, your online reputation will increase, even if your rating was less-than-desirable to begin with. Check out this link for some tips on how to ask your patients for a review.
Tech tip: If you own a PulStar, you have the ability to give each patient a visual of their before and after analysis and adjust report. The PulStar can deliver a printed report or a HIPPA compliant email that also has an option for including a Google review link for your practice. You don’t even have to ask them directly for the review! To see one of these reports follow this link.
3. Geo-target using Direct Mail
One of the best ways to reach potential patients in your area is through direct mail, because you can predict the exact reach and you can use incentives to bring them to your office. Here are some unique ways to use direct mail:
Valassis.com can help deliver incentives to every home in a zip code by including your practice in the Redplum coupon book.
USPS’s Every Door Direct Mail service will also deliver your practice’s postcard to every home in a desired zip code. It will arrive with the recipient’s daily mail. Make sure to announce the arrival of your new PulStar in the mailing!
4. Audience-specific targeting on social media
The nice thing about social media is that you can spend as much or as little as you want, and still get results. You can also get incredibly specific about who you want to reach. For example: Facebook is great for geo-targeting. Simply specify that you would like to reach people within a certain radius from your business. Twitter and Facebook can get very specific about peoples’ interests. For example, you can specifically target people who are interested in sports or natural medicine. LinkedIn can target people based on career, so you can reach people in jobs who are most likely to need a chiropractor.
5. Start a referral program.
Check out our recent blog post and learn how to get your patients talking about your practice, helping to do your advertising for you! Or as also mentioned above, follow this link to learn about how the PulStar has built-in functions to deliver visual before and after reports of their progress under your care–something many Chiropractors find is their most valuable referral tool.
