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New Patients and a Marketing Calendar

New patients and the New Year

Do you have a plan in place for bringing in new patients this New Year?

Of course bringing in lots of new patients is very important. But, we first must make sure we have the infrastructure and communication skills in place. This allows us to keep the patients we have and successfully process the new patients so they stay, pay and refer. I have addressed these concepts in previous articles.

The purpose of this article is to examine the quality of new patients as well as a plan to keep them coming in throughout the year.

There is what I call a patient readiness continuum. What I mean is on the far right we have patients that walk in and say, "My uncle Joe say's you are a miracle worker. Where do I sign up?" And we have patients on the far left of the continuum who walk in and say, "I'm really not that interested I'm just here to take advantage of your deal." Even worse we have people who come in and are not just tire kickers but they are there to prove us wrong. Usually our internal referrals are farther to the right of the continuum of readiness and our external marketing patients are more towards the left. There are very specific things that your CA can do during the pre-consultation to move them many steps to the right before you walk through the door to meet them. Wouldn't it be great to walk in to great a patient who already realizes that they have problems they know you can help; they realize they really do want to get better and are excited to meet you? From my perspective if you are going to do any outside or external marketing having your CA do the appropriate pre-consultation is a MUST!

The amount of time and energy needed to "convert" the latter into patients is tremendous compared to the former. Most all agree that the internal referral is a higher quality referral than an outside referral.

From my experience the better communication we have with our patients the more we can depend on internal referrals. We focus quite a bit on this concept in my "L.A.A.S.R. your communications and be brilliant at the basics course."

Too many doctors do what I call "roller coaster marketing." Here the doctor does a marketing event, get lots of new patients and then waits until the roller coaster has passed the peak and plummeted back down to earth before they do another event. All of a sudden they realize that their numbers are down and they scramble to get something in the works to bring in new patients. This is based on a symptom based model.

The approach I recommend is very simple. Get a calendar and schedule in your "marketing" for the year. Do not wait for the numbers to go down. Plan in advance and take appropriate action steps.

First make a list of the type of internal and external marketing you will do this year.

Examples of internal marketing are:

1. Get really proficient at asking for referrals and make sure you commit to asking for at least X number of them per day. Good times to ask for referrals are after re-reports and when a patient boasts of how great they feel are good entry points. (Review your "No Stress Secrets to Easy and Instant Referrals" course. If you have not taken it yet, it will change your life!) Also from a daily perspective you will want your CA's doing a daily reactivation program. I have a whole program written out for this. This is crucial and a big win!

2. Make sure you continue to do your weekly talks. For my money this is by far the best way to have a continual flow of the highest quality new patients. If you are not doing this already, PLEASE TALK TO ME AND LET'S GET IT GOING!!! (Also see, "How to open a relationship after a talk" under articles.) Tape yourself and spend some time with me roll playing!

3. Three or four times per year you can do internal events like:

a. Link a "special offer" to one of the holidays. Bring in $20 worth of canned goods for the homeless and get a free consultation/examination and report of findings. This goes over well at Thanksgiving or Christmas. You can also do "Toys for Tots for Christmas. Just look at the calendar, every month there is something. You could do something for Valentines day in February, May could be the celebration of your anniversary, July 4th have them celebrate their independence with greater health, September celebrate chiropractics anniversary and then of course Thanksgiving or Christmas. The opportunities are limitless. The important thing is to do appropriate internal and external marketing. Get flyers out to your community, get them involved, and meet your business neighbors... how many of them know who you are and what you offer? Learn how to get your patients involved and make sure you or your staff make a special personal offer to each patient and do the launching sequence with each and every patient. PLEASE TALK TO ME DURING OUR NEXT COACHING SESSION ABOUT HOW TO REALLY MAKE THIS WORK!

b. Patient appreciation days. Let me know during our next coaching session if you are interested, I have a few different packages I will share with you.

c. Special "advanced talks" or "an evening with the doctor." These are huge successes, talk to me if you are interested in knowing more.

4. There are also many easy and exciting ways to market your practice if you use the SEMG and Thermograph. Ask me for more details.

Examples of external marketing are:

1. I believe the highest quality outside marketing type events are speaking engagements. People are always looking for quality speakers for their groups. Consider the rotary clubs; the sports clubs; the big and small businesses in your neighborhood; the gyms etc. Let your patients know that you are available. (How you word this is very important, talk to me about it if you are interested.) Of course bring your SEMG or other tool and show examples with people in the group. Offer quick screenings at the event and give a special offer to come in for a full evaluation.

2. Spinal screenings at fairs and swap meets can bring in lots of new patients. These types of new patients are a bit lower quality and more difficult to "convert." As far as targeting work comp patients, this if done right is extremely successful. Let me know if you are interested, I can train you or your screeners and you will have much greater success and conversion rates. Also it is imperative to have your CA's do a very specific "pre-consultation" with these patients to move them in the right direction along the "continuum or readiness! Talk with me and I will help your CA's in this regard.

3. Advertising is another way of bringing in new patients. This is not one I ever used much of although I have heard of a few companies you can contact that seem to get pretty good results. If you are doing the 800# type of marketing there are some great ideas to radically increase your show rate! Personally I feel if you do the above internal and external marketing the right way there is no need for this type of marketing and it is certainly on the low end of the quality scale. Yet if your CA is doing the pre-consultation right and you are trying to double or triple your practice quickly you might want to add these to your arsenal as they can be extremely effective if done right! If you are using an autodialer and the CA does it the way I recommend and then the doctor does the phone consult and then the CA does the pre-consultation these people can be nearly as high quality as internal referrals. I have a full CD and workbook program for following up on these kinds of leads that really works great!

4. Walk around and meet your neighbors, there are many effective ways to do this; from doing a stress survey/study that you will publish in the paper to asking your business neighbors for insights as to the best way to build your business in this area, to asking them to put up your flyer in the window of their office as you are supporting one of the local charities and offering people to come in for consult/exam etc. Again I would be happy to discuss the many nuances with you and help you tailor make a program that works for you and your behavioral style during our coaching session.

So as an overview I would recommend making a list with three columns on the top. Internal marketing, External marketing and Reactivations. Then make these rows. Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. Then start to fill in each of the columns and rows. (I have a chart I put together I will be happy to email it to you.)

Then make up a 12 month calendar of all of the things you are going to do. Make sure you put down when you are going to prepare for each aspect of the upcoming events. At the end of each month you and your team must sit down and review each event and campaign. You must keep clean stats, how many came in from each event, how many stayed. You want to know the quantity and quality of patients that come from each type of event. If the event went well, discuss how to course correct to make it even better and put it throughout the rest of your calendar. If it did not do so well, either course correct and make notes so you don't forget next time or just scrap it. Remember if it works for others it will work for you, so be careful what you scrap.

Each event should have a person responsible for making a binder so you don't have to reinvent the wheel the next time.

Also at the end of each month you must add another month to your calendar so it is perpetually 12 months ahead.

Consider the quality of the lead as well as the quantity of new people it brings in. Plan for the year in advance. You may need more or less events as the year progresses, but take the time in the next few days to get a basic working plan in order. Work closely with me and your staff. You will be glad you did.

Russ Rosen, D.C. - Mar 19, 2003