As a Chiropractic Assistant (or any team member of the practice), you have a certain level of responsibility when it comes to the concept: Promote the Practice. With today’s modern tools and technology, there are several things that you could be doing to help push your company’s brand and message out to your community.

You may have heard that people need to hear a message several times before it sticks. This doesn’t mean that you send out an email campaign and you’re done. You must use many different types of media to market. In this article, I’ll give you a few simple steps to help you promote the practice.

Make a Plan to Promote the Practice

Before you do anything, you need to get organized. Hold a team meeting and start brainstorming ideas for monthly themes. Having a theme makes it easier to help you focus on content versus coming up with new ideas all the time. 

For example, the month of June is the time of year we celebrate Dads and Grads. For illustration purposes, I’ll call this theme, “Cheers to the Grads & Honor the Dads”. (Feel free to use this!)

Next, come up with a few marketing ideas that go with that theme. For my June themed example, my marketing ideas are:

• Gift Card Promotion: “The Gift of Health” Buy a $75 gift card, get a $10 gift card for yourself.
  • Promote on social media
  • Print a sign and post in the office to promote
• Post before and after posture pictures and/or Wellness Scores to your social media accounts with the patient story and improvements made while under your care. 
  • Be sure to blur or remove any sensitive patient information before posting!
• Market a special event happening in the practice. Example: “Cheers to the Grads & Honor the Dads! Join us on [DATE] for our special celebration, games, prizes & more! Come dressed in your favorite Dad or Grad gear for our costume contest!”

Part of the planning must include organizing your marketing schedule with the themes and you must apply them to your calendar accordingly. Be sure to select the dates you will promote and market the content. If there are any other team members involved in this process, make sure it’s clear who is responsible for what and when they will do it. Google Sheets is a great tool for organizing responsibilities.

I prefer to schedule all of my marketing tasks and topics using Google Calendar and attach the Google Sheets right inside the event details to help keep me focused. I have also recently discovered a project management tool called Trello to help keep tasks organized. There are a lot of great tools available – branch out and use something besides a paper calendar!

Your Website 

Please tell me you have a website! If you don’t, now is the time. People will Google pretty much everything. If they’re looking for a business like yours and your website doesn’t exist – then neither do you. 

So, you have a website? When was the last time you looked at it? Make sure your site is attractive, modern, introduces the Doctor(s), and clearly conveys your practice as a place people would want to come to. In addition, make sure your Yelp page is current as well.

Work on getting reviews! This is so very important these days. People love reading reviews before they spend their money. No reviews or very few reviews are just as bad as having negative reviews. Make it a point to routinely ask for reviews on Google and Yelp. 

Get on Social Media

Do I even need to say this? At a minimum, the practice needs to have a Facebook and an Instagram business page where you will educate, promote, and market to your community. Most everyone is using social media, so join them! 

Your social media accounts should reflect the same educational content, marketing, and promotions that match your monthly marketing theme. 

There are many great tools available that allow you to pre-schedule your post, so you don’t have to babysit your social media accounts when releasing a certain promotion or marketing piece for a particular date.

It’s also acceptable to post funny memes, encouragement, and cute animals! Your post doesn’t always have to be targeted to your audience with your marketing message. Another part of promoting the practice is to also stay in front of people with your brand and your company culture, so a funny chiropractic meme or picture of a puppy at your chiropractic office also works to grab attention. 

A few ideas of topics to post:

• Tell stories of the results your patients get by posting before and after x-rays. Be sure to remove or blind any sensitive patient information.
  • No x-rays? No problem! You can use before and after scans, posture photos, Wellness Scores and more!
• Post about the miracles of chiropractic with real-life patient stories. This demonstrates the need for care in a very personal way that will resonate with your community on an emotional level.
• Post about fun events you’re doing in the office. Example: Patient Appreciation Day
• Do something fun or silly with the team. Don’t be afraid to show some personality!  
• Post about the benefits of chiropractic (Pro tip→ share content posted by a trusted source.)
• Post recommendations for supplements or exercises and stretches. This helps establish your office as a go-to expert and resource in the field of wellness.

Talk to Your Audience With Video

With current technology, it’s so easy to stream a video to your audience. Whether you’re using Zoom meetings to host a virtual workshop or live streaming a message to your audience on Facebook and Instagram, your audience can watch and interact from the comfort of their home. 

When posting videos be sure that your genuine, authentic self is coming through. People gravitate towards authenticity, so be yourself as much as you can! This means it’s ok to let your personality shine, it’s ok to make mistakes and fumble over your words – you’re human and with practice, you’ll get more comfortable talking into the camera.

A few tips when using video:

• Make sure your face is well lit. You may need to strategically place a light or two near you.
• Speak clearly and with your normal tone. As long as you have a decent microphone, the audience can hear you. I see many people talking loud (practically yelling) and it comes off as a bit weird or obnoxious, so just speak as you normally would.
• Don’t have crazy eyes! This means, look at the camera. When your eyes are all over the place it’s hard for the audience to connect with you….plus you may come off as looking a bit… crazy! Lol!
• Work the angles! A slightly higher camera angle is more flattering and will make you look less like a talking potato.

In this article, I’ve only scratched the surface with a few things you can do when it comes to promoting the practice. Start with these basics and master them before adding any other new ideas. Get all team members involved! We all possess different skills, talents, and perspectives so if you have a team member who is full of personality and loves the camera, then make the best use of their talents. If you have someone who would rather contribute content and ideas behind the scenes, that’s wonderful too! 

Promoting the practice, educating your community and marketing your brand is a team effort that needs to be executed in a thoughtful and strategic way. Sit down, make a plan and do it with joy! I look forward to seeing what you come up with. 

Original article was featured in the June 2020 issue of The Chiropractic Assistant.

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