For most cash-paid services, success relies on connecting with new patients – patients who have no previous experience with the office. They are coming in cold, having responded to an ad online or a direct mail piece. They are feeling a mix of nervousness, excitement, and hope. Your front desk staff sets the tone for the entire first visit, and as you know, success building rapport during the first visit is the biggest predictor of whether the patient will close for care.
What is your process for welcoming new patients? Does your front desk staff:
Greet with a smile and welcome the new patient?
Come around the desk to meet the patient when they come in?
Offer the patient water or another beverage?
Ask the patient if there is anything that can be done to help them get comfortable in the office?
If they are doing all that, you are probably seeing a lot of success selling cash-paid services. If not, you may not be seeing the results you are seeking.
The other area where your front desk can make or break your cash-paid services is on the phone. Patients are constantly calling in to connect with your office about cash-paid services – is your front desk setting you up for success? Here is how to tell:
Is your front desk excited about bringing more patients into the office? You’d be surprised by how many offices struggle because the front desk staff sees connecting with prospective patients as a nuisance, a secondary task, or just “not part of their job.” If you want to grow cash-paid services, it is a requirement that your front desk is bought in to the work it takes to call prospective patients in a timely fashion, confirm appointments, and communicate the office’s excitement over the phone.
Does your front desk staff have their skills down? Are they able to connect quickly with a prospective patient, to connect with the emotional “Why?” driving the patient, and to share just enough information over the phone – enough to convince the prospective patient that a visit is worth their time and not so much they don’t need to come in?
If growing cash-paid services is a goal of yours, there is a lot that must be done. You must be trained on delivering the care, your case manager must be talented at closing for care, and you have a strong marketing effort to get patients to the door. But, please don’t overlook the power of your front desk to make (or break) your success. Time invested getting them to world-class is time well invested in the success of your practice.
As business leaders, we spend our time focusing on what the future of our business or practice needs to look like. Though we may be thoroughly deep in the weeds, we are also paying attention to what next month and next year need to look like – “Are we going to expand our services? Do I have the right staff and do they have the right training? What does success look like for us?”
We may have a clear picture in our head of what we are trying to accomplish, but it is very common to forget the importance of sharing what’s in our head with our teams, receive feedback from them, and then make adjustments to the plans based on what you hear. In today’s high-speed world, it’s becoming more important than ever to provide clear direction and guidance – if there isn’t time to do it right this time, when will we have time to do it right later?
Here are a couple of ways to ensure you are communicating the goals for the upcoming quarter:
1. Write it down and send it out. In our busy world, it’s easy to have a quick conversation about goals and plans, but conversations have a way of being misinterpreted. By writing your goals down and sharing them with the team, you can reduce the likelihood of a misunderstanding. You can also reference back to it time and time again, as questions arise.
2. Review the plans with everyone together. Staff meetings are great for this, but at least once a quarter (more frequent is better), it’s critical to share the direction of the organization, any anticipated changes, and have the opportunity for a question and answer session.
3. Regularly touch base. The famed boxer and philosopher, Mike Tyson, is known for saying that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. He would certainly know. Though we aren’t in the same line of work as Mr. Tyson, things definitely pop up in life. Expect to need to make changes to your plans. Depending upon how dynamic your practice is, you may want to have daily stand-ups – a 10 minute touch base where the team all get together to look each other in the eye. If that’s too much starting out, perhaps try twice a week. The first few times you try it, it may feel a little clunky, but as you get used to it, it will speed up and you’ll keep everyone aligned with just a few minutes of touching base.
The business of patient care is a team sport, from the front desk through the care managers to the clinician putting hands on the patient, alignment drives success and clear communication drives alignment. By taking the time to make sure everyone understands what success looks like and their role in that success, you can see your practice hit a new level.
I am blessed to spend a lot of time building out marketing strategies for practices across the country. I really enjoy the work and feel like I can add a lot of value in a fairly quick conversation, based on the fact that I have the opportunity to see so many practices across the country some being very successful, and some not as much.
Here’s one lesson I’d like to share with you that I think can be very valuable to how you think about marketing your practice’s services – there are three types of customers and a specific way to advertise to each of them.
Here are the three types of customers you should think about when you are considering building your practice:
1.Existing/Previous patients – These patients already know who you are and have a pre-existing relationship with you. These patients are usually the easiest to connect with and are often very likely to communicate when you reach out. Email is a great way to communicate with these patients. Whether it’s a monthly newsletter, a thoughtful ad hoc note, or an orchestrated multi-step email campaign, reaching out to these patients can do wonders in terms of re-engaging them for services. This is the smallest, but often the easiest group to motivate for care.
2. Active Seekers – These are people who have an issue and are actively seeking a solution to it. They may have a relationship with your practice, but most won’t. To connect with these patients, you need to go to where they are and provide them information to get them to connect with you about a solution. These patients start their searches on Google and then perform most of their research online (generally on the first page of Google). Google AdWords campaigns and optimizing your website for internet searches are the tools you should use to connect with them. You can also connect with them on Facebook groups and other group chats. These prospective patients are motivated to move forward with care – we know that because they are actively searching the internet to fix a certain problem.
3. Engageable Afflicted – These are people with a given treatable condition or loved ones of someone who has a condition your practice can treat. They tend to be suffering, but not to the point that they are actively seeking a solution yet. Many times, they’ve just been living with the condition for long enough that it is part of their “normal.” These patients are often the patients you connect with on Facebook or respond to TV, radio, direct mail. These are most of the new patients you’ll bring into your practice, especially if your focus is high-dollar cash-paid procedures.
To build a reliable new patient engine in your practice, I would advise you to think about each of those patient types and how you can connect with each. If you aren’t emailing your existing patients regularly, now is the time to begin.
If you’ve ever met a celebrity, you’ve probably had an odd experience – despite never having met this person in your life, you felt like you knew them. Why is that? Because we see these people on TV, online, or hear their voice on radio so frequently, we feel like we know them even though we’ve never spoken before.
How does that relate to growing your practice? It’s quite straightforward, really. With the explosion of digital marketing resources, you can become famous, too, and have prospective patients excited to have the chance to pick you as their provider. How would that feel, to have patients actively seeking you out for your expertise?
Unless you have a multi-million-dollar budget, your goal should be to become “local-famous.” You want to be famous for the people who may seek your services. For a great example, take Dr. Sandra Lee. While most of the world has never heard of her, if you are in the market for a dermatologist, you might be exquisitely familiar with Dr. Pimple Popper. She is “local-famous” in the world of dermatology.
Becoming local-famous is as easy as a three-step process:
1. Pick your fan base. If you are building a practice, there’ll likely be a geographic consideration to your stardom. What’s the one condition/procedure/outcome you want to be famous for? Your goal is to be the only person they think of when your fans think about that condition/procedure/outcome. The more targeted you are, the easier it becomes.
2. Use video. Even world famous authors like J.K Rowling and James Patterson blend into the crowd when in public, but Tom Hanks and Angelina Jolie can’t take a step outside without an audience. Why? It’s because we rarely see pictures and videos of those authors, but we are constantly bombarded with images of the actors. If you are going to become local-famous, you want to make sure that your adoring public recognizes you when they see you. Video let’s you do that unlike any other medium. (Recording great video is easier than you think. Click here to learn more.)
3. Meet your fans where they are. Your fans are online today like they’ve never been before, so you should be, too. For a robust online marketing strategy, be sure to cover the three pillars of digital marketing: Social Media Marketing (like Facebook), Search Engine Marketing (Google, Bing) and email. By leveraging content across the three platforms, you can cement yourself as famous in the eyes of your potential patients with very little effort.
There are few assets more valuable than a strong patient testimonial to recruit new patients to your practice. In fact, a survey by BrightLocal showed that 80% of consumers trusted online recommendations as much as personal recommendations.
Prospective patients look to see if they will “fit” into a practice long before they walk through the front door, so having a variety of written or video testimonials maximizes your chances of having a patient seeking care select your practice instead of a competitor.
Components of a Strong Patient Testimonial
While there are many questions a patient testimonial can cover, the best will always include responses to the following questions, at a minimum:
What issue was the patient suffering from when they came to your practice?
How did your practice resolve that issue?
How did your practice exceed expectations?
To capture a video testimonial, simply use a smart phone to capture a 30 – 60 second video of the patient answering the three questions written above (plus others, if you’d like) while they are in your office. Once complete, ask them to sign a release for you to use the video.
Uses for Patient Testimonials
The most obvious place for testimonials is on your website (we suggest a few on the front page, plus a section dedicated to testimonials), but don’t forget you can also use them in outbound advertising (posting on Facebook and other social media outlets, advertisements on Google or other search platforms, etc.). The third location where patient testimonials are incredibly useful is in reminder messages to new patients. Many times, new patients are apprehensive about their first appointment and a well-timed email or text with a link to a patient testimonial can be just the thing to get through the front door. If show rates are a challenge for your office, we highly suggest giving this a try.
Healthcare providers are on trend to spend more of their budgets than ever before on marketing strategies to help them reach and communicate with their target audiences more effectively.
A strong marketing strategy is essential for any business, but chiropractors especially need campaigns that will create consistent local presence and focus on patient retention. No matter how much you have available in your marketing budget, making the right choices in marketing strategies to maximize your financial commitment is important.
While potential for increasing chiropractic practice profits is high, a poor marketing strategy can seriously reduce your potential to be successful in this competitive market. Your approach will take careful planning, financial dedication and time commitments to ensure you’re putting the best foot forward for your practice. Many chiropractors choose to reduce the potential for marketing mistakes by hiring chiropractic marketing agencies to benefit from the expertise and professional attention. Making the decision to work with a top chiropractic marketing agency can save you invaluable time.
Facebook
Facebook has become one of the most effective lead generation tools for chiropractors looking to attract new patients and remain connected to their target market. One of the biggest marketing mistakes chiropractors make when they are new to growing their business on Facebook is viewing the tool as just a portal for paid ads directed at a narrow audience. Facebook is a multidimensional platform that should be approached with multidimensional marketing strategies that maximize both paid and organic marketing opportunities. This is one of the reasons why Facebook marketing is a flexible and often budget friendly option. Healthy Facebook marketing strategies take full advantage of the avenues to reach patients on the platform through written and video content, groups, direct messaging, paid ads, local networking and scheduled seminars with events.
Instagram
Instagram is a high traffic area seeing over 500 million users each day and over a billion each month making it rich territory for marketing to new patients. Smart chiropractors have turned the light on their practice Instagram use with positive results and many chiropractic digital marketing agencies use Instagram marketing strategies as a vital part of their branding efforts. Instagram marketing strategies help to showcase the personality and culture of your brand and build trust with your audience. Potential patients are more likely to choose a practice that they can relate to and Instagram is one of the best platforms to help create those digital connections. Instagram marketing campaigns that include significant focus on building engagement, give potential patients the sense of an accessible practice which patients value in a healthcare provider. Utilizing stories, hashtags, videos, images and engaging content chiropractors have been able to increase traffic to their websites and build stronger trusted brands.
SEO
Local SEO marketing strategies create the traffic you need to get new patients in the door. We know that mobile optimization is key to keeping your practice’s digital presence afloat but, many chiropractors skip on focusing on local SEO and miss the point of mobile-friendly websites. Motivated patients are searching for solutions to their health issues within their immediate area meaning that when you’re optimizing your website to be viewed on the go, the same importance should be placed on being one of the first search results for chiropractors in your area. A tremendous amount of your success in local markets rests on the effectiveness of your SEO marketing strategy so many chiropractors choose to work with an agency for the best results. An agency will help improve your ranking in local searches as well as condition specific searches and searches for services offered at your practice. Successful SEO marketing strategies produce high-quality, valuable leads and are essential to every digital marketing campaign.
Google AdWords
Google AdWords marketing strategies create opportunities for chiropractors to reach new patients by using a pay-per-click strategy that displays labeled ads on specific keyword searches. Google AdWords is a targeted marketing approach that focuses on local searches within a short radius of your location. When patients find your business using a Google AdWords link that usually means they have a high level of intent to learn more about your services. Google AdWords ads are clearly labeled as advertisements so patients that use these links from keyword searches are aware your services are available in their area and they are interested in treatment or interested in researching their options for treatment. Google AdWords campaigns are flexible and can be tailored to your budget and availability for new patients. Many chiropractors outsource their Google AdWords campaigns to marketing agencies for professional targeting and maximum visibility and potential.
CRM
Marketing for your practice takes time and effort so, developing effective marketing strategies require you to work smarter not harder. CRM platforms give you the freedom to automate tasks to save you time while providing new leads and current patients with attention, consistent communication and information that makes all the difference in patient retention and lead conversion. CRM platforms put a personal touch on your digital communications leaving you time to create a five-star patient experience when patients arrive in person in your office. The combination of accurate and precise automated patient contact and more freedom to do what you do best produces a polished first impression of your practice for new patients. The other upside to CRM platforms is the added benefit of tracking trends and data to identify areas where you can strengthen your marketing strategies and new patient procedures. Considering CRM platforms for your chiropractic marketing strategy is a great decision for your marketing efforts and your overall business operations.
Newspaper and Radio
Digital marketing strategies are exciting and effective, but newspaper and radio are still valuable avenues to help you reach your audience. Newspaper and radio advertisement offer fantastic branding opportunities that can help your practice become familiar to a large audience of potential patients that may be missed by focusing all marketing efforts on digital platforms. Newspaper and radio marketing strategies ensure local targeting and require a small amount of maintenance after the ad has been developed. Well rounded marketing campaigns cover patient communication through diverse channels and adding newspaper and radio strategies could tip the scales in favor of your practice’s success.
