Updated for 2023: The best way to promote your chiropractic practice is to find chiropractic marketing strategies that fit your practice’s personality. The nice thing is that they’re usually vast and varied so you have plenty of room to explore many different options.
Matter of fact, these chiropractic marketing strategies work well to promote the practice, expand the patient base and increase exposure of other services or products you may offer.
Try a few of these chiropractic marketing ideas and see what a difference a well-placed, organized marketing campaign can do for your practice.
The Member Strategy
The member strategy uses your existing patients to gain new ones. There are several ways this can work. You can use all of the chiropractic marketing strategies we mention or just a few. Whatever the case, your chances of gaining new patients through this method is very good.
- Frequent Flyer Deals — This is a very simple concept. Every fifth or tenth session is free or discounted. You can do the same things with any retail products you sell. Fill out a punch card for the patient and keep it in a small file box (so it won’t get lost). Each time the patient makes a purchase, punch the card.
- Refer a Friend — Give your patients special cards that they fill out and their friend fills out. The friend then brings the card with them to their first appointment and both the referring patient and the new patient receive a discount or free product. You should also have a space on your intake paperwork for new patients to provide name and phone number of the person who referred them to you.
- Family Package — Before a patient leaves after a session, give them a card or certificate that is good for a free consultation or session for every member of their family. You can determine how much family you want to extend this offer to, typically it is only family living in with the patient.
The Corporate Strategy
More and more companies are looking to wellness programs for their employees to improve performance and production while reducing the number of days of missed work.
- The Half and Half — Offer the company a group discount and encourage the company to kick in half of the fee for each patient that takes advantage of the program.
- The Corporate Partner — Create corporate partners and offer discounts to employees who work for these companies. This is often a very successful strategy. The discounts don’t have to be huge either. You can give a 10% to 15% discount and still get a favorable response.
The Wellness Strategy
The wellness strategy is a more hands on technique that puts you face to face with potential patients while you do what you do best — educate people on how to achieve better health.
- Wellness Events — Host a wellness event at your practice after hours. Decide on a topic and invite your existing patients as well as any contacts you have made. Advertise on social media and reach out to inactive patients. Provide a few healthy refreshments and give a brief lecture or lesson with some engaging activities. Make sure you provide handouts that summarize the material covered and stamp it with your brand: logo, address, phone number and website.
- Healthier Workplace — Reach out to companies in your area and offer to give them an assessment on their employees’ workstations. You can give advice on posture, desk exercises, encourage walking, recommend chair height or computer height and provide some general tips for a healthier workplace.
- Bag Lunch Seminars — Choose a timely, relevant topic, create a brief lecture and approach businesses in your area offering to present it to their employees. The key here is brevity. You want to keep it to an hour — no more. The employees bring a bag lunch, your give your presentation, have a question and answer session and give out some branded material. If the company has a nurse on-site you can get them involved as well.
The Social Strategy
If you are not utilizing social media you need to make it an immediate goal to do so. Social media has the potential to reach many, many new patients.
- The Business Page — Set up a business page on several social networking sites. Invite your existing patients to ‘like’ or join or follow that page then keep it active with interesting content, special offers and customer engagement. Use it to answer questions or share fun trivia. The point is to keep it fresh and keep it moving. Use attention grabbing photos to draw your audience in and give them information that will keep them coming back.
- The Social Trifecta — No matter what social networks you choose, make sure you are on at least three. If you can see your way onto ‘the big three,’ all the better. Facebook, Twitter and Google + will give you great exposure and will take you to where your patients are. You can create your social media plan ahead of time, six to twelve weeks at a time if you can. That way you aren’t scrambling for material every other day. Just pull up your plan, cut, paste and go.
The Networking Strategy
Any business can benefit from a little networking. This means that you will have to get out and put yourself out there. But when you meet someone face to face, hand them your card and say, “When you are ready for a chiropractor I want to be your chiropractor,” something happens. People respond.
- Social Gatherings — Carry your business cards with you everywhere you go. Always have some on hand to give out. If you can manage to get some printed that have your business info on one side and a discount on the other, that is even better. Hand them out when you are at parties, at dinner, in the grocery store, anywhere that you come face to face with people — or rather, potential patients.
- LinkedIn — LinkedIn is a great social media networking site that can help you network with other professionals as well as reach potential patients. If you are a small practice you can find other businesses that are complimentary to your practice. You can then join forces and combine your marketing strategies as well as share patients.
- Expos and Events — When you attend events and expos have some business cards and brochures on hand to pass out. Make sure everything you hand out has your name and contact information on it. You can also print your info on stress balls, refrigerator magnets and cups.
Obviously, there are many more ways to be creative with these chiropractic marketing strategies. But the aforementioned should help get you started in the right direction.
