Upper Cervical Audio Interviews

Helping upper cervical doctors communicate better with patients and peers.

Making Sure Your Current & Past Patients Know Your USP

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You’ve developed a good USP, and you’ve integrated it into all of the media and communication associated with you and your practice.

Now you need to get that message in to the hands of all of your active and inactive patients.

It’s important to get this message to them first because they already have a relationship with you.

But, you may be wondering what you should say, and how you should say it.

Tell Them The Obvious

All you’re going to do in this step is just communicate your unique selling proposition (USP) with your current and past patients. Don’t take for granted that they know what you’re all about. Chances are, you’ve had patients say, “I’m going to my chiropractor to get cracked,” about a visit to your office. Or maybe they got a cell phone call right as they were laying on the table, and they’ve said, “I’m about to get cracked.”

No matter how hard you try to get through to them that you don’t, “Crack backs,” the average patient just can’t seem to think of you as anything other than a regular chiropractor.

That’s because of the social programming that they are exposed to… a person goes to the chiropractor “to get cracked.”

Even though you’ve made it clear, and deep down your patients know this is not anything close to what you do, social programming is a difficult hurdle to jump.

I know you have some patients who are gung-ho and insistent about how you are different, but keep in mind, they are not the norm. The average person has no clue why they prefer you over other chiropractors, other than the fact that you get results, and you do it more gently than other chiropractors. They just don’t give you that much thought. They’ve got too much else going on in their lives.

Faced with the question, “Why do you go to Dr. __________ ?” they could never really put into words how you’re different, and when referring a friend or family member they usually just say, “Just check this guy out, and you’ll see what I mean.”

Again, don’t take for granted that just because someone has been to see you before, they know what you’re all about.

You have to tell them what makes you different, and your USP does that. You have to put the words in your patient’s mouths that you want them to convey to others.

Keep It Simple

Initially, you’re just going to send them a simple letter, on your letter head. If you’re sending to a past patient who hasn’t been in to see you in a while, you’re going to send them a letter inviting them to come back again. In the letter, you will make your USP prominent. You should make it a part of the letter head, but you should also incorporate it into the body of the letter itself.

Invite the past patient to once again become a patient, and offer them a special discount as a “Welcome Back” gift.

For instance you could offer them a re-activation exam for free, or give them a free neck pillow… you get the idea.

If you’re sending a letter to an active patient, you need to have a good reason for communicating with them beyond just telling them your USP. By good reason, I mean you need to tell them you’re having a referral campaign, or a patient appreciation day, or just a “thank you for being our patient message,” or something like that.  You don’t want to send a letter that says: “Hey I just created a cool USP and I wanted to tell you all about it,” your patients will think you’re weird if you do that.

Performing this step is the easiest way to initially make it known to all who have or have had a relationship with you and your clinic, why they should continue to choose you as their chiropractor, why they should come back to see you, and why they should refer their family and friends.

By stating why you’re unique, your patients will also get the picture, and convey that message to their family and friends.

Of course, sending one letter is just the beginning. You need to keep in constant contact with your patients, and prospective patients, constantly reminding them why you’re the choice for them.

The best way to do that, without seeming intrusive, is with a monthly printed upper cervical patient newsletter.

Integrating Your Upper Cervical Message Into All of Your Marketing

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Once you have an effective marketing message, or unique selling proposition, (USP) you must integrate that USP into any and every media that leaves your hands, or the hands of your employees. It is how you get the message about what you do out into the real world where patients and prospective patients see what makes you different.

This is very simple and straightforward, but essential to properly branding your practice.

With People

The first place you must integrate your USP is with all of the people in your practice. You, your employees, and anyone who represents what you do must understand what your practice’s USP is, and be able to project it to patients and prospective patients.

Your receptionist must be able to demonstrate your USP when they answer the phone. As an example, let’s use the USP I used in my practice. The phone rings, and the receptionist says: “Thank you for calling Hambrick Chiropractic, where we’re providing relief without any popping twisting turning or cracking.”

Now I know that sounds corny, and we never answered the phone that way, but you get the idea.

The important point is to make sure that all of your employees knows exactly why you’re in practice, and why a prospect should choose to do business with you versus any and all other chiropractors in your area.

With Literature

If your practice has promotional literature, such as brochures, information packets, etc. then you must have your USP prominently displayed and exposed on all of it. Of course, it must look natural, and not forced, and if your USP doesn’t naturally fit into your current literature, then you should revamp it. Websites would also fall into this category. And if you don’t have any literature… why not? If no one else in your industry is producing literature, then that’s all the more reason why you should.

With Business Cards

How many business cards have you been given in your life? Now how many of those have you kept? Now how many of those have you referenced more than once?

Business cards are a necessary evil. Everyone expects you to have one, and expects you to give them one, and those that have them love to pass them around like confetti hoping that one lands in the right hands and translates into business for them.

The truth is, your card is probably never going to be used, and if it is, it will probably only be used once and then filed away and forgotten about. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Business cards could potentially be valuable real estate for your marketing message. Your USP should be the first thing that stands out on your business card. That’s what is going to make people remember your card, there-by remembering you, and file it way for whenever they have use for whatever specific need your practice meets.

On a side note, your business cards should be used as a direct response device that collects leads for you by offering free information, or sending people to a website that will catch their information so you can then market directly to them.

That in my opinion is the most valuable use of a business card, but that’s for another time.

With Ads

Every ad that your clinic produces should prominently display your USP. It should be the focus of your ad. It should be the reason the ad exists… to spread the reason why people should do business with your company vs. any and all other options available to them.

A huge mistake that most practices make is creating an ad where there practice name and phone number is the headline. This is known as “institutional advertising” and is a notorious waste of advertising dollars. Institutional advertising never catches anyone’s eye unless they already know all about the company.

You must use expensive ad space to broadcast your USP. This is especially true for YellowPage ads. An ad is merely a printed form of a sales rep, and a sales rep would never call on someone and merely just say the business name and phone number in a loud voice without actually selling the prospect on becoming a client/customer/patient.

With Business Paperwork

This includes letter head, business forms, invoices, work-orders, even notepads that are used to write notes that might go home with your upper cervical patients. Waste no space, if there is some sort of paperwork that will leave your office, then find a way to integrate your USP into that paperwork. It doesn’t need to look awkward, but can easily and organically be integrated into the most business-like of papers.

On Hold Message

If you have an on-hold service that just plays music, then you are wasting valuable advertising space that could be explaining to everyone on hold why they should be doing business with you. This is very easy and cheap to do if you already have this system in place. You can have your USP professionally recorded, or record it in your own voice.

With Web Site

Your web site is merely another medium of communication with your patients and prospective patients, and your web site must convey your USP. Any emails as well should also have your USP integrated into them in some fashion.

There’s no point in having a compelling marketing message that differentiates you from all of the other practitioners in your area, if you aren’t broadcasting that message and making it clear and obvious why you’re different. Integrating your USP is a step that can not be skipped.

How To Manage Your List Of Upper Cervical Patients

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If you’re an upper cervical chiropractor, then there’s good news and bad news when it comes to properly managing your list of patients, and prospective patients.

The good news is, as a health-care professional, you more than likely already have your entire patient list in a database, do to the nature of the profession. Most doctors use some form of software to help with billing, and appointments and this software is usually compatible with keeping in contact with your patients to a certain degree.

The bad news is, this software is probably not very conducive to keeping in regular contact with your patients beyond sending them reminders, invoices, or birthday cards. Worst of all, they don’t usually give you a classification for someone who has been in contact with you, but has not yet decided to become a patient.

You need a software, that will allow you to classify patients and prospective patients into different categories.

You can never have too many categories because the more you refine your list down, the more you are speaking directly to whatever patient fits into whatever category.

Start off with just two categories: Patients; Prospective Patients. That’s the easiest to start with, and that will allow you to target your communication to each group individually.

You could make offers to your patients that would increase their visits with you, or would increase their referrals. You can make announcements about events that the office is holding, like “Patient Appreciation Day” or an open house, or a Christmas party, or a food drive, & etc. You could make offers to prospective patients, offering discounts on their first visit, free trials, & etc.

The point is, you want to send the right message to the right person at the right time. If you have your list in a database that then allows you to make these designation, you can make the job of getting the right message to the right person painless.

Other categories that you might consider:

  • Patients who’ve not been in in 6 months
  • Prospective patients with headaches
  • Prospective patients with low back pain
  • Prospective patients with high blood pressure
  • Patients who’ve mentioned relatives who could use your services
  • Patients from a particular income bracket
  • Prospective patients from a particular income bracket
  • Patients who’ve spent a certain amount of money with you in a 12 month period
  • Patients who’ve referred a certain number of people to your clinic.
  • And many more

You can never have too many categories. It’s all determined by how busy you want to keep yourself.

There are many pieces of software out in the market place that can help you segment your database as refined as you would like it to be.

One of the bare bones pieces of software that is good at doing this is Microsoft’s spread sheet software, Excel. You must program everything yourself though, and you must have a very good working knowledge of Excel in order to have it do all the things you need it to do, like printing address labels, envelopes, segment patients and prospective patients, etc.

Other programs include customer relation management software, or CRM software. Some examples of these include the web based, completely comprehensive Infusionsoft, to Act!, to the very simple and straightforward MyMailList.

All of these will allow you to categorize your list to meet your needs.

For more information, type “CRM Software” into your favorite search engine.

USP Creation: Putting It All Together

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Now that you have all the data, it’s time to put it all together and craft a clear statement about how you’re unique, and why your patients should choose you.

Your USP should be written in about 90 words or less.  It is the basis for all of your marketing.

It is the message that you are trying to convey to the masses, which is why it is the first step in this process.

A good USP helps you get more prospective patients; causes you to convert more prospective patients; causes your patients to do more business with you, and refer more of their family and friends to you.

To re-iterate, an effective USP, properly communicated to your patients and prospective patients, will cause an:

  1. Increase in prospects
  2. Increase in conversions of prospects to patients
  3. Increase in the amount of business your current patients do with you.

These are the only 3 ways any practice grows.

Some U.S.P. Examples

Dominos Pizza: “Fresh hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less… or it’s free.”

Federal Express: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there over night.”

From my chiropractic practice: “Providing relief without any popping, twisting, turning or cracking.”

Notice how with Dominos they don’t say they have the best pizza, or even good pizza, and
they don’t just say they will have your pizza to you ASAP.

Notice how FedEx doesn’t say they’ll get it to you faster than anyone else.

Notice how the chiropractic example doesn’t guarantee results, or say anything about being gentle, or good for the whole family.

The common denominator in all of these examples is specificity.

Be specific with your USP.

Rosser Reeves, who coined the phrase Unique Selling Proposition, said that an effective USP must do the following:

  1. The proposition must say to the prospective customer (patient): “Buy the product (service), and you will get this specific result.”
  2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not offer.  It must
    be unique.
  3. The proposition must be so strong that it moves the masses.

Two things I might add is that an effective USP must also attract those who are a perfect fit for your practice, and repel those who are not a good fit for what you do.

For instance, (and this is very important if you’re an upper cervical doctor) there are those who are chiropractic patients simply because they love the crack and pop and release they feel when they receive a traditional adjustment.  The USP above would repel that brand of patient.  This is a good thing because it eliminates the possibility of that person being dissatisfied with an upper cervical adjustment.

Eliminating dissatisfaction from your patient base ensures that they’ll return to do more business with you, and will stimulate more referrals of their family and friends.

How To Develop An Upper Cervical USP

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Just by the very fact that you are an upper cervical doctor, and you have an upper cervical
practice, you already have the ground work for developing an effective USP.

But just being an upper cervical doctor is NOT a USP.  You can’t tell someone, “I’m an upper
cervical doctor, that’s what makes me different,” and expect them to know what you’re talking
about.

You have to speak your patient’s language, and express what you do in a way that they’ll un-
derstand.

You have to clearly state your distinctives in language that your patient can then turn around
and state to others.

Your first step is to sit down with a sheet of paper and state all the distinctives about your
practice.

  • How are you different from other chiropractors in your area?
  • What are the distinctive needs your practice meets?
  • Are there any demographic distinctives?
  • Are there any patient services that are distinct? (Being an upper cervical clinic is a big one)
  • Are there any cost distinctives?
  • Are there any staff distinctives?
  • What is your track record?
  • Are there any visionary distinctives?

The next step in the development of your USP is to ask your existing patients why they choose
to do business with you rather than all of your competition.

  • Are they satisfied with their care?
  • Is there anything they would like to see you adjust, or change?
  • What caused them to choose you?
  • Have they been to other chiropractors in the area, if yes, why?
  • Is there a crucial or obvious need that is overlooked and not being taken care of?
  • What would they say is unique about you, or that separates you from the other chiropractors
  • in the area?

It’s also important to ask your employees what they think your USP is.  You may be surprised
to find out that their ideas are nowhere close to your ideas.

Principle 1: Developing an Easily Understood, Differentiating Message (U.S.P.)

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What is a U.S.P. & why is it important

If you don’t know why you’re in practice, then your patients certainly don’t know, and if they
don’t know, then they are just going to go with their cheapest option.

Advertising that you’re the cheapest is not really a good idea because someone can always go
lower, no matter how low you go.

A Unique Selling Proposition is essential for an upper cervical practice so that it knows exactly
why people should do business with them.

A Unique Selling Proposition, or U.S.P. is a statement, in 90 words or less, that answers the
question: “Why should I do business with you versus any and every other option available to
me… including doing nothing.”

It is your “elevator speech.”  If you’re ever in an elevator, and someone asks you what you do,
it’s the speech you give them.

When you can answer this question in a succinct manner, then you have your practice’s U.S.P.

This is vitally important and is the foundation for all of your communication efforts with your
patients.

If you can’t succinctly state why you’re different, and why your patients should choose you as
their doctor, then you won’t be able to tell your patients succinctly why you’re different and
why they should choose you as their doctor.

If you can’t tell your patients, then they won’t be able to tell anyone else why you’re different,
and why other people they’re trying to refer should choose you as their doctor.

Don’t discount this step.  This seems simple and straightforward, and it is.  A USP is a very
simple thing, but simplicity of object does not mean that it is easy to develop.

7 Principles of Shrewd Upper Cervical Marketing

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There are many, many different types of chiropractic practices.

Full Spine, Gonstead, Activator, Nucca, Atlas Orthogonal,…

On and on the list goes, but for all of the differences that make these practices unique, there is one undeniable truth about these and all practices:

A practice, is a business, & fundamentally, all business is the same.

All business is merely an exchange of goods or services for an agreed upon medium of equiva-
lent value.

Whether your a chiropractor, a plumber or a fast food franchise owner, people do business with you for the same reason they do business with any and all other businesses.  Those reasons do vary, be they cost, product, service, convenience, but fundamentally, all business is the same.

In fact, the biggest mistake that any practice makes, is assuming that it’s different from any
other business.

This one mistake causes all practices that make it (the mistake), to ignore means and methods for improving their performance simply because no one else in their industry is doing it.

Practice owners look to see how everyone else in the chiropractic industry does things, and then proceed to model what they do based on what they see, and all they succeed in doing is making themselves look like a commodity.

This leads to marketing incest, and eventually the practice gets lost in the heap created by all the other practices all doing what everyone else is doing.

Just pick up any Yellow Pages, go to the section on chiropractors, and see what I mean.  How many ads in that section are saying anything different from any other ad there?

But there is a much better way to run your practice.

There is a way to set yourself apart from the pack, become the lead dog and leave all of your competitors staring at your backside as you run away with all of their business.

And this essentially boils down to a more effective marketing plan accomplished applying as little as 7 principles to your upper cervical practice, and not requiring you to spend any more money on advertising, but simply leveraging existing assets that you may have never thought of.

The 7 principles are:

1. Developing an easily understood statement that makes you distinctive from other chiropractors (also known as an upper cervical Unique Selling Proposition (U.S.P.)).
2. Integrating your upper cervical U.S.P. into every piece of media that leaves your practice (including what your CA says on the phone).
3. Collecting present & past patients into a database.
4. Communicating your upper cervical USP to current and past patients.
5. Developing a practice newsletter.
6. Collecting letters of endorsement and testimonials.
7. Properly communicating with prospective patients.

Not only will we go over these principles, you’ll see how to apply them to your practice.