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.

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.

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.