We all dislike having to cold-call people, be it over the phone or walking into their place of business. Early in practice, you may need to get out there as much as possible, but once you gain momentum and a patient base, you have leverage. A strategy we implemented using the patient’s contacts for networking and connection opportunities.

Susan comes into our office for low back pain and mentions she has a personal trainer. She loves her personal trainer and is concerned she can’t currently work out. We ask Susan if we could contact her trainer to discuss her condition. With her permission, she gives us the name and contact info, and my staff places that on our Referral Directory spreadsheet.

During my next break in patient care, I will call that trainer, introduce myself, and let them know Susan agreed for us to reach out and discuss her case. I will end the conversation by requesting I stop by the trainer’s gym to introduce myself. Turning this mutual connection into a phone call and then an in-person meeting is more likely to cement an ongoing relationship. This warm lead is much easier to connect with than if I just called or walked into the gym without that mutual connection.

Your patients may have many people who might go into our Referral Directory. There needs to be effective communication between the patient, doctor, and support staff to implement this Referral Directory fully, so make sure the inter-office communication does not have any holes.

The Referral Directory concept is also a great way to increase your public speaking opportunities. A common question I get from chiropractors is how to get more public speaking opportunities in their community.

One mistake chiropractors make when starting in practice is failing to position themselves appropriately in their community. Lack of guidance, understanding, and wanting to be everything to everyone are typically involved. Before we implement any marketing strategies, messaging or campaigns, we need to determine our position.

Positioning yourself effectively as the expert in your community around a niche specialty or small set of niches will allow you to grow your practice and command an appropriate level of fee-for-service. This is the first step in developing your clearly-defined audience.

We are all at different points in our careers and have different goals for our future. We are fascinated and motivated by different kinds of patients and the size of our practice(s). Only you can determine that, but I implore you to seek clarity and be honest about your current position in your community.

From there, the Roadmap (See NCAA Marketing Academy) can get you from where you are to where you want to be in your community.

You may have already positioned yourself strongly; now, you can leverage a well-thought-out content marketing strategy to ignite it.

In late 2018, I invested in Seth Godin’s Marketing Seminar, an online course. In one of the main lessons of that seminar, he discussed the X-Y Axis of positioning. The example he used here related to chocolate bars was fascinating.

100 years ago, the Hershey chocolate bar was positioned as Excellent and Inexpensive. Then, someone came along and added nuts to a chocolate bar and developed their own X-Y Axis of delicious chocolate bar with nuts. Dark chocolate arrived and was marketed as the healthy-option chocolate bar. Then, organic chocolate bars were developed and were able to charge a premium while being seen as considered healthy. All these chocolate bars targeted different positions in the marketplace. Subsequently, with other types of tasty and healthy chocolate bars, we now consider the Hershey chocolate bar to be standard and not as well accepted as others.

The take-home point from this example is that you can find your unique position in the market.

On the flip side, if you aren’t careful, other chiropractors in your community who practice great marketing and positioning may force you into a position you aren’t pleased with, and your practice may suffer.

If you positioned yourself optimally and spread that message with consistent content marketing, you can thrive no matter what the competition is doing.

Throughout the year, you will sit down at certain times to design your practice’s marketing plan.

I recommend the following schedule for when you should work on your marketing planner.

• At the end of each year, you plan out next year’s marketing.
• At the end of each quarter, you plan the upcoming quarter’s marketing.
• At the end of each month, you fill out the upcoming month’s editorial calendar.

This will keep you proactive, not reactive. You need to sit down with your team members and external marketing providers for all of the above planning sessions. Once the plan is in place, you need to reference it often to ensure you are staying ahead of your content creation, distribution, and campaigns.

Before we dive into the planning details, I want to leave you with this tip. I know you are a doctor. I know you are extremely busy, and becoming a marketer isn’t a priority. Don’t worry if you miss a Facebook post, a video, or a month of writing a blog. Just recognize it and get the next one accomplished.

Second, my goal is that, at some point, other people do this for you. You may not be able to afford it or have the staff capabilities yet, but if you stick with the marketing roadmap, you will be able to outsource in the near future.

The Yearly Marketing Plan

At the end of the year or the beginning of the new year, sit down and write out the year’s marketing plan. This yearly plan will consist of your overall strategies for the year but is certainly flexible.

The types of marketing topics you should consider are:

• Website Strategy
• Social Media Strategy
• Website Overhaul/Improvements
• Video Production and Marketing
• YouTube Strategy
• Blogging Strategy
• Campaigns
• Sponsorships
• Email Marketing
• Content Marketing Strategy
• Events
• MD Marketing
• Attorney Marketing
• Direct Mail
• Google/SEO
• Community Outreach/Grassroots Marketing
• Specific campaigns like a golfer’s campaign in the summer or running season