George Youssef
Chiropractic Marketing Success
www.chirosuccess.com

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"Grow Your Practice By Sending Out Valentine's Day 
Cards And Letters"

    Well, Valentine's Day is just around the corner.  
If you're like most people, then you're probably 
planning a romantic evening for you and your 
significant other.  But how about your patients?  Have 
you planned how to make the day "romantic" for them as 
well?

    No?  Well, I'll show you how to do just that!

    As you already know from experience, Christmas time 
is usually the time  when people expect to receive 
holiday letters or cards.  And that's the time when you 
usually send out cards to your patients.  While this 
can be very effective, there's just one problem - too 
many other people are sending your patients cards as 
well.  And well, yours just gets lost in the clutter.

    But how about other holidays, like Valentine's Day? 
 Very few cards are ever sent during this time, and 
that's your chance to shine and grow your practice.

    I know that Valentine's Day is just around the 
corner, but if you hustle right now, you can still have 
a Valentine's mailing out in the post office within the 
next few days, and have it arrive before Valentine's 
Day.

    Basically you have two choices, the first is to 
send out a Valentine's Day card, and the second is to 
send out a Valentine's Day letter.  I'll go over both 
options, and you can decide which to do.

VALENTINE'S DAY CARD

    Sending a personal card can be powerful.  The 
important thing to keep in mind here is that the card 
must be personal.  This means that you will want to 
send out a card just like you would send out to a 
friend.

    This means that you will not send out cards with a 
picture of a spine or a chiropractic message somewhere 
on them.  All that will achieve is to get your card 
thrown away in the trash can, since your card will not 
look personal, or even sincere.

    Instead, I recommend you go to your local Wal-Mart, 
Target, Kmart or other major discount store, and get 
some cards from there.  You can usually get pretty good 
looking cards in boxes of 10 for about $5 a box.  This 
is definitely cheaper than the Hallmark cards that cost 
$3 each, but they still look pretty good, and more 
importantly, personal.

    You will want to write a personal note in the card, 
or have one of your staff members do it.  A one or two 
sentence Valentine's Day sentiment will be appropriate. 
You will also want to personalize the inside of the 
card with your patient's name, as well as sign it.

    Inside the card you can have a gift 
certificate.  It can be a general gift certificate, 
or one customized for Valentine's Day.  The gift 
certificate should be printed on index stock paper. 

VALENTINE'S DAY LETTER

    The major advantage of a letter over a card is that 
you get to say a lot more in a letter.  It is also a 
lot easier to personalize the letters (just do a 
mail-merge with your patient records) than it is cards. 
Also, it is a heck of a lot less expensive to send out 
a letter than it is to send out a card.

    The most obvious disadvantage is probably the fact 
that people tend to get more excited when they receive 
a card, as opposed to a letter.  

   Which one should you use?  Whichever you prefer.  As 
a rule of thumb though, if you have a really powerful 
letter, then use the letter.  Otherwise, use the card.

    Anyway, let's talk about the most effective use of 
the letter.

    The Valentine's Day letter should be personal.  It 
shouldn't look like you're trying to make a sale, 
instead it should express how much you care for your 
patients.

    As for making it personal, you will want to have 
the patient's name on the letter, and make the letter 
look like it was written just for him.

    And for the content of the letter, you don't want 
to talk about chiropractic or even health.  Just write 
the letter as if you were writing for a friend.  Talk 
about your life, what made you decide to become a 
chiropractor, and how much you appreciate your patient 
as both a patient and a friend.  You can also make an 
offer to either get referrals or for reactivating 
inactive patients.