Q:

I have a potential gold mine of patients with 5-6  doctors,(MD's) 
across the street from my office. I've only just been open for about a 
year and half and have been contemplating meeting them but they 
always seem so busy and they are very hard to track down on their 
off time. What I have done so far is to invite them over to the clinic 
(my clinic used to be there clinic) to see what I've done as far as 
renovation, etc. Other approaches I used were to send out patient 
reports when ever one of their patients was to come in and also sent 
over requisition pads. Neither seemed to help much. Do you have any 
suggestion as to how I could tap this potoential gold mine?
Looking forward to your response

A:

Seems you have an opportunity to gather new patients from these doctors but often what 
you perceive as possible and what happens is totally different. Therefore .. you must 
develop other areas to market. You are doing the right thing attempting to generate interest 
with these MD's but if they don't cooperate what can you do. Below is an article I wrote 
for Today's Chiropractic. 

Creative Marketing For Today
By Joel E. Margolies


In our present economic climate an innovative business person must focus their marketing 
efforts toward receiving the most with the least cost. Advertising in various forms costs 
money .. hiring a marketing firm, printing newsletters or flyers, mailing costs, media 
advertising space, etc. Although exposure in any form is a plus, it may be too broad and 
uncontrollable. The best advertising is predictable, with so many pieces sent offering so 
many potential patients, but is this realistic .. no. Therefore, I offer a few alternative ideas 
that may cost you time but less money and provide more punch for your buck.

FACE TO FACE MARKETING:

Meeting people where they shop, work, exercise and live will not only allow you to answer 
questions and promote one on one, but also meet potential new patients with little cost. 
This may include postural and stress screenings, various workshops or lectures, ergonomic 
and safety evaluations, as well as networking with community professionals. In the usual 
demographic environment you will find apartment complexes and housing subdivisions 
with clubhouses to provide health and wellness workshops; sport facilities where 
biomechanical screenings or lectures can be offered; corporate facilities to discuss safety 
and offer your services for screenings; professionals such as attorneys, allied health 
professionals and community leaders. An open calendar will be filled quickly with multiple 
programs if the effort and proper direction is maintained. When there is a will, there is a 
way .. in fact, only this stands in your way towards success. 

Begin a methodical program of reviewing your community and list potential areas to focus 
your attention. Establish a database of names, addresses, phone and fax numbers, as well 
as e-mail addresses of civic and church program directors, corporate human resources or 
safety directors, retail facilities where screening may be useful, apartment complexes with 
clubhouses, lawyers concerned with personal injury for a start. Although this may take 
sometime, it will create awareness and begin the process of expanding your base of new 
patients, as well as allow you to burst through your comfort zone. Once you have 
established a database, you are ready to contact and provide various programs. Please 
understand that each component of this process takes time and management. Therefore, 
focus on where you wish to explore and slowly but surely keep the process in a forward 
movement, adding more ingredients to your recipe of success week by week. Before long, 
you will have a strong base from which to promote. Create a generic letter that can be 
tweaked depending on your programs. It may read something like this:

"I would like to take this opportunity to introduce our office. As a community service, we 
provide various Health and Wellness and Safety programs. Our most popular programs are 
Stress Management, Aging Gracefully, Family Fitness, Safety at the Workplace and 
Biomechanics .. What is It. We are in the process of scheduling our Fall and Winter 
programs and would like to include you. Someone from our office will be calling you soon 
to determine your interest. There are only a few days per month that we have available, so 
if you are interested please call us at."

At this point it is only a matter of persistence and patience. Call a few a day and be sure to 
record where and who you spoke to and the action steps taken. Be prepared to discuss the 
programs and schedule workshop or screening dates. If you are clueless or need assistance 
with what to say or do, you may wish to purchase my inexpensive books titled: 
Chiropractic Public Relations and Marketing and Workshop Workbook .. these are $25 
each. See how easy it is to market.

Using the Internet:

Using technology to bolster your office is available for free through the internet. Two areas 
to explore are using a webpage and e-mail. A webpage is a business card always available 
for review worldwide. On this business card you have the ability to introduce yourself, 
your staff and chiropractic, offer conservative advice, provide a pictorial tour of your 
office, make appointments and link to other community and related healthcare webpages. If 
you spend the initial expense to create your webpage and the fees to maintain it, you best 
get the most exposure for your investment. Your webpage is no different than a business 
card, it will take space within your wallet or cyberspace waiting for someone to open it and 
take advantage of its contents. Like your webpage, others within your community need 
exposure. This is a perfect introduction for you to meet local businesses, professionals and 
corporations. Just as we generated a database from our demographic base, we now expand 
it to merchants. Call them to determine if they have a webpage and if you can link theirs to 
yours. This is your open invitation to place their e-mail address and webpage, as well as 
business within your webpage and introduce it to your patients and community via your e-
mail newsletter. Let me discuss now using e-mail as a promotional tool.

If there is little you retain from this article, please retain this. After reading this article, 
prepare to find a place within your case history form for a patient¼s e-mail address. Create a 
database and address book of these e-mails and be sure to send a monthly e-mail to all your 
patients. This is a creative way to both keep your patients informed of office news, as well 
as stimulate reactivation from patients who have not been in awhile. With a keystroke, you 
have the potential of reaching thousands of patients with little or no cost. Be sure to print 
your e-mail newsletter and have it handy for those walk in patients with no e-mail access. 
You can expand this to patients work e-mail addresses and direct specific ergonomic 
newsletters to them and have them share it with others. This also opens doors for future 
workplace workshops and screenings. As mentioned above, you can include within your e-
mail newsletter the community merchant or professional of the week. Besides sending your 
newsletters to patients you now have expanded it to the community by adding these 
merchants and professionals to your address book, with a monthly reminder of your office, 
programs and skills. E-mail newsletters can be elaborate or as simple as words within the 
body of your e-mail program. There are various professional vendors that offer a complete 
educational service for our patients, but in keeping with the spirit of this article and keeping 
expenses down, if interested, you can write your own with timely office information, bios 
of yourself and staff, local topical information, as well as health issues found daily on the 
internet via the media. 
 
Practice Management:

The least expensive but the most profitable marketing tool is working with your present 
patient base and request referrals and maintaining active promotional programs. New 
patient lectures, topical office workshops, seasonal promotions, and straight out asking for 
referrals always generates the best and educated patients. We also have a wealth of 
previous patients that should be contacted via timely phone calls or letters. Practice 
Management is so much more than a great adjustment. It includes generating interest to help 
others and being assured that those you help have a chance to reach their goal of Health and 
Wellness. Cultivate and stimulate the promotional seeds you plant, keep up the momentum, 
and wait for a bountiful harvest of success. 

Joel E. Margolies, DC has been in practice for 25 years in Atlanta and is an author of four 
chiropractic books: Smart Start, Chiropractic Marketing and Public Relations, Chiropractic 
Workshop Workbook, and the Personal Injury Workbook. He sends a free weekly e-mail 
newsletter concerning practice management, public relations and philosophy to more than 
9000 chiropractors in 30 countries. To discuss this article or receive his free e-mail 
newsletter you can reach Dr. Margolies via e-mail at: joel3639@aol.com or website: 
www.chirosmart.net