I am a Doctor of Chiropractic looking for a way to market my holistic type practice, where could I do this?

Question

I am located in the Denver area.

Answer 1

Rather than night school and reading business books, use your imagination.  Where would type of people that you want to treat frequent.

Here are some ideas-  Yoga studios, local gyms, set up a table with information at a farmers market, set up a table at a 5K run (they always have runs benefiting cancer, and other things), you could call various businesses and set up a presentation for their employees and offer a discount to employees from that company, health foods stores, getting a repor with any Family Physicians or massage therapists around town.

I'm assuming you don't want to invest tons of money since you just got out of school, which is very expensive

Answer 2

create a website, try godaddy.com , post flyers in your local supermarket and shopping malls, advertise in local papers. hope thi shelps

Answer 3

Like any other business it involves a lot of hard work and wasted effort.

They don't teach business in osteopthic schools but it is an integral part of survival and making it as a practitioner even if you work as an associate.

Sticking an add in the paper and waiting for the phone to ring you will go bust.

Talking to people, offering to do talks on healthcare and prevention is a good way to make contacts. Get involved in associations, sports clubs gyms etc..

Its also a good idea to get contacts form other disciplines for cross referal.

In most of the English speaking world the best advertising that pays for itself is the yellow pages. You will get inundated with people offering you exclusive advertising. It is mostly a waste of money.

It also depends where you are and how hard a market is to crack. When i qualifeid in the UK I practiced in the North west of england. In 18 months I had about 10 people come and see me because they had been recomended by friends and family I had treated. Virtually all the others came under the reputation of the practice and not me personally.

I moved to New Zealand in february and regularly see 2 - 3 people a week because I have treated friends and family as well as existing patients and other new patients. This is inspite of there being twice as many practitioners per head as the UK and a list of physiotherapists in town as long as your arm! (+ 2 Chiropractors).

Good luck with it. My advice, be genuine, concientious and be patient centred rather than money centred. It will take longer to build a list but you will be better established and have a much better reputation in the long run and still make a good living.

Answer 4

I suggest night school. They offer business management courses that can teach these types of things.

Answer 5

Doctor, I would go to the local Colleges and University and post fliers also check with your local Rotary Club and make an acquaintance with the other local people of your community, like other doctors of the sports medicine, as well as health clubs. The best of luck to you and your practice.

Answer 6

I gather you're a new doctor? Like any other new doc, school didn't teach you a darn thing about running a business, or they did a poor job at it. Chiropractic and family medicine is pretty much the same thing in terms of marketing. Get new patients. Here's my experience running my practice in NYC, it may differ from yours.

I recommend that you pick up the book "Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing: A Simple Battle Plan for First-Time Marketers" It's a very good book that tells you how to do proper marketing on a schedule. How to formulate a unique selling point/position. And how to go after these markets. So on and so forth.

Your best source of information would be your local Denver chiropractic association, or your Colorado Chiropractic association. Talk with the president and other board members. Talk with the local members. They have wealth of information on how they conduct marketing. The most important information to obtain is what has the best ROI in Denver, and what has the worst ROI.

Try hooking up with www.SCORE.org they can assign a mentor for you, one who's experienced with entrepreneurship and marketing.

In general, yellow pages is the worst ROI, so don't bother buying any space. Same with post cards, or welcome wagon. Ask your local chiropractic association, some local neighborhood newspapers may be a decent/good ROI. Or advertise in a holistic/health newspaper.

Join the chamber of commerce, BMI, Rotary, Lyons, Elk, and any other popular networking group in your area. Again, ask your local chiropractors to see what network group is worth joining and produces good ROI.

Advertise in your local health food/organic supermarket. Or go door to door and introduce to yourself to every local holistic type practitioner. Naturopaths, homeopaths, acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists, medical doctors, Reiki or energy healers, so on and so forth.

Join whatever club or activity that interests you. Introduce yourself. Overtime, let people get to know you and then you can tell them more in detail what you do. People don't like to be sold, that makes you like a used car salesman. Merely educate the patients. They'll look up to you, curious and want to learn more, they'll ask for a business card and come to your practice.

If there's a volunteer activity, I recommend getting involved. Either through your church or your local chiropractic organization. Volunteering services always brings forth good feeling, brings exposure, and increases your marketing. Just once a month is sufficient.

One more thing. Setup a great website that's dynamic, informative, and continually updating with latest relevant health information. This is one of your best ROI.

And of course, the best way to market is to do internal marketing. Ask for referrals. Once you've developed your marketing skills well enough, you should be able to obtain 3-5 new patients from each existing patient. And never shield away from the very difficult patient, sometimes they turn out to be the best patient. If you can manage to convince them and turn their health around, I wouldn't be surprised to see 20 new patients.