How to Get More Patients: Chiropractic Best Practices
Having positive patient outcomes is the primary metric for all chiropractic practices, but revenue and profitability are also crucial. If you can’t make money, it’s hard to provide top-notch care.
Running a successful business presents another challenge: how to get more patients for chiropractic care. As a good business person, you know that in the long run, you have to worry constantly about bringing new clients in the door, if only because you can’t retain 100% of your client base year over year.
It’s hard to find time for patient acquisition and marketing activities, and the business is constantly changing. What worked ten years ago may not be as successful now.
The dilemma is clear: how can you get more patients for chiropractic care and make a difference in their long-term health?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but here are a few top solutions for how to get new patients to your chiropractic business.
How to Get More Patients for Chiropractic Care
Every practice has its own unique dynamics. No single approach to the challenge of how to get more patients for chiropractic care will work for every chiropractor. You will need to pursue a mix of best practices to resolve your challenges.
But there are a set of tactics that you can deploy, based on what makes sense for your practice, with the goal of growing your patient base through digital marketing and targeted patient communication. Target these tactics at gaining awareness and visibility. Here are a few that might lead your list.
Customer Reviews
Encouraging patients to leave online reviews and making it easy for them to do so is a marketing initiative that small, medium, and even large businesses must pursue. These reviews become an open set of referral sources.
When people are seeking a chiropractor—or any provider, for that matter—they will almost certainly spend time online looking for information about your background and the kind of practice that you run.
It’s important to keep these reviews fresh and frequent. You need to have a coherent process and strategy for requesting reviews, and new technology can help.
Zingit's’ innovative patient text messaging provides a platform for reaching patients where they are.
Use the platform to ask for reviews and make it easy for patients to say yes. Reviews can have a significant impact on your reputation and patient acquisition efforts.
Improve Online Visibility
In today’s economy, your website is your calling card to the outside world. It’s the place where you make your first impression and subsequent impressions for existing patients and potential new ones.
Improving the nature and quantity of reviews found on your website will help improve your search engine optimization performance and better manage your online reputation. New technology, such as the Zingit Solutions platform, can help clean up business directory listings and citations. It also gives you an easy way to respond to positive reviews.
Making your website visitor friendly can also help get your message across. The Zingit platform has a web-chat function that drives to a text conversation, creating a more direct way to engage. Web chat makes your site more friendly in that you can engage more quickly with questions and help patients with appointments.
Patient Engagement Techniques
Establishing text-based communication opens new opportunities for engaging with patients. For instance, you can develop video campaigns that set the stage for long-term loyalty.
For example, before appointments, consider sending “meet the doctor” videos to help patients get acclimated to your background and manner. You could do many other video projects, including ones for patient exercise or other aspects of patient education.
You are not limited to using these videos in text-based communications. You can also upload them to your website to share information with visitors who may not yet be patients. Adding video and other content assists with local SEO results will make your practice even easier to find.
One huge benefit of keeping channels of communication open with patients is reactivation. Sometimes, patients tail off in their visits. A text-based message with useful content can bring them back.
Manage Customer Acquisition with Zingit Solutions
The constant quest to acquire new customers means you have to be well organized and have the right tools in place. Practice management systems can make a big difference in your conversion rates.
Zingit Solutions has developed a patient engagement software platform that provides enormous benefits around customer communication. The system leverages text-based patient communication as a way of cutting through the noise, so there are no more hit-or-miss voicemails.
Text-based marketing, which is growing rapidly, offers the highest rates of messaging completion. This system can be integrated with other online features as a way of driving more customer reviews and improving SEO. The messaging can be customized and enables two-way communications.
Zingit also helps streamline various office processes, freeing you and your staff to focus on patients and where needed, patient acquisition. This includes automated appointment reminders, easier appointment scheduling and rescheduling, and requests for reviews from patients.
Leverage the text system to distribute value-added content. For instance, use the system to distribute videos or other content focused on patient education.