If you want to have effective and stress-free promotions in your office, you need to plan the entire year of marketing in advance. That means you and your team should finalize your 2002 calendar this month, and decide what special events and holidays you want to celebrate. Additionally, you should map out your patient newsletter topics, monthly themes, and special seminars you will be holding in your office.

When planning for your events, always ask the question, “What perception do we want to give our patients with this event?” One perception you never want your patients to have is that you are sponsoring an event solely for financial reasons. If you are sponsoring an event only for the money, your patients will surely know it. You do not want your team to think that, either. Therefore, when you plan your special events calendar, you should state your motive and goals for the event. Your motive should come from concern and service to others; when your motive is pure, the financial rewards are sure to follow as an indirect result.

In planning your yearly events calendar, you should plan a theme for each month. Plan your theme around whatever is affecting your patients that particular month. For instance, what happens in January? The stresses (good ones and bad ones) of the holiday season usually weaken everyone’s resistance. Therefore, January is a common month for colds and flu. So it would follow that “Strengthening Your Immune System” would be a good theme for January.

For this type of theme, you can promote nutritional supplements to help strengthen the immune system. If you sell supplements, make sure they are displayed someplace easily accessible to patients, and include educational literature near by. In keeping with this theme, January would be a good month to offer a seminar on stress and immune system issues. The seminar would include information on chiropractic adjustments, supplements, and relieving stress.

Perhaps you have a patient – a psychologist, for instance – who would like to speak for a few minutes on handling stress in everyday life.

January is also a month when many patients become committed to losing weight and exercising. So another theme you could choose for this month is weight loss. In this case, your seminar would be on how chiropractic helps the digestive system function and strengthens muscles. Your featured nutritional supplement would be digestive enzymes and how they can help with weight loss and back pain. You may want to invite your supplement representative to speak about digestive enzymes. Do you have a personal trainer in your patient base? He or she may be happy to give a demonstration on fitness and exercise.

When planning your monthly calendar, look at the holidays. You will want to plan special events around certain holidays. You may want to make up your own holiday. Have a lazy, hazy, crazy summer event in July or August. Decorate your office in a beach theme, and offer a seminar on how to exercise safely outdoors.

When you begin marketing a special event, make up a color flyer for your patients. Begin promoting about a month before your event. Be sure to send those flyers to your inactive patients, too. You should also hand out your flyer to the businesses in your area if your event includes the community. Your patient newsletter should also include articles on your event and how chiropractic care fits in with each theme. Additionally, if your event includes the community, prepare a press release for your local newspaper inviting the public to your event. Finally, prepare your scripting ahead of time to make sure you effectively deliver the message you’re trying to communicate. Remember, presentation is everything.

Ms. Hoy speaks to chiropractic team members throughout the country and is an award-winning team trainer and consultant. She is the author of several books and a team-training manual. She writes a newsletter called “Team Work,” which focuses on chiropractic staff issues. Ms. Hoy served as office manager of Snyman Chiropractic Group in Center City, Philadelphia, for 11 years. She can be reached at 215-674-0130, or check out her website at www.beefitup.net.