Doctors, lawyers, and other specialists in the injury market, all market to try to get more injury patients. There’s a common belief  in this space that it’s very difficult to market for injury patients.

I totally disagree with that idea. First of all, one of the things that we create in the SmartInjuryDoctors® Program, for some the best injury doctors in the country, is the ability for these doctors to put a message out letting patients know that they’re there. I believe that the best doctors in the injury market are those that can get great results. That’s what we want to produce. That’s why we’re producing the SmartInjuryDoctors® Program. Doctors that can take back and neck injuries and get fast, effective, efficient, and very cost-effective results with their patients.

We Have This Idea of Marketing and That Marketing for Injury Patients Is Very Difficult

Well, it’s not difficult if you understand what marketing is. There’s a lot of books written on marketing, there’s a lot of things that could be said about marketing, for this post I’m going to make it very, very short, and I’m going to define some terms. Let me make it easy to understand what marketing is.

Marketing is how you are perceived in your market. A marketing strategy then, is how you go about influencing the market’s perception of you. Most effective marketing starts with a survey. You survey the public to find out what they want, and then you supply that want. That’s your marketing message, that you can supply what they want, and people will buy. That’s marketing.

Everything You Do Impacts Your Marketing

So, if marketing is how you’re perceived in the market, everything you do with injury work can be seen as marketing. From the time that your front desk takes that first call, you’re marketing. Everybody that handles a patient in your clinic is marketing to a degree because they’re adding to that perception. It’s how you and your clinic are being perceived by the injury patient.

Your documentation is marketing. That documentation that goes to the insurance company is marketing. Good or bad. Documentation that goes to a lawyer is marketing. Good or bad. So, if everything you do is marketing, you have to actively decide your marketing strategy and how you want to be perceived?

Before I move onto the next step, let’s just quickly define one other thing, that a lot of doctors don’t understand. That’s what is the difference between marketing and advertising. If marketing is how you want to be perceived in your market. Advertising is what you do to deliver that message to the public so that they know you’re there.

The Difference Between Marketing and Advertising

Advertising can be either free or paid. For example, all the social networks are free. However, advertising can also cost you a lot of money. Advertising is taking your message and putting it on communication lines so that people can perceive you. Whether it’s newspaper ads, TV commercials, radio commercials, social network posts, videos on YouTube, it’s all advertising. The message that you’re relaying, is your marketing.
On the injury side of things, one of the things you want to market today is fast, effective results. Remember, when you look at marketing, each market has a different need. If you look at patients, what do patients want? Well, they want fast, efficient, and very inexpensive care. That’s what they want, in general, right? So, if I’m marketing or you’re marketing to injury patients, you want to focus on fast, effective results because that’s what they want.

Marketing to Attorneys

If you’re marketing to attorneys, what do attorneys want? Well, they want excellent documentation. So, one of the ways that you might market to an attorney is by focusing on the fact that we don’t waste his or her time with poor documentation. Our SmartInjuryDoctors® are the best doctors in the country as far as documentation goes because they understand the simplicity of what everyone in the market needs, so it becomes very, very easy. If I’m with attorneys, it’s very easy to market and say, “Well, look we don’t waste your time with bad documentation.” And trust me, most documentation in the injury market is pretty bad.

Most of the time in the spinal ligament injury market, ligament injuries aren’t even documented, so the severity of the injury is not documented, and that starts a problem. It causes problems for attorneys, insurers, and adjudicators, it starts a problem all down the line. So, if I’m a SmartInjuryDoctor® who is marketing to an attorney, one of the things that we’re going to say is that we don’t waste your time with this bad documentation, like the majority of doctors that you probably work with.

Marketing to Medical Doctors

If I’m marketing to medical doctors, or other providers seeking referrals, I might choose something like: “We don’t submit patients to any form of excessive care. All the care that we give is the care that the patient needs, and no more.” That’s what we provide. We provide only care that’s necessary to get that condition stabilized fast, effectively, and then we release the patient. That’s what I’m going to be talking about if I’m talking to medical doctors.

Three Things You Must Do Well

All I wanted to do in this short post, is just explain marketing. It’s how you are perceived in the market. There are three things that you want to do excessively well in this market:

1. You want to be able to diagnose the injuries, the extent of those injuries, and you don’t want to miss injuries. If you’re a doctor of chiropractic, I’m going to tell you one of the things that I recommend that the doctors market is that when they’re assessing injuries they communicate to the market that they only use top medical specialists to interpret their imaging, to get an accurate diagnosis.
2. You want to be exceptionally good at treating those injuries.
3. You want to be exceptionally good at documenting in such a simple way that everyone involved knows exactly what’s going on. That reduces problems for the patient. It reduces problems for the patient’s attorney. It reduces problems for the insurer. It reduces problems for everyone in the market.

When you’re providing everyone with what they need in the market, you’re marketing, and that will actually cause you to bring in a lot more injury patients. If you’re the top doctor in your area, you should be seeing as many of the injury patients in your local area as you possibly can, because those patients as we talked about in other editions of this program, are at super high risk for long term residual complaints.

Send Your Market the Right Message

You want to intentionally decide what message you are sending to the public in your area. Once you choose your message, you want to advertise and promote it, so that people become very aware that you’re here. Our key thing today about marketing is how you’re perceived. A marketing strategy is deciding how you want the market to perceive you. Understanding your market is important because then you can put forth what the market wants. The public will perceive that you have what they want, and that’s the simplicity of marketing. That’s all marketing is.

I hope that clarifies things. Like I said, I want to keep it very, very quick and to the point, on a particular topic. All I wanted to address here was what marketing is, and that it does not have to be difficult for injury patients. It really does not. Our SmartInjuryDoctors know that, and they know that they have a message that they’re readily putting out., It’s very, very easy to do, and that doctors, is marketing. Register for my next Webinar to discover more about marketing your practice.