October 2004

Your 24/7 new patient magnet

by Dr. Peter Fernandez

Yes, you can attract new patients twenty‑four hours a day, seven days a week, using a highly effective advertisement that not only pays for itself but can generate enough new patients to pay your yearly office lease and utility expenses.

Many offices report that 15‑25% of their new patients come from this type of advertising, attracting five‑to‑ten new patients every month. Some doctors already know the secret and are enjoying the financial benefits of this one‑time investment: a professionally designed exterior office sign.

No other type of advertising compares to the value of a well‑designed outdoor sign.

For example, you can spend $300 or more to place an ad in tomorrow's newspaper and at best it will work for that day. Depending on the quality of your ad, the newspaper's circulation and the cost to produce and run the ad, that one day's ad placement can be very productive or a total waste.

Consider that newspaper advertising costs about $1.47 for every 1,000 people reached, while your outdoor sign reaches the same number of people for about six cents! That makes newspaper advertising 25 times more costly than your outdoor sign.

This eye‑opening difference becomes even greater the longer you have your sign, as your initial design and installation costs are spread out over the years and the total number of people who drive by, see your sign and become patients, continues to increase.

The reason I use newspaper advertising as a comparison is not to dissuade you from including newspaper advertising as part of your marketing campaign, but to impress upon you the tremendous value of having a professionally designed outdoor sign.

So, how do you get an outdoor sign that works? You hire someone who is experienced in designing chiropractic outdoor signs that attract new patients.

You need to set your personal design preferences aside and follow the advice of a professional you can trust to design your sign for you, preferably someone who has done it hundreds ‑‑ or thousands ‑‑ of times before.

Keep in mind, a sign that works like gangbusters in one location, won't necessarily do as well in another. Therefore, don't borrow someone else's sign design and expect it to work for you because it won't! It takes a professional to make an outdoor sign that works, a professional who specializes in chiropractic marketing and is proficient in new patient attracting sign design.

The professional sign designer's first and foremost objective is to create a sign that beats out all of the other signs vying for the attention of everyone who drives by your office. The second objective is to sell your services, and your exterior sign only has a few seconds (the time it takes for someone to drive by) to accomplish this.

How do professional sign designers meet these objectives? First, they compare your sign with all the other signs on your street. Your sign must compete with and win out over the other signs in size, shape, color, height and message. Your sign must be highly professional and also different enough to attract the most attention.

Some signs may be beneficially enhanced, by including an electronic "Time and Temperature" display. This feature is an attention grabber in that most people are interested in seeing the time or current temperature. However, this feature is an expensive option that should only be selected on the advice of your professional chiropractic sign designer.

A manual storyboard or electronic message board is another attention grabbing feature that might be included in your sign design. Use these boards to display a one sentence, patient‑educating message ‑‑ something that can be easily read as the person is driving by your office.

If you're using an electronic message board, you may choose to run three or four different messages, one after the other. But, regardless of whether you're using that or a manual storyboard, be sure to change your message(s) once a week. That way, people driving by your office stay interested in your sign, looking for your weekly new message(s), and become increasingly aware of what chiropractic can do, and your office location. Then, when they experience a bad back or a bad neck, your office is the first source of help they think of.

When it comes to your outdoor sign, consider the following:

***  Only an experienced chiropractic sign designer can assure your sign is the valuable investment it can be.

***  Do not have a local sign maker design your sign. That would be like having an ironworker design a bridge ‑‑ it may look good but it will lack the professional engineering to be able to perform its function.

***  Make sure your local zoning regulations and office lease are carefully reviewed for any sign restrictions or mandates.

You may save a dollar today by not hiring a professional sign designer, but you are gambling hundreds of thousands of dollars in new patients by doing so. When done wrong, your sign could end up being little more than a very expensive lawn ornament, or worse ‑‑ it could work 24/7 turning people off and away from your practice.

When done right your sign will work 24/7 helping you build your practice, ultimately paying for itself many, many times over (my daughter's sign ‑‑ which I designed ‑‑ has been consistently attracting six‑to‑ten new patients per month for the last 14 years!).

(Dr. Peter G. Fernandez, a 1961 Logan College graduate, is past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association, and past chairman of the International Chiropractic Knights of the Roundtable, an organization of the world's most successful chiropractors. The nation's leader in marketing the chiropractic practice, he has consulted with more than 5,000 DCs and in the opening of almost 3,000 successful new practices over the past 24 years. Dr. Fernandez can be reached at Fernandez Consulting, 10733 57th Avenue North, Seminole, FL, 33772, by calling 800‑882‑4476, or by e‑mail: DrPete@DrFernandez.com. Visit him on the web at www.DrFernandez.com).

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