August 2007

Corporate America: The best place to spend your marketing dollars?

 by Dr. Phillip Golinsky

Over the past 12 years of private practice, I have seen and tried just about every type of marketing possible. I've tried everything from the typical weekend spinal screening to the so‑ called relationship building with local attorneys and medical doctors, to the 1‑800 number "call for a free report" ad, to even the promises of making an extra $35,000 a month through spinal decompression. In fact, each year I search inside as well as outside the chiropractic profession for a marketing campaign more successful than the one I stumbled upon seven years ago.

Yet, I have yet to find any other consistent marketing that can give me returns of five to seven times each dollar spent...year after year... that requires little to no time of my own and with absolutely no stress! Would you like to know what it is? It's something that most of you have probably done before, and you were probably successful when doing it.

To make a very long story short, I had been making contacts with local corporations for a lecture series I had been giving out. The idea was to give lectures to corporate America for the purpose of educating them and then hope that there might be some people who'd want to come in to have their spines checked for subluxations.

One of these corporations told me they weren't interested in having me give any lectures, but they were looking for a local chiropractor who would be willing to participate in their upcoming corporate health fair. Completely naive and a bit disgruntled (because they didn't allow me to give my lectures), I agreed to participate in the "Computer Associates Health Fair" in October of 2001. Let me tell you what happened that magical day.

I arrived with my spinal screening gear ready to do what I had been doing for the previous three‑four years at a local expo center. I thought it would be similar but it wasn't.

First, the event was free as opposed to having to pay $1,500 for the three day event. Then, most of the people I'd met at expos were unemployed, uninsured, and lived/worked too far from my office. Not the case at this corporate event. It was located about 10 minutes from my office, making it convenient for everyone who worked there.

As it turned out, each employee had chiropractic coverage and everybody was obviously employed! At the end of the three‑hour health fair, I realized that I had scheduled more than 25 appointments (remember, they all had jobs, they were all close to my office, and they all had insurance that covered chiropractic care...something much different than I had experienced at local weekend mall shows, or larger type festival like events).

Over the next six months, that one three‑hour health fair generated more people and more income than all my other marketing campaigns combined. Quickly my mind went to work on how to replicate this event 40 times every year.

Consequently, in 2002 the concept of "Health Fairs Plus" was born. A program designed specifically to get chiropractors into corporate wellness events. I now use it to get my office into 40 corporate events (health fairs, seminars, and onsite screenings) every year!

Five years later I can tell you with complete confidence that marketing my practice at corporate wellness events is by far the best decision I ever made. I'd always been told that being successful in the restaurant industry was extremely easy to do... If you have a constant bunch of starving people. Now, if you just imagine that not only are there a bunch of starving people, but that they're located just down the road from your restaurant, how can you go wrong?

Corporate America will provide you with those starving people. All you need to do is lead them to your office.

Imagine fishing out of a stocked pond 20, 30, even 40 times a year. You'll never have to do another weekend event or worry about competition at the events. Best of all, you can truly serve the people who want your services instead of trying to convince them that they need chiropractic care. You'll quickly realize there are many employees who spend their days in front of a computer who do anything to function like a human being again. You are the solution to the problem!

If you live in an area where there's a moderate amount of white‑ or blue‑collar corporate industry, you're sitting on a potential gold mine. You only need the tools to start digging. And where can you find those tools? Chiropractors don't always have the time to research and implement super marketing ideas, especially if they're busy trying to grow a practice. So, I've made the tools readily available.

You can go to www.corpwellnessevents.com and find an e‑book explaining exactly how I managed to get my office into hundreds of corporate wellness events over the past five years.

I'm absolutely thrilled to be able to share this success with DCs nationwide. I hope everyone reading this article is able to take advantage of the information I offer in order to create a marketing campaign that gives five times the return on your investment.

Stay tuned for future articles, as I'll be sharing tips and strategies about corporate wellness events ‑‑ including how to turn employees into patients.

(If you're interested in receiving Dr. Golinsky's help getting your office into events, contact his staff at 1‑800‑996‑6031 and they'll tell you how they can get your office into hundreds of corporate wellness events in your area.)