For years I wrote a monthly newsletter, but it did not build my practice. I signed on with a newsletter company and we sent out between 2 -3,000 copies. It too did not bring folks in.

I have not sent a newsletter in 3 months and I think it is time to send out something. I will not allow past failures to create my future, although I feeling a bit weary. Any ideas would be appreciated.

My Response:

I'm not exactly sure where the notion came from that a newsletter is supposed to produce new patients. It's been known to happen, but I think it is more a happy effect, rather than the purpose of sending a newsletter.

A patient newsletter can do a couple of things:

1. It can serve to bring practical, health-related information to the attention of your patients. If the material is relevant and presented in an interesting, easy-to-read way, you can conduct your patient education overtures via these periodic mailings. This may or may not prompt someone to resume care or tell others about your office.

2. It can be an excuse to remind an inactive patient about you, your services and the state of their health. This "top of mind awareness" can prompt an inactive patient to return to your office, or temporarily bring attention to circumstances in which they recognize a situation with a friend may be helped by your services.

3. It can be a way to nurture a dormant patient relationship by sharing the "going ons" in your practice, such as new staff, new equipment, recent seminars or upcoming practice events.

These are long-term strategies whose effects are hard to measure and rarely pay off by making the phone ring the week your newsletter arrives in the hands of your patients. That's why so many chiropractors use their newsletter for a fourth, more overt purpose:

4. Entice patients to return or stimulate referrals by making an offer that expires on a certain date. These overtures usually revolve around reducing fees for examinations or other, potentially value-reducing strategies that may or may not produce modest results in the short term, yet risk cumulative, long-term damage to the reputation of practice.

So when it comes to newsletters, make sure your intentions and expectations of what it can do are clearly grounded in reality.

Another suggestion is to be more selective in your mailings.

I suggest that doctors code their database of inactive patients so they can be more choosy in their newsletter, postcard, birthday and other mailings. You might consider a coding scheme like this one:

"A" patients. These are those great, inactive patients you'd most like to have back under active care. Your plan is to eventually have your entire practice filled with these folks like these!

"B" patients. These are your "borderline" patients. Maybe they came in because of a car accident or a work-related injury, and they didn't understand the potential of chiropractic care.

"C" patients. These are those rare patients you hope never to "see" again. They didn't pay their bills, follow your recommendations, or they displayed personality traits that made them less than ideal to serve.

By being more discriminating in your mailings you can lower your expenses, reduce its burden to make the cash register ring and take a more realistic, long-term view of what a newsletter can do.

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Bill