M ARKET I N G MOT I VAT I O N
Establishing a Brand for Your Practice by Jennifer Reed, Director, Marketing and Public Relations
Branding is more than just a name and a logo. While names and logos are certainly important visual components of your business, branding is what you stand for and how others view you and your practice. More specifically, it is the positive or negative emotion one experiences when interacting with your practice. Whether you’re looking to establish a brand for your practice or evaluate your current brand, here are some tips for effective branding.
Defining Your Brand First, think about the goals and objectives you’ve established for yourself and your practice. Ask yourself: Why do I practice chiropractic? What do I want to achieve? You may want to consider developing a value or mission statement to help frame your brand, if you don’t already have one. Second, it’s important to know your market. Patients should remain at the forefront of your brand development. Consider how you want your patients to feel, what you want them to think, and what kind of experience you want them to have. Once you’ve answered these questions, you have essentially laid the foundation for creating your brand.
Communicating Your Brand Develop a plan for communicating your brand to your current and potential patients. It’s important the messages you communicate are consistent with the brand. Consider the various communication vehicles: your website; social media, such Facebook and LinkedIn; mailers, brochures and newsletters; internal and external signage at your practice; and letters and business cards. Even your community involvement— whether it may be working at community events, participating in the local chamber or volunteering—reflects your brand. As you network and meet individuals, consider your brand when introducing yourself, describing your services and explaining your competitive differentiators.
Effective and Ineffective Brands Keep in mind, your brand may evolve over time. You may acquire new skill sets, start serving a certain population or demographic, or change locations. Nevertheless, it’s important to take the time to make sure your brand, and what you’re communicating, mirrors your current practice and service areas. The excerpt at right taken from the Dynamic Chiropractic article “Intentional Branding: Establishing a Foundation for Effective Marketing,” provides a list to help improve the health of your brand and, consequently, your practice.
Remember, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to launch your brand. It’s a matter of evaluating yourself and how you want to be seen by others.
Your brand should: ✓ Convey you are not only different, but also better. ✓ Be consistent and true to what you deliver. ✓ Appeal to emotions. ✓ Inspire confidence. ✓ Be authentic and aligned with your values. ✓ Be believable. ✓ Speak to the question of “what’s in it for me?” from the patient’s perspective.
Signs of an unhealthy brand: • You’re unknown in your community. • You’re known, but not how you’d like to be. • Other chiropractors in your town get most of the name recognition and press. • Patients balk at the cost of your services. • You play “let’s make a deal” with certain patients on pricing. • You attract the “wrong” patients and get low-quality referrals. • The look and feel within your practice is inconsistent (e.g., your logo doesn’t match your signage). • Your identity and design elements, though consistent, are outdated. • Members of your staff cannot clearly state the benefits and value of your services. • You use adjectives, lingo and hype when talking about your services. • You don’t believe your own marketing message. • You often feel like you have to coerce people into trying your services.
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