Your Chiropractic App

Do you have an app for your practice?  I’m not for… or against having an app for your office.  But let me tell you why having an app in your chiropractic marketing arsenal… for most… is simply a waste of money.

Let me start this conversation by asking you a couple questions.

How does an app help your practice?

Is it to attract new patients?

Is it to help with patient retention?

Is it to help with referrals?

I think anyone trying to sell you an app is pitching you on the fact that you will get more new patients… or increase patient retention with it.  So if that’s the sales pitch… please tell me how that’s going to happen.  How are you going to get new patients by having an app for your practice?

The better question may be… actually two questions.  How are new patients going to find your app?  And if they do happen to find it… why would they want to download it?  What value does the app have for them.  I would contend there is NO VALUE what-so-ever for a new patient.  There is no reason I would want to download an app for a chiropractic office if I’m looking for a chiropractor.

So what if you’re using the app to increase patient retention and possibly referrals.  There could be some value to that.  You could ask your current patients to download the app… and that’s it’s own hurdle.  But if they did… you could deliver exercise videos… maybe some nutrition advice… maybe you give them some recipes… there’s a lot of great valuable information you could give them once they become your patient.

Here’s my issue…

You already have several ways to communicate and create value for your patients… but you aren’t using them!

You have their mailing address… are you mailing them a physical newsletter each and every month?  I know it seems like it costs money to do it… but if it’s done well and done right… it becomes profitable.  It’s actually one of the most profitable things you should be doing to increase your PVA and referrals.

You have their phone number… are you calling them on a regular basis to tell them about new services?  What about events you are hosting?  What about just to thank them for being your patient?  I bet you don’t utilize the phone as well as you could.

You should also have their email address.  Are you emailing them good and valuable information?  In the world of email you should be emailing them at least once a week.  Once a month is the minimum for regular mail… and once a week is the minimum for email.  And that’s not some arbitrary thing… the stats just show those frequencies to be the most effective.  And that’s what I care about.

So here’s the deal… an app for your office can be effective in a retention and referral strategy.  The problem is… you have to actually use it for it to work.  And I’m thinking you aren’t using the tools you already have… so why do you want to get caught up with the next shiny object that costs money to develop… and then it never gets used.

So that’s my opinion of a practice app.  And if you aren’t communicating with your patients on a regular basis… hit me up about my Patient Retention Formula.  It provides everything you need so you can keep retention and referrals high in your office.