Jan 29

How to Write For Your Patients

Posted on by

Many of us, no matter how intelligent we are, have experienced times in our life when we were talking to someone and had no clue what they were trying to tell us.

Generally, those types of situations occur because the person we are talking to is using a lot of jargon or technical terms. This is very frustrating especially when you are trying to solve some sort of problem.

When you take your car in to the mechanic and he uses all sorts of terminology and talks about parts as if you should know just what he is talking about, or when someone goes to their doctor and he starts describing complex systems in the body as if the two of them went to med school together… these situations are annoying and frustrating.

As a healthcare professional you want to make sure you don’t do that to your patients. It’s easy to fall into the trap of writing a blog post or a newsletters as if you were writing a term paper. You may find yourself using big words, technical terms and jargon. That might have gotten you good grades when you were in school but it isn’t going to endear you to your patients.

You don’t want to “talk down” to them but you also don’t want to talk over their head either. This will be a huge turn off and they will think of you in one of two ways:  either a show off just trying to impress or you are so far removed from the “real world” of your patients that you don’t understand them.

Neither of these will make a great impression for your readers.

To overcome these issues I’ve put together a simple checklist. Whenever you sit down at your computer to write something for your patients make sure it meets these guidelines:

1.  Keep it simple. Do not use a lot of technical terms or jargon. People are not impressed with that. Instead they are likely to feel dumb or they will get bored. Either way they will stop reading and if that happens you’ve lost them. Instead, write in an easy flowing conversational way.

Now, some of you may speak with a lot of big words and jargon, and if that is the way you normally speak you should get over it (at least when writing for patients). You may need to tone it down a little bit so you don’t alienate the very people you want to reach out to and build trust and rapport with.

2. Make very sure that you aren’t writing a “sales pitch”. It is fine to put in a call to action, but don’t get carried away. Something as simple as ” call me if you have any questions” can do wonders. Make sure you’re writing for the patients clarification. Whenever you write anything always make sure that you keep the fact that you are writing for your patients in the back of your mind.

Another thing to remember, not everything you write has to be strictly about your profession either. General health and wellness topics that may be of use to your patients can be great things to write about too.

3. Let some of your personality show through. Professionals can sometimes be leery of letting too much of themselves shine through. They often “hide” behind their professional image. Of course, if you have a bawdy sense of humor, for example, you need to keep that in check but showing your patients who you are can be a great way to have them learn to like and trust you.

If you want to provide a newsletter for your patients as a way to stay in touch and build rapport but you just don’t know where to start or don’t have the time – call me I can help.

 

 

Jan 28

Chiropractic Marketing / Audiology Marketing… Where to Start

Posted on by

I’m not a marketing “guru”. I know a lot about marketing but I sure don’t know everything. My area of expertise lies in newsletter marketing and content creation specifically for chiropractors and audiologists.

I’ve noticed that many healthcare practitioners aren’t very comfortable with marketing. And who can blame them? They didn’t go to school to become marketers, they went to school to become chiropractors and audiologists.

Still, very often the difference between those who have enormously successful practices and those that don’t often has more to do with their marketing skills than there skills as a doctor.

One thing that many doctors struggle with is: where do I start?

I know the feeling. Like I said, I’m great at content creation and newsletter but not social media or SEO. It’s very confusing and overwhelming.

I think the best thing to do is to do what I did: start with one thing at a time.

I think it’s best to start with a blog. If you don’t already have a blog you are missing out on a great opportunity to “show off” for your patients.

They want to know that you are an expert. Show them that you are by providing them with helpful information on a regular basis. If you’re not sure just what to write about or how to write it, check out my blog post about some easy to use tips for writing for your patients.

Once you’ve got your blog going, you can add content from your blog to your Facebook page and to your Twitter account. Integrating all of these streams can make things a lot easier on you and your available time.

And, if that sounds too much like work you may want to check out something I recently found online. It’s a service called HootSuite (and it’s free). It allows you to integrate multiple social media sites in one dashboard.

That makes it easier to send tweets, update your status and even share things on your LinkedIn profile. I’m just learning my way around HootSuite but the thing I think I will enjoy the most is the option to schedule my tweets and status updates.

Instead of having to mess with those things every day, I can just go in once a week and schedule all of them at once. That way my presence in the social media universe is assured even if I’m busy doing other things such as working or living my life.

As time goes on I’ll let you know how it goes but in the meantime I would recommend sharing some of your most interesting information with your patients right on you blog.

If you find you are ever in a jam in regards not having enough time to write or not knowing what to write, contact me.

After all, I may be a newbie when it comes to social media but when it comes to writing, newsletters and all manner of content creation, I’m an “old” pro!