Marketing in 2024 – Two Reminders
In your marketing push in 2024, avoid misleading content by viewing it from a patient’s perspective. Additionally, ensure you have patient authorizations to stay compliant when using testimonials in ads. Watch the video to learn more!
Referenced Links:
Testimonial Information
Consent Form for Using Testimonials
Misleading and Other Advertising Cautions
Advertisement
Transcript:
We’re at that time of year when you and your practice are ramping up your marketing efforts, whether it be social media pushes, or Google ads, or whatever the case may be, you’re running print ads or, or even pushing a new patient referral marketing campaign within your practice, we want to give you two key reminders just to ensure that you remain in compliance. These two surround one testimonials and two make sure that your ad is not misleading. So we’ll cover the last one first. You want to make sure that nothing you do inside of your ad is misleading. And you’re like, Marc, everything that I put in our ads is truthful, well, we have to be careful. You want to always take off your hat as the doctor with all of your knowledge and all of your understanding, put on a hat as if you’re a patient that doesn’t know anything about chiropractic and really doesn’t know anything about the chiropractic profession, or whatever it may be. Instead, you have to look at it through their eyes. If they don’t know what you know, how did they see your ad? Is something that you’re providing inside of your advertising, truthful, but also misleading. One of the things that I use as an example for this is something that actually the Illinois Department of Financial Professional Regulation has actually disciplined licenses for in the past, you want to make sure that you don’t say something like you’re a board-certified chiropractic physician. Now why? You’re looking at me and saying, “Hey, this is, I am I passed all my boards. Therefore, I’m a board-certified chiropractic physician.” By including that what you’re indicating is that you have something that others don’t it sounds larger than what it is. It is truthful, yes, but for someone who doesn’t understand that process doesn’t understand that, that you have to pass the four boards in order to receive your license and Illinois. To them, it sounds like something greater like a diplomat, if you will, if you have a diplomate or you’re a board-certified chiropractic orthopedist, and those particular cases, if you’ve gone through that education if you’ve gone through that rigorous testing and if you currently hold that particular certification or diplomate status, then you can claim that board certification. However, everyone, all chiropractic physicians licensed in Illinois are board-certified chiropractic physician. So although it’d be although it is truthful, it is also misleading.
The other is testimonials and, and a day and age where you are specifically utilizing testimonials in your marketing efforts. In other words, you’re republishing a testimonial, I’m not talking about reviews, that’s different outside of a lot of your control. But I’m talking about when you’re using any of those testimonials, even if they’re off of a review site, if you will, in your marketing that you put out there. So you include it in some of your social media posts. Or if you’ve done some print marketing or you put something up in your practice, you have to make sure that you actually have authorization from the patient to use those testimonials, even if they put them in a review site. So you want to make sure that you get that authorization we have a great article with a form for our members to be able to download and use with their patients who provide testimonials so that you can then in turn, use those testimonials inside your practice. I’ll include a link just down below in this video. But the two key things make sure that your entire ad is not misleading. Again, putting on the hat of the patient. Second is make sure that you get good authorization from your patients and we’ll include a link down below to download a form for you to be able to do that in your practice. We’ll catch you next week.
