Posts Tagged ‘ video patient testimonial chiropractor ’

As we’ve already discussed you need proper procedures and protocols in place to effectively obtain and use Chiropractic video patient testimonials.

One important type of form is a consent and release form. This is the form where patients give you permission, in writing, to use their testimonial in your Chiropractic practice marketing efforts. Taking two minutes to have your patients read and sign this form can save you all kinds of headaches later on.

We also recommend testimonial forms that you can hand to those patients who may be camera shy, too busy, or otherwise unable to appear on a video testimonial. Having an easy to complete form will allow these patients to provide their valued feedback on your Chiropractic practice.

As promised, I’d like to provide links to our free patient testimonial release/consent form templates. Feel free to download and share these free Chiropractic patient testimonial tips and patient testimonial form templates.

We’ve provided the forms in both pdf and editable Microsoft Word doc format. Don’t worry, there’s no email sign up, no catch. Just grab the free forms and go! You’ll need adobe’s free reader program or equivalent to access and view the pdf documents. You can download Adobe’s free Adobe Reader program here: http://get.adobe.com/reader/.

DOWNLOADS:

• You can download the free Chiropractic patient testimonial tips e-book here.

• To download the editable chiropractic patient testimonial release forms in Microsoft Word format Click Here.

• To get the patient testimonial forms in pdf format: Click Here

You can either click to open the documents or right click and select “Save as” to save the documents to your computer or other location.

10 Tips to Streamline Your Chiropractic Patient Testimonial Videos

Like any other aspect of your Chiropractic practice, you need to streamline your Video Chiropractic Patient Testimonial process. A video patient testimonial is a highly valuable marketing tool, but obtaining it shouldn’t disrupt patient flow and other activities within your practice. Let’s look at 10 easy ways we can make the process more efficient.

1. Delegate Responsibility: Decide who will be responsible for the patient testimonial process. It’s usually a good idea to have one or two people trained and educated on the entire process. These individuals should be the only ones filming the testimonials etc. Having specific individuals responsible for the process leads to consistency and efficiency. Having 2 individuals well versed in the process allows for life to continue on in the event a staff member is ill or otherwise absent from the practice.

2. Determine who will be approached: Not every patient is going to be a candidate for a video Chiropractic patient testimonial. The ideal candidate is a happy and long term member of your practice who’s been through the acute stage of care and has decided to stay with your practice for wellness or maintenance care. A patient with an outgoing personality is always a plus as well.

Be sure to sit down in a meeting with your staff and discuss the importance of knowing who to approach.

3. Determine WHEN to approach patients: Once you and your staff have defined the right type of patient to approach, you need to discuss when, and when not, to request a testimonial from them.

If a patient is going through personal tragedy (such as a death or divorce), experiencing an acute flare up of their condition, or just disputed a bill with your office then NOW is not a good time to be asking for a testimonial from them. Knowing WHEN to ask is probably just as important to know who to ask.

4. Keep records: Make a notation of which patients have already supplied, or declined to supply, a testimonial. It’s certainly acceptable to “try again” with a reluctant patient at a later point but don’t be too pushy. Repeatedly badgering reluctant patients or constantly asking patients who’ve already supplied a testimonial is going to offend and alienate your patients.

5. Come up with a script: You need a plan and direction for the entire patient testimonial process. One great way to do this is to develop scripts. These don’t necessarily have to be rigid scripts followed verbatim by staff. Simply give your staff an idea of how they should approach patients, a general idea of what to say, and plan out the ideal patient testimonial process. If you don’t like the idea of a “script” consider this an outline or guide for the entire process.

The most important aspect of your patient testimonial script is going to be how it guides the flow of tasks. Concern yourself less with telling staff what to say and more with guiding them on the order you’d like things performed. Your script should outline where patients are taken to complete testimonial release forms and how the patient is guided through the entire process.

6. Decide on a length: Decide on a desired length for each testimonial. In general one to two minutes is usually ample time for a patient to get their point across. Anything longer runs the risk of losing the attention of the audience. Of course you can vary your requirements as you see fit, but defining a soft cap on testimonial length can streamline the process and keep patients from rambling.

Determining a limit on the length of time required of the practice to obtain patient testimonials is another great way to keep things moving efficiently. In general the entire process shouldn’t take any more than 5 or 10 minutes. Let your staff know what you expect of them.

7. X marks the spot: If you’ve decided to set aside a dedicated location for your testimonials you can further expedite the process by marking where patients sit or stand, and where cameras and lighting should be placed. Taping an “X” on the spot you want the patient is a great way to speed up positioning and camera adjustments.

You can take further actions such as permanently mounting lighting in place or mounting a camera on a tripod and preventing it from being bumped out of position.

8. Be professional: While many practices have a very loose and fun atmosphere, you should maintain a great deal of professionalism in the video testimonial process. Maintaining this professionalism will help prevent staff from going “off track” with friendly and talkative patients and will result in higher quality testimonials.

9. Thank your patient!: Be sure to thank patients for taking time to provide their testimonial. Following up with a “thank you” post card in the mail is a great way to express your gratitude.

10. Practice: Although it seems a little weird, you need to practice the entire process a few times before approaching patients. Getting together with staff and going through a few dry runs is a great way to make sure everyone understands the process and procedures. Take a lunch hour one day and run through the process with some mock patients.

These are 10 simple tips to maximize the efficiency of your video Chiropractic patient testimonial process. You and your patients are very busy. Keeping the entire process running smoothly and quickly will keep your practice and your patients happy. It also increases the likelihood that other patients will participate once they see it is quick and painless.

So now that we’ve covered the advantages and disadvantages of the Chiropractic video patient testimonial, let’s look at how you can get started.

What  exactly do you need to get started?

1. A Digital Camcorder or Mini-Cam. You may have an older tape style camcorder that you can hook up to a computer, but it will not work as well. It will require more steps to convert the video, and the video quality will be pretty terrible compared to modern digital and HD quality.

Digital is definitely the way to go here. I highly recommend a HD (high definition) camcorder. If you can’t, or won’t, afford a full blown camcorder you can purchase one of the smaller mini or pocket camcorders which are now available in HD. I’d recommend at least 720p HD quality but 1080p is better yet. You can find one of these smaller mini camcorders at your local superstore, office store, electronics store, and dozens of sites all over the internet. You can easily find one in the $100-$150 range.

One great place to start your digital HD camcorder shopping is at Amazon.com. They are probably the most trusted online store and a great source for some good deals on a huge variety of products. Use the search box below to search for digital camcorders or anything else you’re interested in. Chances are they have it!

2.  A Computer: You’re going to need to own, or at least have regular access to, a computer or laptop capable of handling some basic video editing tasks. You need the computer to access, edit, and upload the video files.  Processing, transcoding, and working with video files can be a pretty resource hogging task, so I recommend a newer computer and not the 9 year old dust box in the basement!

Minimum computer requirements will vary greatly depending on just how crazy you want to be with your video editing.   Newer Intel dual core processors, at least 160-250 GB of hard drive storage space, and 2.0 GB of memory are a decent starting point capable of handling the medium to basic video editing needs of the typical Chiropractor.

This is just  my personal opinion, but I highly recommend HP brand computers. Every HP I’ve owned has been extremely reliable. I still have one that has seen heavy daily use for 8 years!

If you are looking to purchase a laptop for your video editing, I’d highly recommend Toshiba laptops.  I’ve never owned anything else and have never had any issues. Check out some of their great deals currently available at the link below:

3. Video Editing Software: Some sort of video editing software is recommend but not absolutely required. Many of the digital camcorders come with some sort of very basic software to allow you to clip or crop out portions of your clips and combine different clips.   Many new computers also include free basic video editing software which may be enough for your needs.  These  may be all you need to get started if you don’t have the need or desire to make many custom edits to your videos.

Some of the more high quality third party video editing programs will allow you to add post production polishing touches like adding text over your video, adding background music and overlaying logos and other special effects.

4. A Clean, Attractive, and Well Lit Area for Filming. Many Chiropractors elect to dedicate a small room, or corner of a room, solely for the purposes of shooting patient testimonials. A sort of “mini studio” if you will. I think it is a great idea. Having your chiropractic video patient testimonials all shot in the same attractive area gives a sense of unity to your testimonials and looks very professional.

If you have a busy practice I highly recommend filming your video patient testimonials away from the action. Although you may be tempted to want to show how great your practice is, all of the foot traffic and patients performing active rehab exercises in the background is distracting. I’ve seen many great chiropractic video patient testimonials ruined by staff repeatedly walking in and out of frame, patients checking in and out, and other distractions.

It’s all a distracting mess that takes away from the happy patient telling the public about their success with your practice. Don’t let the procedures of your practice take away from the patient’s message. Besides, you can always shoot another video  dedicated to showing all of your practice action in detail!

5. A Website:
Although a website isn’t an absolute necessity it gives a great place to post your videos, and more importantly, more information about you and your practice.

6. A Free YouTube Account: Hosting video on YouTube is free and a MUST. It’s simply the most popular video site and allows you to create your own channel to host your videos. It’s a site with millions of members and you need to be using it to promote your videos and your practice.

7. Other Free Social Media Accounts. Once videos are posted on YouTube and/or your website or blog you need to promote them. You can link to and spread the word about your videos on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and more. Many of these sites also allow you to post your videos there as well.

8. Procedures. Like any other part of your practice you need to come up with a general game plan for your Chiropractic video patient testimonials.  Having a game plan for patient testimonials will make for higher quality and more efficient procedures.

9. Patient Permission. Many Doctors of Chiropractic overlook this. The fact is you should be getting written permission and a release form from patients. You need to be specifically getting permission to use their testimonials in your marketing. Asking them verbally isn’t enough. Some doctors choose to simply ask and get the release verbally on video at the beginning of the testimonial. While this is certainly better than not documenting the fact that you asked, I still recommend some sort of patient release form.  We’ll be posting a free sample form template soon!

10. Time and Creativity. Like anything else worthwhile; filming, editing, uploading, and promoting Chiropractic patient testimonials takes time.  You need to be willing to devote the time and effort to make your efforts successful.

11. A Written Alternative. While many of your patients are outgoing media hounds willing to jump at the chance of being on camera and potentially on TV or the internet, some are not. For a multitude of reasons many patients are camera shy and prefer to not give a video testimonial. Offer these patients a form to provide a written testimonial. A glowing written testimonial is better than none at all!

Without a doubt, the king of all Chiropractic patient testimonials is the video testimonial.  Recording a short video testimonial from patients is more time consuming than other types of testimonials, but also usually creates the greatest results.  Let’s take a closer look at some advantages and disadvantages of the video patient testimonial.

Disadvantages

• Time consuming: It takes time to film, edit, and post video testimonials (especially when you are first learning how to do the entire process).

• Expense: Video testimonials require you to invest in some equipment and computer software that you may not already have. This can make the initial expense more than other forms of testimonials.

• Permanent and Not As Easy to Edit: Although they all mean well, patients aren’t familiar with the legal and ethical issues facing the modern Chiropractor. They also may be nervous when in front of a camera.  As a result they may say or do things that aren’t in the best interests of your Chiropractic practice.  Making minor corrections to a video testimonial is more difficult than text. With a text testimonial you can quickly make minor changes and indicate the changes you made. A video testimonial doesn’t afford this luxury. Editing the middle of a video testimonial may be difficult, may require cutting or cropping, or might even require completely re shooting the testimonial.

• Difficulty: Although not extremely difficult, video testimonials require more effort and knowledge than a basic text or audio Chiropractic patient testimonial.

• Patient Reluctance: Many patients are reluctant to appear on video and thus these patients are less likely to agree to a video testimonial.  You may find less people willing to provide a video testimonial versus a text testimonial.

Advantages

• Trust and Credibility: This is without a doubt the biggest advantage of the video patient testimonial.  In fact it’s such a huge advantage it pretty much trumps all off the disadvantages we mentioned above!   The social proof value of a video testimonial is much greater than that provided by a text testimonial.  As a society we generally place more trust in something we can see and hear firsthand. There is simply no substitute to watching and hearing a person provide their personal account of something.   Seeing a patient provide a glowing testimonial of Chiropractic care and your practice is truly priceless.

• Validity: A video testimonial reduces the chances that you can be accused of falsifying or editing the actual content of patient testimonials.

• Requires Less Time and Commitment from your Audience: Let’s face it, we have become an instant gratification society. The general public doesn’t like to read anymore than they have to, especially when it comes to things like advertising. The sad truth is many people will disregard text testimonials simply due to the fact that it requires their time and effort to read.

• Versatility: The video Chiropractic testimonial is highly versatile. It can be used in a variety of different venues and media outlets. Video testimonials can be used on your Chiropractic website, chiropractic blog, in DVDs and other chiropractic marketing materials, in television commercials, on social media accounts and more. Video allows you to be much more creative than text.

• Website Search Engine Optimization and Increased Site Traffic: Prospective patients and the general public aren’t the only ones who value video. Google and other internet search engines love it too! By regularly updating video to popular  sites such as YouTube you can improve your Chiropractic website’s position in internet search results and drive visitors to your Chiropractic blog or website.  Thanks to Dr. Jason Ulsrud over at RockStar-Chiro for pointing out I should indeed add this to the list of advantages!

These are just a few of the main advantages and disadvantages of the video Chiropractic patient testimonial. What are your thoughts? Do you have something you feel I left off of the list? Let me know by leaving a comment below. I’d be happy to add your input to our discussion and even provide you with the credit!  Feel free to leave your comments and feedback in the comment section below.

In our next post we’ll begin taking a look at the actual process of the video testimonial along with tips on how to pull off some of the best Chiropractic video testimonials around!

Until then keep promoting yourselves and our profession!

-Dr. James