Marketing the Old Fashioned Way

Gretchen Moen — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:01:00 GMT

This is a busy month for all of us. One of the biggest events we host during the year is a holiday open house. It started out as a way to get new patients to visit the clinic, take a tour and have the opportunity to ask questions about our practice. It has evolved into a way for us to say thank you to our patients and community for supporting our efforts the past year.

The "reindeer party" is a big event. As soon as school resumes in the fall I get calls and questions about the party and the reindeer. We have had real reindeer with sleigh rides every year. (The reindeer are in training and are unable to fly so this seems to be OK with the little ones.)

I call the local high schools and ask if they have anyone who would like to be Santa and his elves. I try to get the music departments involved but run into conflicts with school programs. We contact the county Early Childhood Special Education team to provide crafts and information about their programs during the party. We have had guest authors, illustrators, musicians, storytellers and a book fair. The proceeds of the book fair are donated to the ECSE programs.

Our community fire truck and firemen pay a visit and present a quick fire safety program for the kids. The county health department is involved, and this year they brought a vehicle crash game to illustrate the importance of proper car restraints. We invite a variety of local businesses to promote their products or services and have hosted massage therapists, Mary Kay cosmetics, family fitness centers, book vendors and chiropractic services.

Kids are encouraged to write a letter to Santa, and our staff looks forward to responding to the letters. This year, one of our 8-year-old patients thought there should be a coloring contest so she brought 5 designs and markers for the party participants. Her mom told us that the girl came up with the idea on her own and insisted on bringing her own markers!

Each year we have numerous volunteers offer to help with face painting, refreshments and traffic control. The event is scheduled for two and a half hours on a Thursday evening, when we would typically be open for business.

Promotion for this event is tricky as we usually do not have extra money for advertisement in the budget, so we include fliers with our November statements, a note to the "community happenings" section of the newspaper, a message on the Web site and distribute cards or fliers to businesses nearby. Families take fliers to distribute to friends and bring around the neighborhood.

We spend a lot of energy and time thinking of ways to promote what we do when a "simple" community party can have the same result. I did not keep an accurate count, but I estimate there were over 200 guests at the party. In the past we have had as many as 500+guests. In a small office like ours the benefit of gaining one new family to our patient panel because of the reindeer makes it all worthwhile.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for the New Year!

NP Practice Owners : Pediatric NPs

Marketing the Old Fashioned Way