If increasing your client base is essential to you, consider a club affiliation.
A club affiliation allows your clinic to provide services and discounts to members while also increasing the likelihood of incoming referrals.
An affiliation purposefully puts your clinic on your local community radar and encourages further client growth.
🤝 The Benefits of an Affiliation
Let’s look at 3 potential benefits of a club affiliation that demonstrate how an affiliation could help grow your business:
- New Patients – Automatically gain new patients from the club’s membership list.
- Perceived Value – The club feels valued by having an ongoing available discount.
- Word of Mouth – Club members share positive news about your clinic.
🔗 What Could an Affiliation Look Like?
Consider this as a scenario:
- A club in your local community has 100 members who all trial your clinical services.
- As a result of their experience, 25 of those members become loyal clients of your clinic (conservatively speaking).
- In turn, those 25 members recommend your clinic to 2 friends each, extending your client base’s reach even further over time.
In this scenario, you’ve leveraged a club affiliation program and turned it into word of mouth – one of the strongest referral types you can have as a business owner.
🤗 Make an Offer…
As an allied health clinic, you’ll need to structure your offer to suit your clinical services, and therefore, it could appear a little like this:
- A free initial appointment for all club members.
- Every subsequent appointment will come with a predetermined discount.
- Additionally or alternatively, stock and inventory could be sold at a specified discount.
💡How to Find an Affiliate
Choosing a club that you have a personal interest in is a great place to start. Consider clubs that you may have been involved in over the years such as sports clubs, Scouts or Girl Guides.
Do some research into a few local community groups that are of interest to you and see if they align with your clinic values.
If you are having difficulty narrowing down all the options of amazing, deserving clubs out there, you could always enlist some assistance:
- 🧠 Ask your staff and patients about their interests and hobbies. You might discover an idea you may not have considered – like a gym or club they attend.
- 🏆 Run a monthly competition. Ask your patients for their business cards as an entry ticket. For the cost of a small prize, you might find some companies worth approaching.
These methods may be unorthodox – but sometimes, thinking outside the box can offer the best rewards.
🤔 Speaking of “thinking outside the box“… did you notice I just mentioned companies?
These ideas aren’t limited to club affiliations. Do you know a local company who’s employees would benefit from your services?
☎️ Connecting with Potential Affiliates
Setting up an in-person meeting with your potential affiliate is always better than a phone call or email. It is essential to be prepared and consider treating the first meeting like a new job interview.
Prove to the prospective affiliate that you know and understand who they are, what they do, and how they operate. Advise why you have chosen their particular club and demonstrate that you have carried out some solid research about their club and interests.
💖 Don’t forget – you will want to consider presenting how the club (not just the members) will benefit from your offer.
Whenever you are selling something, whether it be a product, service or an idea, you need to present it so that the potential customer clearly understands the benefits they will receive.
Remember:
- Be prepared and professional.
- Communicate the benefits in a clear, concise and friendly manner.
- Know exactly what next steps you are proposing.
🖋️ Time to Put It in Writing
Now’s the time to put your conversation into writing and make a solid offer to your chosen club. You want to include everything you discussed in your initial meeting in this letter.
- Start by briefly reintroducing yourself and your clinic.
- Explain why you have chosen their particular club for an affiliation program.
- Clearly and concisely detail what you are offering and how the club will benefit.
- Let the club know that you will create the content for an email that their club can use to advise their members about the affiliation.
Consider this example letter:
Dear Mary,
Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I genuinely appreciate you allowing me to present my proposed affiliate program to you and the valued members of Mary’s Book Club.
The Allied Health Group and I are excited to be able to offer each of your club members the following benefits:
- 1x Free Initial Consultation
- 10% Discount on All Services (excluding Group Sessions)
- 5% Discount on Selected Products
As a business owner, I appreciate that you are extremely busy, so we would like to provide you with the proposed correspondence to inform your members about our new affiliation.
If you have any questions regarding these benefits, please do not hesitate to contact me at elizabeth@example.com or on 01 2345 6789 at any time.
The team and I at The Allied Health Group look forward to working with you and Mary’s Book Club members in the future.
Regards
Elizabeth Example
The Allied Health Group
📣 Making an Announcement
The next stage is to advise the club members about your exciting new affiliation, so you should take the initiative and create a letter on the club’s behalf.
As well as the email outlining the benefits, it is also vital for you to include your Terms and Conditions attached to the offer, which could consist of variations of the following:
- Not available with any other offers.
- Exclusions (Stock, Specific Services, Payment Methods, Vouchers, etc.).
- The benefits associated with this affiliation are only open to club members.
- The clinic agrees to notify the club in writing should the nature of the affiliation need to change (and vice-versa).
Consider this example announcement:
Dear Samantha,
Thank you for being a valued member of John’s Sports Club.
We’re happy to announce our new benefits program with The Allied Health Group, a locally owned and operated clinic, and share the benefits that will be available to you as a member of our club.
The Allied Health Group specialises in a range of allied health services for both your mental and physical health and group sessions for family and friends.
Their friendly team are experts with over 20 years of experience in helping manage health goals for all ages.
As a member of John’s Sports Club, your new exclusive benefits with The Allied Health Group include:
- 1x Free Initial Consultation.
- 10% Discount on All Services (excluding Group Sessions).
- 5% Discount on Selected Products.
(Conditions: These offers are only available to club members. They cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion or discount and are subject to change without notice.)
To take full advantage of these benefits, simply present your club membership card to The Allied Health Group reception when arriving.
Check out the full range of private and group sessions now available to you at: www.example.com
If you have any questions regarding these benefits, please do not hesitate to ask.
Kind regards
John Example
John’s Sports Club
☝️ Let’s Get Affiliated
By setting up a club affiliation, you should find that it helps open the door for new clients and opportunities within your clinic and community.
Using a Practice Management System like Nookal to track your ROI will provide you with the measurable outcomes of the affiliation with your clinic.
The results may encourage you to consider starting up an affiliation with another club within your community, expanding your business even further.
If you’re already an avid Nookal user:
- Set up your Affiliate as a Referrer.
- During the Initial Consultation, set up the Client’s Referrer as the Affiliate.
- Review the results in the Referrers and Sources Report.
Having a club affiliation is to your advantage – so take the time to consider your options, do your research, and discover how having affiliations can help grow your business.
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