Laser Therapy Blog

When evaluating outcomes, treatments are most effective when an accurate dose is appropriately delivered. For instance, you wouldn’t use a spoon to deliver a medication that should be delivered through a needle. This principle holds true for many types of therapies – just as there are different ways to deliver medicine, there are also different ways to deliver light.

For a medication like aspirin, dosing is largely based on weight and severity of condition. Treatment is generally administered orally over a given period of time, (e.g., 2 pills every 4 hours). This type of dosing and delivery is straightforward and well-understood. But how is a light-based therapy, like deep tissue laser therapy, dosed and administered?

Delivering a Dose of Energy

Laser therapy dosing is also straightforward – it involves delivering a calculated amount of energy to a specified area (measured in J/cm²). Dosages are determined situationally based on numerous factors, including acuity, patient absorption characteristics, and relative depth of the affected structure within the body.  The treatment length is dependent on the power of the laser, while the number of treatments is typically left up to the clinician’s discretion and recommended protocols.  Once the dose amount and treatment schedule are determined for the given situation, the most crucial element for success involves using an appropriate delivery method to ensure an adequate dose is delivered.

Many therapy lasers, especially higher-powered models, are equipped with a handpiece that is designed to be moved using a scanning technique to administer treatments. Handpiece design and treatment method can greatly impact delivery accuracy, so it is important to use an application-specific delivery system. Ideally, a delivery system should be reliable, versatile, and durable enough to deliver dependable results for every condition, every patient, every time.

Reliability

To achieve positive clinical outcomes, it is necessary to deliver consistent amounts of energy. When administering laser therapy, this is best achieved by using an on-contact treatment method. By making direct contact with the skin’s surface, this method of treatment helps to reduce light energy lost to scatter and reflection off of the skin’s surface. Certain on-contact treatment attachments, such as the patented LightForce massage ball, encourage superior energy transmission by displacing superficial fluids and compressing tissue at the treatment site, allowing more photons to reach the target tissue.

Versatility

While on-contact treatment methods are highly reliable, they are not advisable in all instances. Sometimes it is necessary to treat off contact for comfort purposes (e.g., treatment over broken skin or bony prominences).  In such instances, the best results are achieved by using a treatment attachment specifically designed for off-contact treatment.

There are also situations where clinicians need to treat smaller areas, such as fingers or toes. In these cases, a smaller spot size is preferable. The Empower Delivery System™, LightForce’s comprehensive delivery solution, offers maximum versatility with 5 treatment heads that provide a range of beam size options in both contact and non-contact modes.

Durability

In addition to facilitating reliable results and offering clinical versatility, a delivery system should also be durable.  If the delivery system fails, treatments cannot be delivered until it is repaired, which wastes precious patient and practice time. A delivery system therefore needs to be robust enough to stand up to the rigors of everyday use.

For therapy lasers, a main component in determining durability lies in the security of the fiber optic cable. This fiber optic cable is what transmits the light from the main unit to the handpiece, so it is critical that it be protected. The Empower Delivery System employs an extra-long stainless steel sheath, covered in a durable rubber coating to ensure every inch of the fiber optic cable remains protected during use. This type of construction allows the user to manipulate the handpiece with ease during treatment without harming the fragile fiber.

If you’re looking for a therapy laser with a delivery system you can rely on, consider looking at LightForce – each and every LightForce laser comes equipped with the Empower Delivery System. The EDS features 5 treatment attachments (including the patented massage ball), the most durable fiber cable available, and is backed by a dedicated customer service team, to help you deliver consistent results for every patient, every time.

Now that you’re done planning and marketing your open house, it’s time to get hosting and make the most of all your hard work!

6.    Having Your Open House

Before your guests arrive, have a list of everyone who is registered so you can check them off as they arrive. You may also want to ask them to fill out some additional information upon arrival to further qualify their interest level and needs.

Once people are there, try to get them to sign up for your services by giving them demonstrations.  People generally appreciate complimentary treatments and samples, and are likely to repay the favor by scheduling an appointment or purchasing products. To further incentivize people to schedule appointments, you can also offer a special discount exclusive to open house attendees that schedule at the open house.

Think about taking some photos and videos during your open house to post on your social media pages and website (with your attendees’ permission of course!) to get people who didn’t attend interested in attending similar events in the future. This is also a great opportunity to get some video testimonials for your practice and any new products or services you offer. These testimonials can also be posted on social media and your website to enhance your existing promotional efforts.

7.    Following Up

The benefits of hosting an open house shouldn’t end when the last guest leaves. To get the most out of your open house, you need to follow-up, both with people who registered but were unable to make it and with people who attended.

You may not think to follow-up with people who didn’t attend, but it’s an important step that could result in more business for you. The people who registered were clearly interested, so you need to capitalize on that interest while it’s still present. Consider calling or sending a follow-up email to express that you are sorry they missed the event, but still want to show them what you have to offer.  You can provide a date for another upcoming open house, or offer a discount or free sample to encourage further interaction.

When following up with people who attended, make sure you first thank them for coming. For people who didn’t schedule appointments or purchase product at the open house, offer an incentive for them to do so now. You can either extend the special pricing offered during the event, or offer a similar promotion to encourage post-event purchase.

Remember – an open house is an opportunity for you to show off your best assets, so make the most of it! If you follow these 7 steps, you can easily host a successful event and get people excited about what you have to offer.

Once you’ve finished planning your open house, you can begin taking steps to market your event:

4.    Develop your message

Once you’ve nailed down your goal, target audience, and event details, you can begin developing the message to promote your open house.

The immediate goal of your marketing should be to get people to RSVP so that you can get a count of how many people are coming and plan accordingly. Make the RSVP your main call to action, and make it easy for people to register. This can easily be accomplished by providing a phone number for people to call and having a dedicated staff member keep a spreadsheet of all registrants.

Make sure you also highlight the most exciting pieces of your event. You’ve worked hard to plan a great event, so let people know why your event is going to be great! Free food and drink, complimentary product samples and service demonstrations, and educational lectures should be prominent in your messaging if they are included at your open house.

For an additional incentive, you may want to advertise a free first appointment as a thank-you to all who attend your open house. Free appointments are hard to pass up, so keep that in mind if your initial promotional efforts aren’t as successful as you wanted, or if you just want to sweeten the offer a little.

5. Choose your marketing channels

There are many ways to promote an open house, so you need to decide which platforms work best for your given budget and audience.

Electronic promotion is a must. If you have a website and/or social media pages, you absolutely need to promote your event via those avenues. Social media is free, so it works great for promotion on a tight budget. It also presents a great platform for your best patients to help you promote – with social you aren’t only promoting to your contacts, but also to your contact’s contacts, and their contact’s contacts, and so on.

Look into email marketing as well. Sending emails is an easy and affordable way to reach a large number of people with a single click. Whether you tackle this in-house, or elect to outsource your email marketing efforts, make sure you obtain and analyze your statistical results so you can refine your future messaging for greater impact.

Local, in-person promotions should also be pursued. These are particularly powerful if you are targeting a niche group, like athletes. Do some research and find out if there are any specialized groups in your area and where they meet. Schedule some time to attend one of their events to introduce yourself and hand out some flyers. If your targeted group is based out of a busy place like a gym, you should also put up an event poster and make time to tell people about it. People generally respond better to in-person invitations than impersonal mass mailings.

You may additionally want to consider doing some print promotions such as a postcard mailing or newspaper advertisement. Before pursuing these types of promotions, make sure you look at the printing and placement costs to determine whether they work within your budget and satisfy your planned ROI.

One final marketing avenue worth consideration is telemarketing. This can be done either in-house or outsourced, depending on your staffing situation. Existing patients are likely to respond better to this method than non-patients, since they already have a relationship with you, so if you’re hosting an open house to showcase a new product or service, this is a great way to get current clients interested.

Stay tuned for Steps 6-7! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to be alerted when they’re available.