"The main thing that we’ve used [the book campaign] for thus far is our running events. There’s a main running event here in southern Oregon called the ‘Pear Blossom Run’ and it’s every year in April. We organize what we called a ‘Pre-Pear’ event, which is a free foot-screening event about a month before the Pear Blossom Run. We had a book sign-up there. I was able to see about 50 people, and that, in combination with the night before the race packet pick-up, we had about 90 to 100 book requests. That was the first time that we had ever tried that or ever advertised our book. We were able to get quite a few just from that one event.
You have to think about it first and you realize that it’s not just giving a book out and that’s it. That’s how I thought of it at first. I didn’t realize the full 18-step campaign that was behind it, so when they asked me about that I said, ‘No, I just want to do the book and that’s it.’ Well, I got a call from Rem saying, ‘That’s just part of it, and we have this whole campaign that you can use and it really helps it function better than just giving a book out.’ So yes, I would recommend it, but you have to really realize everything that’s involved in doing that and how it all works.
There’s other things that will probably bring you quicker results, but that doesn’t give you quality patients. The book campaign is more of a long-term marketing information for people so they can have something and later refer to it, and either refer other people to it or remember that they have this book, see it, and come to see me later.” Dr. Evan Merrill - Medford, OR