Referral pads remain a popular tool in physical therapy marketing. They sometimes have a role in home health marketing and home care marketing as well. We like to design them with 8.5” x 11” pages, so doctors can easily fax them. The standard size also gives us room for fun elements such as maps to help patients, lists of specialty services, etc. However, producing the pads themselves is one of the more expensive ways to produce marketing materials. Here’s a simple alternative that can reduce production costs by up to 33%.

In the printing industry, padding refers to binding several sheets with a flexible, adhesive strip along one edge. That way, people can tear off one sheet at a time. We charge only $2.36 per pad when providers order 1000 of 8.5” x 11” pads with 50 full-color referral forms each. That’s also with letterhead-quality paper.

A less expensive way to market with referral forms is to skip the padding. Print the referral forms as letterhead, and put 25 sheets in the left pocket of a professionally designed, custom pocket folder. Not only would this be a more impressive presentation, it would lower production costs to about $1.65 per folder. What’s more, you are left with the right pocket folder for more marketing material. For each doctor or referral source, you could pick which of your monthly referral source bulletins are the best fit and put your hand-selected copies in the right pocket.   

Either way, referral forms remain a time-tested way to leave doctors with a useful piece of marketing.