Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Do you have a decompression table in your practice? If not, are you thinking about getting one?

For years there has been quite a bit of hoopla in chiropractic around spinal decompression machines. Trying to get to the bottom of things is sometimes a difficult task.

First, let’s address a few issues some chiropractors have with decompression.

It’s not uncommon for people to say “that’s not chiropractic, therefore I’m not getting one of those.” Well, this person is correct, spinal decompression is not chiropractic. If you’re goal is to have an adjustment only practice without any instrumentation or electronic device, then you should not get a decompression table.

But for doctors who want an excellent way to help their patients, a spinal decompression machine is the #1 therapy device I recommend. Why do I recommend it so much?

Two reasons…

#1.) It helps herniated/bulging/degenerative disc patients get better in ways that no adjustment can. Some people will argue that their technique can do the same thing. I’ve not researched every chiropractic technique available, but I’ve yet to come across one that can pull on the pelvis of a patient with 80lbs of pressure, alternating between relaxing and pulling every 30-45 seconds for a total of 15 minutes.

#2.) The marketing for this is so much easier to do. No, not because it’s a fancy piece of equipment. Not because it’s a gimmick. But because the people who are suffering from disc problems are desperate for a solution. If you’re faced with a lifetime of shots, dangerous pain pills and/or surgical fusion of your spine, how quickly are you going to try something non-invasive like spinal decompression?

Realize, #2 would be insignificant if decompression didn’t work. Ethically it has to work before you can market that it does.

The Bad News

Unfortunately, some hyped up marketing a few years back really altered what chiropractors thought of spinal decompression. Many doctors thought “true spinal decompression” could only be found in spending $100k on a table. If you thought this, then the only 2 choices were to either send a house payment every month for this table or not pursue decompression in your practice because it was out of your price range.

Then, more hyped up marketing (in the form of patient advertising) entered the picture and state boards got involved in banning certain types of marketing. Some states even looked for ways to prevent chiropractors from using spinal decompression, saying it wasn’t in their scope of practice.

I realized that there had to be another way to do this whole decompression thing. One marketing guru couldn’t have cornered the market on spinal decompression in chiropractic.

After a bit of research, I found quite a few manufacturers that make good decompression tables. Of course, then I had to prove to myself that these tables did actually do decompression, since I had been brainwashed as well into thinking only one table was “TRUE DECOMPRESSION.” ( Turns out there all classified by the FDA as traction tables anyway

I won’t go into the details, but most tables that claim decompression actually do decompression. It’s just a matter of how easy it is to use and how nice it looks. Arguments against this are just an old marketing technique (which is sometimes valid, but not here), where you try to get everyone to think your product is the only “real” table that does decompression, and the rest just do traction. You probably heard of this, often times called the unique selling proposition.

The funny thing is, years later, very few people who bought a DRX table will argue that Chattanooga, Saunders, Lordex, (and all the hundreds of other manufacturers) are not doing decompression. Five years ago, ‘them was fightin words’. I even remember threats of lawsuits being thrown around and patenting the words “spinal decompression.”

For $8-10k I could get a table and start helping patients get better. Combined with chiropractic adjustments and other strength building therapies, I saw some amazing results. Not to mention my average case values went up considerably.

Was decompression just a fad, one that has died out?

Well, the $100k tables probably don’t sell like they used to. But spinal decompression is alive and well.

Do you think there will be more or less patients with herniated discs in 2010? How about in 5 years from now? Decompression is not a fad because spinal disc problems are not a fad.

Important: Marketing Is Key

Don’t do like many chiropractors I speak with have done. Don’t spend a ton on a table, and forget to market the thing. You’ve got to market it for what it does, otherwise it’s just an overpriced traction table sitting in your office collecting dust.

This is why I wrote the decompression ads in The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads. It was difficult to find ethical marketing that wasn’t hyped up, so I learned to write my own. And they have done extremely well.

If you don’t have a table yet, don’t wait. Start getting quotes now as the new year is right around the corner. Be ready to hit your decompression marketing strong in January.

If you already have a table, make sure you’re planning the first quarter of 2010 with some strong marketing.

Watch a free webinar where I cover my Area Exclusive decompression marketing program here:

http://www.decompressionmarketingelite.com

As a way of saying thanks for reading my blog, I wanted to give you one of the many lessons from ChiroMarketing Academy. This is a written article posted there, along with all the video and audio lessons to fully flesh out your marketing plan.

Enjoy and have a great Thanksgiving!

You’ve heard it mentioned before. Every chiropractic coach or consultant harps on it. Some chiropractors have even claimed to have reached the magical place where that’s all their practice relies on.

I’m talking about referrals.

The ever elusive type of new patient every practice loves. Referrals, on average, are easier to convert to care, cost little-to-nothing to acquire, and are just all around less stress on your practice. [...]

Are you following all the news on peripheral neuropathy this year?

- In March of this year, a California legislative task force on peripheral neuropathy was established and reported that over 20 million Americans suffer this disease

- It Is Anticipated That by 2010 Sales of Neuropathic Pain Drugs Will Double To US$5.5 Billion.

- Almost 1 million neuropathy related keyword were performed on Google last month in the U.S.

What do these numbers tell you about helping neuropathy patients?

Listen to the webinar replay here…

http://www.neuropathychiros.com

For the first 20 minutes of the webinar I’ll be sharing proven strategies for getting more neuropathy patients in to your practice. All year there’s been one question I’m asked most often, it’s…

“When are you going to write more neuropathy ads? These are doing great!”

I’ve also received quite a bit of feedback on the ads and can tell you what’s working right now, in 2009 to bring in neuropathy patients.

I’ve also asked Dr. John Hayes to join us on the webinar, and spend about 30 minutes showing us exactly what he does to help get his neuropathy patients well. Dr. Hayes, in conjunction with Dr David Phillips, have developed a tested and replicable treatment system for patients with peripheral neuropathy.

I think you’ll be surprised at how easy his protocol is to implement in your practic. And rest assured, it does NOT advocate outrageously expensive equipment, or cold laser therapy!

Here’s just a few of the conditions Dr. Hayes has used his system for…

-Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy
-Post ChemoTherapy Neuropathy
-Diabetic Lumbopelvic Plexopathy and incontinence
-Failed Lumbar Back Surgery
-Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
-Multiple HNPs with bilateral Radiculopathies
-Idiopathic Polyneuropathy
-Chronic, intractable Myofascial Pain

Make sure you listen to the replay of this exciting webinar where we will visually show you how to market to and successfully help neuropathy patients.

http://www.neuropathychiros.com

Yours for a more successful practice,
Michael Beck, D.C.

P.S. Just like spinal decompression was all the rage 5 years ago, the neuropathy niche is only going to get bigger and bigger. Don’t be the last chiropractor in your town who taps into this market of patients.

No doubt there are neuropathy patients in your town right now looking for help. They’re tired of being pumped full of drugs to stop the pain. They want a natural solution.

The only question is how are you going to reach them and what treatment protocol will you be using.

Find out on this webinar:

http://www.neuropathychiros.com

I was recently thumbing through Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Direct Marketing book, looking for a quote I had seen about chiropractic newsletters. While I did find the quote, I was reminded of something even more important when it comes to marketing.

In the first section of the book, Dan lists 10 rules to follow on marketing in your business. What he said in rule #9 can be directly applied to your chiropractic marketing. Here’s what he said…

Rule #9: Results Rule, Period.

Results are what matters when it comes to measuring the success of your marketing.

While there are certain caveats to this rule (which I discuss below), let’s look at what this really means for your practice.

“Results rule, period” means it doesn’t matter what your friends, colleagues, family, front desk CA, or even your spouse thinks about your advertising. When it comes down to it your own feelings about a certain marketing piece aren’t the determining factor of it’s success.

It doesn’t matter what your newspaper representative thinks about your chiropractic ads either. You would be surprised at how many times an ad rep wants to make changes to my ads.  They’ll tell my customer “I can make that ad look much better. Let me have our art department put a better picture in there. And I think you should cut this out and we’ll put you a pretty coupon right there.”

Then I get an email from the doctor asking me if he should let them do this. I tell him “Sure, if THEY GIVE YOU THE AD PLACEMENT FOR FREE! Otherwise, tell them it’s your money and you’ll spend it on the type of marketing you want.”

I once had a front desk CA proof read an ad I was about to run in the small community newspaper. She told me “the ad wasn’t going to do well, because she wouldn’t respond to it herself.” Then I asked if she had a herniated disc like the patients the ad was geared towards. Of course her answer was no. But she still insisted the ad likely wouldn’t do well. I then told her that we could run her rewrite of the ad, if she wanted to pay for it out of her next paycheck. That ended the discussion. (This ad brought in 13 new decompression patients for an ROI of 2062%.)

So who’s vote does count?

The only vote that counts is your patient’s vote, since they are the ones giving you the money. You then total the income from their case fees, and see if it’s more than you paid to run the ad. This is your ROI and it is the determining factor if the ad was successful or not.

So what’s more important when measuring ad results, the number of new patients you get from an ad or the actual ROI?

Well, if you ask most chiropractors, they would tell you it’s the number of new patients. But the ROI is much more telling. The biggest reason is because the ROI figures in the quality of the patient, how long they stay, and how much they spend.

For example, you could get 81 new patients in for a free exam and have only 4 of them actually ever give you money. Or you could have 15 sciatica patients pay $47 for an exam, 13 of which accept a care plan, spend $2000 each and get an ROI of 2500%. Which one would you rather have?

Figuring the ROI will also factor in the “caveat” I mentioned above to Dan’s rule. Here’s what I mean…

If you are measuring purely the number of new patients you got in, you could change the above rule to “Number of New Patients Rule, Period.” But this is not true, as it doesn’t account for the unethical, hyped up, immoral, and in some cases illegal advertising that goes on.

After all, if all that matters is getting the most new patients you can get from an ad, why not “promise a cure” and tell them the first visit is free? Hey, if you’re just measuring new patients, you did great, you got 101 new people in the door! Do whatever it takes, right?

But let’s look at your ROI. After 99 of them waste your time and never pay you a dime, 1 files a lawsuit against you for unethical advertising, and the state board fines you and yanks your license to practice, I’d say your ROI is about a negative 1 million percent.

With that said, I think we should modify Dan’s rule to make it a bit more speficic. “Return on investment rules, period.”

Do you agree or disagree? Post your comments below.

Some people say print newspapers are dead. And maybe a couple in the U.S. are dead or have been bought out by another company.

This means newspaper ads will no longer work for you, right?

Not from what I’ve been hearing. Chiropractic newspaper ads are still working well. In fact, certain conditions like neuropathy, herniated discs, sciatica, and numbness seem to be pulling better than they ever have before.

Could this be due to the population aging? More toxins being in our food and environment? I’m not sure what the cause is, but I can tell you that focusing your marketing on very specific health problems is working better than ever.

In fact, neuropathy is so big I’ll be holding a webinar in a few weeks to show you how to market to these patients. And I’ll have a guest doctor joining us to teach how he’s getting neuropathy patients well.

So back to newspaper ads, do they work?

Well here’s two doctors that recently sent me their success stories with the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads…

“Wow!  My practice is recovering and so is our cashflow. “

I have been blessed with a large and successful practice… but after 14 years something started to happen… Maybe it was the economy or maybe it was my focus.  Life does get busy.

Bottom line: My practice had dropped by 20 to 30% from September of 2008 to July of 2009.  It was pretty ugly.  In August of 2009 I discovered Dr. Beck’s Chiropractic Ad’s and I took a chance.

Wow!  My first Neuropathy Ad brought in 12 new patients… about $5,000 and only cost $700 to run.  My practice is recovering and so is our cashflow.  Not only are the Ads great, I have started using his family and friends gift certificates and his home health recommendations booklet.  It’s great stuff.

-Julian Chipley, DC

“If I had his program 10 years ago, you wouldn’t be reading this,
I`d be fishing off my tropical island someplace!“

Years ago I had a practice which treated 150 patients daily for close to ten years. I eventually went to the DC/MD model when my body wore out and my marketing efforts declined since I was unique in our community regarding  interdisciplinary practice. Spiraling overhead eventually led me to return to solo practice, but the marketing that was successful in the past no longer produced consistent results, and ROI was low.

I liked everything I heard and read pertaining to Dr Beck`s program. I related to hid experiences, and the straight froward approach resonated with me.Unfortunately a lot of the marketing and consulting services available in our profession today use antiquated approaches that simply don`t work like they once did. Long winded scripting, 2-3 day reports, and high cost either out of pocket or with hefty percentages of practice increase are the norm. We all know that  getting qualified new patients in our doors remains THE most important aspect of a successful practice. The initial ad I ran was neuropathy. I`d written ads myself on the condition in the past and experienced modest success from them.

With Dr Beck`s ad I had 21 NPs and many of them have since referred other patients to us. The ROI thus far exceeds 20-1, and the tab is still running. The difference in my opinion is his copywriting skill. I`m actually a pretty good writer, but there`s a science to ad copy that I admittedly know nothing about. If I had his program 10 years ago, you wouldn’t be reading this, I`d be fishing off my tropical island someplace!

- Dr Ren Halverson

Don’t wait until everything slows down during the holidays. Pick up your ads now and get started next week with more new patients.

http://ultimatechiropracticads.com/ultimate-chiropractic-marketing-ads