Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Have you ever been pitched a product or service, but you’re not sure what you’re buying?

I’m not talking about minor details either. I’m talking about when you have absolutely no idea what is going to be included in this product, but you sure do know that it’s the…

“awesomest, coolest, bestest ever product that you must buy now before your whole world comes to an end!”

You see this type of marketing everywhere nowadays. It’s usually personality driven, meaning the marketer tries to sell something based on their charming personality, huge riches or hyped up talk… instead of just telling you what the product or service can actually do for you.

This is a well honed science in the “make money online” niche. I see it all the time. At least one guy who called himself the “Rich Jerk” was honest about it, although so crude he’s now gone with the wind. (And that’s not a parody site either.)

A well known internet marketing guru will start a video of himself surfing on the beach, jump into his Ferrari and speed away to his office where he’ll draw on a white board. He’ll show you what you’re doing wrong and then promise to fix your problems if you only buy his $5,000 course.

Try to find out what’s actually in the course, and all you get is more videos and pictures of big houses, more girls and fast cars. Here’s a parody I made on this topic:

This type of selling is contrasted with a clear list of features and benefits of a marketing package. (For example, check out the multiple videos and bullet lists describing exactly what you get in the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads.)

In case you think this is blog post is just a rant, I do have a point.

Chiropractors do this too.

Now most of you know better than to flash fancy cars and big houses to Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe. This will only make then run away from your practice.

But many chiropractors will take extreme measures to make the patient really like the doctor — then completely fail at showing the patients the benefits of their care.

In your office, you should be giving the patient a list of features and benefits of their care. Usually this would take place in a report of findings, “Mrs. Jones, I recommend 25 treatments over the next 3 months [feature] so that we can help your spine and posture return to normal, allowing you to be active in your life again [benefit].”

So give up the fast cars and big houses type of selling, and just talk to your patients about how your care will benefit them.

I got fed up with marketing, “pushing” patients to refer, hard-sell tactics – honestly I was ready to quit the profession entirely.

It wasn’t that I hated chiropractic. It was that no one could show me an effective way to market and grow my practice. I had spent thousands on marketing systems and coaches, but to what point?

My pregnant wife was struggling up three flights of stairs each day in our new “apartment home” – sometimes having to lug over 50lbs of grocery with two toddlers in tow.

I began to think my uncle was right years ago when he said…

“Why Don’t You Go To Medical School,
Then You’ll Be A Real Doctor.”

This lack of effective marketing tools forced me to look outside the profession for answers. My practice depended on it. I had no time to “hope” something worked. I needed a solution fast!

At the “eleventh hour” of my practice (and just barely in time to save it) I discovered effective marketing strategies and put them into place for my practice. And I began to see results almost immediately. This all lead up to my writing of the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads.

Right now, decide that you will not give up. Work smart, then work hard until you reach your goal. Then set a higher goal and do it again.

Check out this video of a girl who did not know how to give up.

Recently a student from University of California Riverside contacted me for an interview regarding chiropractic marketing. I thought you might be interested in his questions and my answers. It’s a little longer than my usual blog posts, but I didn’t want to divide it up into parts.

Here is the interview:
——

Greg: I’m a student at UC Riverside. I am taking an internet marketing course and we were all assigned a niche (ex. chiropractors, plumbers, dentists) and was told to create an online marketing plan for these professions. I was assigned chiropractors and in my research, I found this site. You seem to be an authority in the industry so would it be ok if I ask you a few questions either through email or phone about Chiropractic Marketing and ROI.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I really appreciate it. My class revolves around internet marketing and its impact for businesses today. I have a couple of generic chiropractor questions and a few more specific internet marketing questions.

My first question: When you are training to become a chiropractor, do they teach you just what you need to be a skilled practitioner or do they also teach you how to run your own chiropractic business. Basically, do they teach you how to market yourself?

Dr. Beck: No. Most chiropractic colleges have one class on the business side of chiropractic and it is very bland. The teacher is often not in practice or if he/she is in practice, they are reluctant to give too much information on marketing, fearing that the college would not approve. The chiropractic schools do a great job of teaching us how to be skilled practitioners and caring doctors, but the business training is really lacking. And you see this affecting the profession with many chiropractors struggling to make ends meet.

Greg:  Do Chiropractors in large cities charge significantly more/make more than those in smaller cities? Or is it mostly standardized across the nation.

Dr. Beck:  There is certainly more potential in a large city for higher income, due to the higher density of potential patients. However there is more competition in large cities and overhead expenses are much higher. Smaller towns allow lower monthly overhead so that the business can have a higher profit margin. Plus smaller towns can allow for easier referral capacity. So it’s a toss up in my mind. I say live where you want to live and raise your family.

Greg: I saw on your website that you mentioned for one example that the lifetime value of a patient is $1800. Is this factual or was it just used for the example? If the latter, what would you estimate the lifetime value of a patient to be.

Dr. Beck: The term “lifetime value” is a typical marketing term used to estimate marketing costs and return on investment. If you take the lifetime value of a customer, then you can determine how much you can spend on marketing to acquire that customer. The lifetime value of a chiropractic patient is between $1000-3000 on average, depending on the type of practice, location and services offered. Some highly specialized niche practices will make higher than $3000. Anyone making less than $1000 per patient, averaged across 12 months, will find it very hard to be profitable in today’s world, unless of course they are getting hundreds of new patients per month.

Greg: I’ve noticed that in many large cities, the Google PPC ads are about $2-$3 a click. Even with a 10% conversion rate (just a guess by me), $30 for a patient worth $1000+ seems like a steal. What are you thoughts on this? Are chiropractors just unaware of these options in acquiring more patients?

Dr. Beck: A 10% conversions directly from Google Adwords would be quite high in my opinion, for any business. The actual number ranges between .5-2% depending mostly on the landing page copy on the doctor’s website. If we assume a conservative 1% conversion rate and high (in most areas) $3 per click, then it would take $300 to get a new patient. At a lifetime value of $1800, that is still a “steal” as you say. The return on investment (ROI) is quite high, with a $1500 profit per patient. Are chiropractors unaware of this? I don’t think most chiropractors understand Pay Per Click well like Google Adwords and they may have been screwed over by a company running it for them in the past. Also, many chiros have been told bad marketing proverbs like “you should never pay over $100 per new patient”, which causes them to quickly decline paying $300 per new patient.

Greg:  In our study one of the questions that we have to answer is if we had a website that ranked for “chiropractor in city” and was getting 100 targeted clicks a month. Not knowing how many people are going to call the chiropractic business, what should we charge the chiropractor for this website per month. What would be a fair price for the chiropractor as well as the webmaster on a monthly basis?

Dr. Beck: Words like “fair price” will mean different things to different chiropractors. So if asking them directly what they would pay for a website, it would depend on the money they are making at the time. Many chiropractors are paying upwards of $3000-5000 for really bad websites; websites that looks great but fail at getting new patients. Other companies charge a monthly fee like $500 for a website design and maintenance (which does not include an PPC.) I personally think no more than $1000-1500 for a website and additional monthly fees for Adwords management.

Greg: What would be the maximum you pay for the lead. We are going to assume he is a random patient meaning he may only go to the initial appointment or he may stay for a few years.

Dr. Beck: How much would I pay for a lead in practice? Almost nothing since leads do not equal new patients. I once bought a chiropractor’s files who was going out of business and mailed out letters to all 1000 of them. Not one came in. But I assume by the word “lead” you mean new patient. How much would I pay for a new patient? I would pay at least 70% of the lifetime value. But few chiropractors will do this high of a number, because of multiple factors mostly related to now knowing their numbers. (Most physicians and healthcare practitioners are not known for their ability to keep good business statistics.) Many chiropractors have been told they should pay little to nothing to get new patients in. Some have even been taught it’s unethical for a doctor to do any type of marketing. Also as I mentioned above, there is this proverb going around that we shouldn’t pay more than $100 per new patient, so that’s a baseline for you to consider.

Regarding a “random patient” who might stay one or might stay 100 visits, all this is factored into the lifetime value number as it is an average across your practice.

Greg:  I appreciate your time. I’m grateful for any help and I am looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much, Greg Larkin, Student at UC Riverside.

A big mistake in practice is that chiropractors do not nurture the relationship with their current patients. We take it for granted that if the patient starts care, they will always do what we tell them to do.

This is not reality. Look at your stats. How many patients have quit care and never been seen again. We may never know why they quit. But there are certain things we can do to help them complete their treatment plan.

I’ve never been a fan of strong arm tactics to get people to do things. Why?

Because it’s rude and it does not work. Sure you can convince someone with hype and “rah-rah” to stay on wellness or maintenance care. But the truth is a few weeks later, the “pep talk” has wore off and the patient will begin asking themselves…

“Do I really need to keep going to see that chiropractor?”

So what’s the solution to this mistake?

Consistent, monthly contact through direct mail (and email). The best and proven way to maintain a relationship with your patients is by sending them a monthly newsletter. This will keep your active patients connected to you and feel like they have a better relationship with you. After all, no other doctor or chiropractor sends them something in the mail each month.

I can not tell you how many patients I have had over the years “return” for care in my office, simply because they got a newsletter from me. Some of these patients we had ‘written off’ because we thought they were never coming back .

This works so well, we even had a few patients that we thought would never come back because they actually left the office upset about something.

And, we got new patient referrals from the newsletter as well. This is because every month there is a personalized letter from me with an offer on the back page.

Marketing guru Dan Kennedy talks about “putting a fence around your herd.” He says if you don’t put a fence around you’re herd, they will get out and go into other people’s pasture (you’re competition!)

And the #1 method Dan Kennedy recommends for keeping your customers is a monthly newsletter.

What should your newsletter be about?

It should include relevant topics to the care you give. Healthy living tips, studies, and seasonal articles are great content.

The slam-dunk thing about newsletters is that they are very inexpensive to produce and mail. For about $10-15 per patient, you can stay in contact with your patient list monthly for a year.

If you have the time and skill, you can write your own newsletter. Another option is to let a service do it for you. There are quite a few newsletter services out there, but not one that I specifically recommend at the moment.

Just make sure you get few samples of their newsletter before you sign up with the service.

If you stay in contact with your patients, they will stay with you longer. And if you give them an opportunity to refer other new patients, they will. Try it for a year and see if it isn’t an excellent low cost marketing strategy.

How do you know if you’re marketing is working?

Many would say the answer is “by the number of new patients” or “by the number of phone calls.”

While these are both good signs that help you to determine if an ad is successful or not, they are not the right way to measure success in marketing.

Let me show you how measuring your return on the number of new patients only can mislead you. Here’s an example of a conversation I once had:

Doc: Dr. Beck, I only got 5 new patients from the ad I ran. I consider this a failure!

Me: How much did the ad cost you to run?

Doc: $500

Me: Did all 5 patients start care? And how much is your average case fee (or lifetime value)?

Doc: $1,800

Me: So you made $9,000 from an ad that cost you only $500 and you consider that a failure?

I know as chiropractors we get all wrapped up in talking about the number of new patients we get from certain marketing campaigns. It is an important stat to keep. But successful business know that it’s your return on investment (ROI) that really matters.

That’s ROI for the whole practice and specifically for each ad we run.

So how do you figure the ROI? Let me show you by using some real numbers. Here’s an email I just received from one of my Decompression Marketing Elite clients:

Hello doc,

Stats update from first EM ad ran as insert; collections in my hand. Ready for this? lol!

I ran in as 21,500 inserts in a free paper; printing cost $515.41 Distribution for inserts cost me $376.25 = total of $891.25 combined
15 day only offer of $35 expired 9-6-11;

Grand total= $17,490.00 collected with residual collections for multipal payment program option uncollected yet. Table is now filled for next 6.5 weeks!

27 new SD patients were scheduled
7 still remaining to be seen.
8 signed and paid in full

Now let’s do some math. I calculate marketing return on investment the quick and easy way. Take the total amount collection and divide it by the cost to run the ad. 20:1 ROI (19.6 rounded up) as of right now, just 2 days after the expiration date of the ad!

$17,940/$891 = 1962% ROI
or 20:1 Return

It goes without saying that not everyone will get these kinds of results. Some will do even better. Many will get a great return although it may not be this high.

But the point is this doctor has kept excellent records of his ad and is quickly able to figure ROI. He’ll need to re-figure the results later after ALL the money has come in. So in the end, it should be even higher than a a 20:1 ROI since 7 new patients have not yet come in and the residual payments have not all been collected.

What kind of returns are you getting from your chiropractic marketing? And if you aren’t measuring ROI, how do you know if your campaigns are successful or not?

Can you tell me what is the most important point to make in any and all marketing you do?

(Whether it’s your newspaper ad, website, or patient education, you must have this or it will fail every time.)

Before I tell you the answer, let’s see if you can find it in this article about “Burger King decapitating its King”.

After spending millions of dollars to promote cool and hip commercials with the King Mascot, BK is pulling the plug on this marketing failure.

Why would they do this investing so much to “brand” it into the consumers mind?

Simple. It. Doesn’t. Work.

BK’s biggest rival, McDonalds, is gaining market share while Burger King is losing it.

Why? Here’s the key:

This discrepancy in performance is not the result of McDonald’s having more “creative” advertising or a hipper mascot (Ronald Mc Donald is many things – hip he’s not). But while Burger King was trying to sell consumers an edgy brand image, McDonald’s focused on something much more mundane: selling burgers, fries and coffee. The rest is marketing history.

Do you see it?

The most important concept in any marketing you do is providing a solution to the prospect’s problem. The fast food eater’s problem is that he is hungry, and he wants his food fast.

Now who’s going to connect with the conversation going on in the prospects head: the goofy, big-headed King Mascot jumping around or images of juicy, greasy burgers and fries being cooked up.

Yet, even though BK has spent millions running these silly commercials on TV, they realized it wasn’t working. It’s time to pull the plug and start over, focusing on actually selling the product.

In chiropractic, this means you have to focus on connecting the patient’s problem with your solution. Your solution — that’s the product you’re selling. And make no mistake, while you may not be “hard selling”, you are selling something. Everyone in a for-profit business is selling.

So don’t keep running ineffective ads that may look pretty and impress your receptionist, but do not connect to the patients.

I’ve not eaten at either of these restaurants since I started Chiropractic College. But even though I’m not their target audience, I always thought the King commercials were a waste of money. Maybe it’s just my marketing training.

What do you think?

There’s a little-known formula that you should use in all the marketing you do. This formula should be used when speaking, running newspaper ads, sending direct mail, on your website, and more.

It was officially put into writing in 1898, and has been used in almost every industry since. (It’s really been around since the beginning of creation, because the way humans think has not changed!)

This formula has proven successful for many, many decades, especially in direct response marketing. It’s called the AIDA formula. Let me show you how it works…

A = Attention. Your advertising should grab the reader’s attention. The best way to get someone’s attention is with your headline, if an ad, or your opening sentence (if you’re speaking.) John Caples once said that the headline is 80% of the ads effectiveness.

I = Interest. After you’ve grabbed their attention, you want to continue to making it interesting. What we’re doing here is not just putting up big, bold words in the headline just to get their attention.

You may have experienced advertising in the past that did something crazy and shocking to grab your attention, but as soon as that was over and they started talking about their product. You were no longer interested.

There’s advertising that uses words just to get your attention, but then the ad has nothing to do with that word. It almost feels like a bait and switch, where they’ve baited you, you go to look at the ad and it has nothing to do with the headline.

D = Desire. After the reader is interested in your ad, then you want to arouse their desire. The desire of your prospects are simple: they want to be rid of this annoying health problem. They want the benefits you can offer them.

For those who have my chiropractic ads, you’ll notice many of them describe what the reader will experience once they’ve improved their health…like more energy, more golf, etc. (You should continue this type of”conversation” with them during your report of findings.)

A = Action. Action is where you make the offer and then tell them how to place the appointment. In our case, how to schedule the appointment. The prospective patient must be given a reason to come and see you over all the other offices in town.

This formula that has been effectively working for over 100 years. Unfortunately, many chiropractors are not following this simple strategy with their marketing.

A few minutes every day, I take time to see what interesting concepts I can learn from other bloggers. I use Google Reader to manage all my feeds, that way I don’t have to visit every website individually. Here are some articles and videos related to chiropractic marketing that I’ve been meaning to post for you.

The Power of Passionate Stories – Terry Dean says, “What story are you telling in your business? How to motivate people to change and live a better life? Charts, facts, and figures make good proof, but they don’t motivate people. You can show them charts until their eyes glaze over, but they won’t take action on them.”

Don’t Let Your Small Practice Make You Small Minded! – Chris says, “Most chiropractors fresh out of school fail within the first two years of opening their practice…those first two years in business can be scary, risky, draining, and frustrating…”

Google Deleting Legitimate Places Reviews? – If you have a Google Places page, you should read this account. It appears many business (maybe even yours) have had their reviews deleted by Google.)

Google+: A Chiropractor’s Perspective – Google+ is being called the new Facebook of the internet. I’m not sure I would make that claim, but I’m definitely watching it and plan to use it as part of my marketing plan. In this article, Dr. Mac tells you why it’s going to be very important to us in the future. Also, here’s a funny video Dr.Mac links to in his article:

It is very likely that everything you’ve been taught about what motivates people is wrong. In this video you’ll see why giving a bonus to your staff based on money alone is not motivating them. In addition I recommend you ask how these concepts can be used to motivate yourself to achieve your goals this year.

I can attest that the 2 motivations Pink gives at the end of the video have worked tremendously well for my productivity.

To learn more, check out Danial Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

It was a hot, sunny July 4th weekend in the Texas hill country. Thankfully there was a slight breeze, but not much help when the thermometer is near 100.

After returning home from church, I was reading on the couch when I heard a loud cracking sound outside. At first, I thought it was my air conditioning unit falling apart. Great! It’s gonna be a hot afternoon now! But then the sound was gone so fast, I thought maybe it was only the wind,

Then about an hour later my daughter took the dog for a walk and nearly fell over this tree in the front yard. She ran saying “Daddy, this huge tree just fell in our yard!” I thought she must have been exaggerating, as some of the females in our house are prone to do.

But sure enough, a huge post oak, over 40 feet tall and with a trunk bigger than my waist, had cracked and fallen in the front yard.

The very tree that my little children had been playing under just the previous day. Next to this tree, another one exactly like it shades our picnic table and holds up a swing for the kids.

Why did the tree fall?

It was perfectly healthy. No disease. No bugs inside. Sure we’re in the worst drought in Texas history right now, but this tree had green leaves and was thriving.And it’s not like we’ve had any hurricane winds lately.

There was absolutely no outward sign this tree would fall over.

Yet once it fell, you could see what the cause of death really was. I’ll get to that in a moment.

Why am I telling you about a majestic oak falling down in my yard?

Because it applies to how you run your practice. Let me explain…

When my practice was struggling, it looked great on the outside. The patients really had no idea it was in trouble. The carpet was clean, the paint looked good, I dressed well and my staff was professional. And while it’s true there weren’t ever more than a couple of people in the office at the time, most patients just thought we had scheduled them during a special time.

However, on the inside the whole business was starting to crack. Marketing was pretty much useless, because every time I let the newspaper design an ad for me it failed miserably. New patients began to dwindle, visits decreased and cash flow quickly dried up.

My family noticed though. They noticed every time we climbed into the 1998 4 door Ford Escort in the August heat (with a broken AC to boot!) Anyone who came by the house noticed, as there was sparse furniture and even less food. Business associates and friends noticed as well, but I pretty much ignored their sage advice.

After all, I was told not to associate with such “negative thinking people”.

Things did turn around at the 11th hour of my practice, thanks to finally mastering marketing and patient care plans. (You can read the whole story at my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads site.) And we were blessed to be given a second chance right on the verge of bankruptcy.

But the point is there were signs–very big signs—that my practice was headed south. But I just ignored them and chose not to deal with the problems.

The same thing is true with the tree collapse. There were signs. I had been warned when we moved in to this house. And as soon as I saw what had happened, his words came back to me, “Ya, post oaks are pretty. But they grow up to just fall over in your yard!”

But I thought, “No way, won’t happen to my trees.” Just because the tree trunk weighs a thousand pounds and is growing at 45 degree angle doesn’t mean anything. Just because the neighboring lot has 5 or 10 trees that have fallen over doesn’t mean anything. I just need to ignore those negative trees

Of course, once it fell you could see the inside of the trunk had split. The crack was completely undetectable on the outside. But inside, the crack had completely taken the support out of the base, going 2-3 feet into the ground even. Once that trunk base split inside, it was just a matter of time before the tree collapsed. Thank God my children weren’t playing under it at that moment.

Here’s the point. Wherever your practice is right now…whether it’s super successful or fallen on hard times…you better take a look at it’s health. What’s your marketing look like? Are you focusing on condition-specific marketing yet? Is your monthly new patient volume trending up or down?

There are a lot of factors to look at in addition to marketing. I’ve listed just a few. But often the loss of new patients (which means no or poor marketing strategies) is where serious problems start.

Don’t wait until the whole thing collapses. Fix the cracks before they get worse. Next week we’ll look at specifically how to do just that.