Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Do you know what demographics you want to be marketing too?

The term demographic is defined as “a single vital or social statistic of a human population.” What this means to you is that you can use demographic information to make sure you’re spending you’re money where it will have the best effect. Here are just a few demographic measurements you should be looking at:

• Number of people in a household (which tells you if you’re dealing with families or singles, homes or apartment complexes)
• Median income per household
• Racial and ethnic information (helpful in marketing to a foreign language, etc.)
• Education level
• Median home value

These statistics can be used an various ways to help you get a better return on your investment. One example has to do with direct mail. If you’re going to spend $500, $1000, or more on a direct mail campaign, you want to focus on the right area of your town or city. Are you going to mail to a business district where your mail will likely be trashed, or to a neighborhood with high median home values?

Another way to use this information is when you have multiple newspapers in your area targeting different areas of the city, you can compare the demographics to the paper distribution. This can also help when you are running inserts in the paper by zip code.

I once had 10 different newspapers to choose from, ranging from a very small neighborhood newspaper to the large Dallas Morning News. With the right demographic information, I could target and test very specific areas of my town, plus surrounding towns, to find out which performed the best. Some of the 10 newspapers I could quickly dismiss as useless because their distribution went too far or hit areas I was not interested in marketing to. To have this information meant a huge amount of time and money could be saved. (One thing I learned is don’t always trust the newspaper’s own demographics, as they can be slanted to make that newspaper look good!)

An awesome new tool I recently discovered can be very helpful in determining the demographics of your area (if you practice in the U.S.) It’s called the NY Times Mapping America Project. If you go there and put in your city or zip code, you will be able to select many different demographic maps. Here’s one I created for the North Dallas area.

When you mouse over the live version, you can see each census tract’s median household income and it even shows you what percentage that has changed since the 2000 census! If you understand the true value of demographics, you will know this tool is going to be very useful to you.

I would highly recommend you visit the website, check out your area, and bookmark it for future use. Consult this site whenever you are making decisions about where to run different marketing campaigns. Also, make sure you check out the different maps and how they relate to your area by using the blue button at the top right that says “View more maps.”

Speaking of demographics, here is a neat video on the world demographics since 1810.

In this video training, I show you how to select and purchase a list of local residents near your practice. Then, I take you through the steps of how to get the postcards printed and mailed out. In the video I reference “decompression patients” as an example, but the same principles apply to any type of patient as well.

(If you do not see a video here, you need to update to the newest version of flash player. Click here to get the newest version for free.)

**To access other chiropractic marketing videos, visit http://www.chiromarketingacademy.com.

Which months are the best to advertise in? Is December or January really a waste of money?

Everyone has an opinion about when to market and when to be a scrooge with your marketing dollars. But there are certain months I have discovered are great to advertise in.

Let’s look at a few conditions…

For auto accident ads, you want to advertise during the times of the year when the weather has an effect. It’s been shown that during icy periods, rain, or fog, more people will get into accidents. This doesn’t mean you can’t run a PI ad during good weather, but after bad weather is best.

If you live in warmer climates, then you would want to run ads that affect people who are more active like golf, etc. Contrary to popular belief, patients do see chiropractors in the summer and you should be marketing then.

It’s much smarter to run ads and keep your marketing up during the summer, than it is to listen to consultants telling you to take the summer off from advertising.

Does the consultant to take off all summer from his marketing to chiropractors?

There is a period of time where you should curtail your marketing, but it’s a short period of time at the end of the year. That’s means the last two weeks of December you should not have a new ad coming out.

Not because people are spending more money at this time, the money is low, and all that fluff.

It’s simply because people are less likely to be considering their health during this time, based on their travel schedule and the things that they have going on. Readership in most newspapers drop during this time too.

No matter what any consultant or colleague says, that’s the only two weeks you should not consider having a live ad in the paper. (That right, all other Holiday weeks are great.)

I would definitely recommend having an ad the first week of December though!

January is typically a decent month only because a lot of people will be considering their health and their new year?s resolutions then. I don?t find January to be the best month, in my experience, but it certainly is a good month for marketing.

Funny story on January.

One consultant I had said that I should market hard in January, because that’s when everyone is “thinking about their health”.  Another consultant I had later said “no, absolutely don’t spend any money on advertising in January, because that’s when everyone’s deductibles start over!”

Who’s right?

Who cares! What month do you not want new patients to come in?

Really, every month is a good month for marketing, even December.

Don’t get the idea because I said don’t advertise in the last two weeks of December you should take the whole month off.

A lot of chiropractors make the mistake of saying…

“I’m going to take December off from marketing. And nope, can’t market in June and July because kids are out of school. November? Well shucks, there’s Thanksgiving, so I better not spend money there. April has Easter weekend, May memorial day weekend, and September has labor day weekend so I can’t market in those months either…..”

You get the picture. Don’t be like this fool who always has an excuse why they aren’t marketing their practice. That mentality is going to hurt your practice.

I’ve known doctors who’ve done these stupid things and have struggled just to keep the doors open. All because they put their marketing on halt for awhile. They thought their referrals would keep them going through these “non-advertising months”.

But where do most referrals come from? They mostly come from new patients or newer patient who’ve started care in the last month.

With all that said, there are some months that have proven to work better for me and my coaching clients.

The best months I’ve found to market were in the middle of the spring and fall (March and April, October and November). I can’t say for certain why that is. I have certain theories, but it doesn’t really matter. The fact is that’s when I’ve found my ads have the best response.

This does not mean that you should only run your chiropractic ads during these months!

It only means you should have more ads running than the normal during these times. November has always been a very good month for me, even with the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.

But this is not a hard and fast rule. I only mention it to you so you can test it. One year July was my biggest ever months when it comes to collections and new patients.

Occasionally I’ll get an email asking if my newspaper ads really do work like I claim on the website.

And while I can’t say that they will work 100% of the time in every town, since there are factors outside my control like crummy newspapers, they bring in quite a few new patients.

I often wonder “why are chiropractors so skeptical of good marketing ideas?”

But, then I remember all the hyped up, over-exaggerated claims out there in our profession.

You know the ones that make huge claims with very little to no proof. Websites with almost unbelievable crap. Smooth sounding salesmen on the phone with a rough, scratchy ‘I’m-your-buddy’ voice. Or ads in chiropractic journals with headlines like… 

“208 New Patients with One Ad!”

or

“I have the BIGGEST practice in the whole world and make $145,270.16 per month!!!!”

(I particularly like this last example. I’m thankful he put the exact number down to the penny, because until I saw that 16 cents I was really doubting it. Alas, now my doubts are resolved.)

Maybe these claims are true. It’s certainly possible to get hundreds of patients and have the biggest practice in the world. Yet not very probable.

But it sure would help if they gave some real PROOF to back up these enormous claims!

For example, if there is a testimonial, how about giving the person’s full name and town they live in. And I’m not talking about “Dr. T — California” or “P.M.–Montana” either. I’ve heard of marketers (especially internet marketers) out there who flat out lie and make up testimonials to put on their site. So, just having someone’s initials isn’t enough proof to back up a claim. Especially a big, unbelievable claim.

If a doctor got 202 new patients from one ad, I want to see his name, age, town…maybe even a video of him showing how excited he is.  200 new patients is more than some chiropractors see all year.

What really sets a customer’s mind at ease when buying a marketing product is having a 100% money back guarantee.

If these products and marketers had a guarantee then you could feel better about taking the risk when buying their material. If their claims are hyped up, you’ll know when you buy their product and you can simply send it back.

When I wrote my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads, I knew there would be some skepticism. This is why I put in a 90 day guarantee. If someone isn’t happy — for any reason — they can send it back for a full refund. All I ask is that they run at least 1 ad. That’s fair isn’t it?

So be careful out there. Examine every claim with common sense and reason.

But don’t assume everything that has to do with chiropractic marketing is hype. There are marketing strategies and tools that work to bring in an extra 10, 20 or 30 new patients a month. For most doctors, these are welcome numbers to be adding to their other new patient endeavors.

(This post is part two of a two part series. To see the first 3 strategies, click here.)

#4. Use Good Telemarketing

Many chiropractors think telemarketing is some kind of sleazy type of marketing that only ambulance chasers would do. Unfortunately if you think this way, you could be missing out on a great method of getting new patients.

Using telemarketing services with a reputable company is such an easy way to get new patients.
One thing to realize with telemarketing is that the conversions are probably going to be lower than new patients from the other strategies I mention.

The lower conversions can lead some chiropractors to believe telemarketing patients are not worth the trouble and too much work on the doctor and staff. But it’s really return on investment that you should look at.

I ran telemarketing campaigns for almost 6 years straight and always made a considerable return on my investment. One client of mine is getting 10-15 new patients A WEEK from telemarketing, and converting a 50% of them to care.

#5. Use Effective Direct Mail

Direct mail is one of the oldest forms of marketing. Even with the rise of internet, radio and TV direct mail marketing still grows each year.

There are many different forms of direct mail — postcards, letters, magalogs, magazines, tear sheets — but postcards and letters are the most often used by chiropractors.

If your marketing budget is tight, you should start with postcards then move into letters at a later point. It’s also important to note that you should not start direct mail until you have other less risky marketing strategies in place — namely newspaper ads and internet marketing. This is because direct mail requires more patience and testing to be profitable. But don’t let this deter you, because when used properly, direct mail can be very profitable.

When it comes to postcards, you can choose between the small regular size, a half page size and an oversized postcard. Most direct mail testing shows that the bigger the postcard, the better the response. Of course much of the response will come from the words, or the “copy”, on the postcard.

The list you buy is going to determine about 50% of the response you get from direct mail. Make sure that you find a decent list broker so you’re getting good addresses.

#6. Use PPC Marketing And Social Media To Get New Patients

PPC stands for “pay per click marketing”, and you should be using it to bring new patients into your practice. The three big PPC companies currently are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. When someone searches on Google for the term “chiropractor” your ad would show up. If the person clicks on your ad, they go to the website you designate and you get charged a small fee.

The best thing about PPC is that you only get charged for people who click on your ad. You aren’t getting charged for everyone to see your ad, just for those who click on it. Also, you can customize and tweak the ads, so that you’re only getting certain types of patients. For example, you might want to set up a PPC campaign just for spinal decompression and focus on speaking to that patient about his disc problems. (For more info on setting up a PPC account, see my previous post here.)

Another great tool to get people to your website — and then call you to schedule an appoint –  is by using social media. Social media is a catch phrase for all the popular websites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and many of the blogs out there. To use this method, you basically create accounts on these sites and link them back to your website. If you’d like to learn more about this method, I recommend you grab Dr. Loop’s course here.

#7. Do The Report of Findings Right

You may be wondering why I would mention the ROF in an article about marketing. I do this because how you handle the report with a patient will likely decide if they will refer their friends or family in.

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of mistakes in this part of a chiropractor’s office.

You want to give the patient a short, no-fluff report with certainty. Some chiropractic coaches will tell you to give a long winded speech here to hard sell the patient on care. If the patient really wants help with their problem, and you have some objective findings to show them, you won’t need to hard sell them on care.

A report should not take longer than 10 minutes. Tell them what you found. Tell them if you can fix it and a BRIEF summary of how you’ll do that. Layout their care plan and explain why it takes time. Go over the cost (this is best if your staff does the financial part). If insurance is involved, have that prepared and covered by your staff at this time.

Have a simple, easy to follow payment plan for your patients. At least 2 options of payment, 3 at most. Remember, very simple. I have seen so many complex systems that almost force the patient to “go home and think about it.”

Also, you’ll want to begin mentioning how your office sees families (if you do). If done in a non-forceful way, it’s likely the patient will begin to ask questions about their spouse or children. This is a great opportunity to educate them on sending a referral in.

(If you haven’t read it yet, you should read my last blog post “Death of a Chiropractic Salesman” before reading this one.)

To get down to the bottom of chiropractic advertising, we begin with a story…

In 1898, at the age of eighteen, Albert Lasker left Galveston, TX and traveled to Chicago by train to learn advertising from the agency of Lord & Thomas. As Mr. Lasker learned the ropes of working in the agency, he quickly began to have a burning question…

“What is Advertising?”

You see, Lasker quickly realized that even though his new employer called themselves an “advertising agency”, no one could tell him what advertising really meant. Not his manager, not even the owners of the company. Mr. Lasker did finally come across an ad man, from a rival company at the time, who offered to help him on his quest. The conversation went like this…

“Well”, said Lasker, “what is right in advertising? Can’t you define it for me?”

“Why”, said the friend, “advertising is keeping your name in front of the people.”

To that, Lasker replied, “Well supposing I can’t live that long. Supposing I go broke; that I can’t keep my name before the people. There must be something else to this thing called advertising.”

I need to stop the story at this point and ask…how many chiropractors do this very same thing? How often have you heard, or even said it yourself, “I just need to get my name out there.” While getting your name in front of people certainly won’t hurt (as long as your name is being mentioned in a good way!), you aren’t likely to live long enough to rely solely on it as a way of growing your practice.

Another way chiropractors use this wrong line of thinking is by running ads in the newspaper or putting up websites that only have their name, phone number, etc. They believe this is getting their name out there in front of the reader and therefore, will be enough to get a new patient. This indeed will work if your are the only chiropractor in town, and it’s circa 1951, but for most of us this form of advertising is a complete waste of money.

Back to the story…

Within a few years, Mr. Lasker had become a partner in the agency, yet he still did not have a good definition of advertising. He had come to the conclusion that advertising was simply “news”, since most ads of that day were simply a small space ad announcing a new product. While Lasker was sitting upstairs talking with another partner is their office, a note got delivered to the room by a bellboy.  It read…

Lasker sent a note down immediately saying yes, he’d like to know. Mr. Kennedy was shown upstairs, and the two met. Kennedy asked Lasker, “Do you know what advertising is?”

Lasker said “I think I do. It is news.”

Kennedy replied, “No, news is a technique of presentation, but advertising is a very simple thing. I can give it to you in three words.”

“Well,” said Lasker, “I am hungry. What are those three words.”

At this, Mr. Kennedy revealed the three words that would change advertising forever. He said…

“Salesmanship in print.”

Advertising had always been”salesmanship in print”, and would always be, but Kennedy was the first to put it in those exact words.

This is what your chiropractic advertising must be…in your newspaper ads, on your webpages, pay-per-click ads, email messages, etc. Today, you could slightly change it to be “salesmanship on video” or “on audio” since we have new technologies that can be used to persuade and influence. (If you question whether chiropractors “sell”, you should read my last blog post.)

News, in the form of press releases, can be good for your practice. “Getting your name out” can get an occasional patient or two. But persuading prospects that chiropractic has the answers…and that your office is the office to choose…now that is advertising that will set you apart from your competition and give you a means to obtain success in life.

This offer has expired

Each year, over 41 million people in the United States move into a new home. This will mean a complete change in where they buy products and services from.

Many of these new homeowners will want to continue their chiropractic care after moving. Some will have injured themselves doing all that heavy lifting. Others may decide it’s finally time to do something about their health. Whatever the reason, many of these new movers are going to need your chiropractic services.

A New Mover Letter

What better time to send out letter introducing yourself as the premier chiropractor in town? Think about it. Most new residents to a city or town will use the service providers they come into contact with first. Because many chiropractors fail to market their practice properly, these new movers are are going to use the internet to look one up.

Why leave it to chance whether they find you or not?

I recommend getting a quality list of new homeowners and mailing them a specific marketing letter. The letter should welcome them to the community, introduce who you are, mention your practice and how you help, plus give them a special “New Mover offer” to come in. I’ve even given away a free product just for the new resident stopping by to meet us. Why? Because if they actually do come by, they’re likely interested in “checking us out”. So why not give a gift to welcome then to the neighborhood.Who are they doing to think about when it’s time to see the chiropractor?

Other than the letter, you’re going to need a quality list of new movers to your area. Preferably from a low cost source that can give you names and addresses each month as people move in. I’ve used companies in the past where half my letters came back as undeliverable. But recently I’ve come across a company with exceptional service.

You can learn more about them at Movertrends.com. You’ll find their website very easy to use. I especially like how easy it is to drill down and pick the county or by zip code. (As a reader of this blog, you can use my discount code to get 33% off any order at MoverTrends.com. All you have to do is click through the link below.)

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How many addresses should you start with? The answer will depend on your monthly budget for marketing. But I recommend at least 500-1000 names to start with. At the low price and with the above mentioned discount code, the addresses are only around 20 cents per name. So you may want to even go back and grab the last 3 months of movers as many of them are still looking for a chiropractor.

How to Get My New Homeowner Marketing Letter.

Are you concerned about what kind of letter to send out? Writing a marketing letter is not your favorite thing to do between seeing patients?

No worries. I’ll give you a copy of my letter for free. All you need to do is forward your email receipt from your Mover Trends order to our email: support at dcpracticetools.com (with the @ sign instead of the “at”). My staff will then send you (via email) my new homeowner letter in MS Word format, so you can edit as needed. Then, just have your CA print the letters, stuff them and stamp the envelopes.

Of course you could choose to send a postcard instead to save a few pennies. But I’ve found a letter to be more personal and get a better return on my money. These new movers already get a ton of postcards in the mail. Your postcard is likely to end up in the same places as the rest…in the trash can.

How many new patients can you expect from this type of campaign each month?

Depending on how many people move into your area each month, and what your budget is, you could get anywhere from 1-10 new patients a month. Not bad for something simple and inexpensive like mailing a new mover letter.

Grab the list of new movers to your zip code by visiting…

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It’s time for you to experience growth in your practice, even during the recession.

http://www.chiromarketingacademy.com

If you’ve been following my blog lately, you know that I’ve been releasing a sample of the content from the new ChiroMarketing Academy. The Academy is a membership site unlike anything else in chiropractic. Each month, you’ll have access to private lessons and training videos that teach you how to…

- Bring in more quality new patients using print and internet marketing, referrals, internal promotions, and more.
- Convert patients to care using non-forceful techniques. (It took me years of trial and error to discover these!)
- Keep patients for life with very specific high retention strategies and tactics.

I even captured a short video that gives you a sneak peek inside the membership site. You can see for yourself exactly what’s included in ChiroMarketing Academy.

Check it out now:
http://www.chiromarketingacademy.com

If you’re wondering why the membership is such a low price right now, it’s only the first 50 (only 45 remaining) members who join that will get a special charter membership worth 50% off. With over 1000 chiropractors reading this today, I can’t say how long the remaining 45 memberships will last. It could be a week or it could be less than 24 hours. Once all the charter memberships have been taken, the price will double and likely double again in 6 months (since new content is added every month.)

Either way, I advise you to at least take a look at what’s been added to ChiroMarketing Academy and see how the new strategies can help you grow your practice. There’s a 30 day guarantee on your membership, so you risk nothing by giving it a try.

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

P.S. As a special bonus for those who join ChiroMarketing Academy, I’ve thrown in The Renegade Marketing Letters…proven marketing letters for referrals, reactivations, and event promotions. With these easy-to-implement marketing tools, you can start seeing new patients this week and easily get back your investment in ChiroMarketing Academy immediately.

http://www.chiromarketingacademy.com

Have you ever wanted to send postcards to get more new patients? How about a letter to your inactive patient list or new homeowners in your area?

In this 6 minute video, I’ll show you how to quickly print and mail through the USPS in a matter of minutes. [...]

Has the internet replaced ‘snail mail’ when it comes to marketing?

A recent study by Vertis Communications in Baltimore found that 46% of adults responded to direct mail in 2007. This is only slightly down from 47% in 2003. As powerful as the internet is (and you should be using internet marketing in your practice), advertisements sent via the mail remains a steady and profitable strategy.

Are you using direct mail to bring in new patients for your practice?

Direct mail is one of the oldest forms of marketing. Even with the rise of newer media like radio, internet and TV direct mail marketing still grows each year.

There are many different forms of direct mail — postcards, letters, magalogs, magazines, tear sheets — but postcards and letters are the most often used by chiropractors. If your marketing budget is tight, you should start with postcards then move into letters at a later point.

It’s also important to note that you should not start direct mail until you have other less risky marketing strategies in place — namely newspaper ads and internet marketing. This is because direct mail re-quires more patience and testing to be profitable. But don’t let this deter you, because when used properly, direct mail can be very profitable.

When it comes to postcards, you can choose be-tween the small regular size, a half page size and an oversized postcard. Most direct mail testing shows that the bigger the postcard, the better the response. Of course much of the response will come from the words, or the “copy”, on the postcard.

The success of a direct mail letter can also depend on the copywriting. A personalized letter coming from your office should have the following compo-nents…

-Use a compelling headline that makes the reader want to learn more.
-Open the letter with a question or curiosity, then explain who you are.
-Talk about the health problems you help people with in your office
-Give plenty of testimonials
-Make a good offer for the reader to come in as a new patient.
-Have a P.S. reminding the reader what you are offering

The list you buy is going to determine about 50% of the response you get from direct mail. Make sure that you find a decent list broker so you’re getting good addresses.

An easy list broker to use is www.infousa.com. I really like their map tool which allows you to draw a shape around your office. This allows you to pick certain neighborhoods and developments. You can also select just the new homeowners from their list. Put the letters into a plain white envelope and hand write the address in blue ink. Then put a live stamp, not a metered stamp, on the envelope. Your staff can do all of this for you.

If you can get a special stamp, like an upcoming holiday or a Disney stamp for example, use that one on your direct mail envelopes. This will make it look more like a personal letter when your recipient gets it.

Another direct mail strategy is to use what’s called a “tear sheet”. A tear sheet looks like an ad in the newspaper, except that someone ripped it out and mailed it to you.

You may have seen these before, where they have a post-it note on them that says, “I thought you might want to look at this, J”. (Supposedly everyone knows someone with a name that starts with J.) To use tear sheets, ask your local printer if he’s familiar with printing them.

Oversized postcards are another option. Just print a full sized newspaper ad (like the large ads in the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads) on a large postcard and mail it. In the case of postcards, you can use metered stamps and address labels.

You could also place smaller ads on regular size postcards, lowering the postage cost. However, just like your newspaper ads, the bigger the postcard, usually the better the response.

In 2009, begin implementing direct mail into your marketing plan. But remember, what is written on the postcards is just as important as the list you select to mail to. Don’t just send out some glossy postcard with lots of graphics. Use proven direct response copy or ads.