Newspaper ads

Great Chiropractic Advertising Begins With Four Principles

Consider all of the advertising people are bombarded with every hour of the day, it seems like more of an assault rather than advertising. Radio, television and online. Ads on every social media site, blogs, websites, your inbox, the mailbox and even unsolicited texts. It’s like we are overexposed to advertising and yet underexposed to great customer service once the marketing gets you in the store or on the website.

But marketing for businesses is essential in that aside from word of mouth, business owners need a way to tell the public about their business and most importantly why the customer, prospect or patient, needs to take a look at what the business has to offer.

Many have the opinion that health care professionals, such as medical physicians, dentists and chiropractors, should not advertise their services. I don’t agree with this opinion obviously. Why shouldn’t these professions have the same opportunities to reach their audience as any other business. After all they are offering their services to help people with their needs. And as most of you reading this can attest, you have bills to pay too, so why not advertise to the public telling them why they need you and your services?

Chiropractic advertising is how I saved my practice and why I do what I do today. If you’ve read my story then you know there is a system to creating an effective ad. There are specific principles that I was taught to use when creating a chiropractic ad. I often share “how to” lessons here on this blog and I go into deeper discussions in my marketing products. However, today I thought I would share the four things I believe give my chiropractic ads an edge over other types of advertising.

Stories – Better known as testimonials. They will get more patients in the door than any other form of advertising because it’s an endorsement in writing. Facts tell and stories sell. It’s true, you can state the facts all day long, but truth be told if it hasn’t happen to you or you haven’t walked in someone else’s shoes and come out on the other side with a story to share, then your facts are only words on paper. People engage with other people’s experiences. It’s all about belief. Even better would be to share any reviews that are published online as those can be confirmed.

Value – Unfortunately some people do not see the value of chiropractic care, or they do see it as a quick fix and do not consider chiropractic for the long term health benefits it provides. This is probably the number one reason for the chiropractic profession to utilize chiropractic ads. It’s the chiropractic ad that will educate the reader as to why they need to call your office and set an appointment. If you can, extend an offer for a discounted exam or a 15 minute massage upon completion of initial exam if you have a massage therapist in house. And by all means tell them what all they will receive with the discounted offer and the retail value of the services provided.

Fear of loss – We can’t really say; “hey, chiropractic isn’t for everyone” because we know it is great for everyone. From infants to elderly, there is no age or gender that doesn’t benefit from chiropractic care. We just have to help people understand this. It’s a proven fact that people do not like to feel as if they will be left out or might lose out on a good deal. This is where is gets tricky and the so called “take away” in order to create a fear of loss has to be handled gently as to not offend. When creating a fear of loss in a chiropractic ad just keep it simple. You can do this by providing a window of opportunity with a limited number of appointments or limited time offer that includes an expiration date. One thing that worked well in my practice was I asked them to call into the office to see if they qualified for the treatment. This you would use for niche marketing like spinal decompression.

Call to action – This principle is your last chance to motivate the targeted audience into picking up the phone and setting the appointment. So far you have stirred emotions by sharing what symptoms they might experience and maybe even empathized as to how those symptoms have a negative impact on their day to day activities or their quality of life.

You’ve given value to the chiropractic profession by educating the reader with the ways chiropractic can address the symptoms.

Next you have provided a risk free opportunity to come in and experience what chiropractic care can do for them. Now all that’s left is to provide the contact information and assure that they will need call and make an appointment today, take action in order begin their journey to better health.

Chiropractic Advertising For Specific Conditions

By drbeck Leave a Comment Feb 19

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own. -Henry Ford

Understanding the symptoms and conditions people are dealing with is how you capture their attention, gain a following and ultimately build a successful practice.

That is how I turned my practice around years ago. In fact it was that turn around that showed me that there is a real need for chiropractic advertising that went beyond the what I had tried in the past. I learned the hard way that chiropractic advertising and marketing went way beyond lead generation, health fairs and spinal screenings. All those forms of marketing required things I was short on already, time and money.

Once I learned the secret to bringing more patients into my practice, I didn’t stop my advertising efforts, that would have been crazy. Instead I continued adding more conditions to my advertising portfolio until I had enough to generate a continuous flow of new patients.

Why Advertise for Conditions?

Advertising for conditions is smart chiropractic marketing. It saves time and money by targeting a specific type of patient. It cuts through the white noise of marketing and gets right to the heart of the matter, helping people find relief from their pain and helping chiropractors fill their appointment books. Do you know how many people are looking for alternative health solutions? Nearly every person who goes to bed and wakes up. That’s a lot of people! Simply put, everyone has an issue with pain in varying degrees. Using the method of advertising for a condition just gives you a leg up on the chiropractor who only uses his or her personal testimony or general advertising for their practice.

Don’t get me wrong, if you’re a new doc in town, you should definitely introduce yourself to your community, let everyone know you have opened up a practice and where you are located, but this might be better achieved through a direct mail marketing campaign.

Trends or Conditions

There will always be health trends that will come and go. This year it’s all about counting our steps, next year who knows what the rage will be, but the same health issues continue year after year, they don’t seem to change. You would think this to be the opposite with all of the healthier lifestyle options and incentives from health insurance carriers to motivate their clients into better health choices. But even if everyone decided to make better choices in their eating habits and made a commitment to walk more steps, the human body was not designed to sit in a chair 6-8 hours a day, but the majority of us do. Nor was it designed to participate in contact sports as early as 5 years of age in some cases, endure endless physical and mental stress, breathe polluted air and eat processed foods.

So trends are what they are intended to be, trendy but short lived. Sciatica, neck pain, knee pain and migraines are ageless and target every age. So I gotta go with chiropractic ads that focus on conditions.

Best Time and Place to Advertise

I advocate for never taking a break from your chiropractic advertising. For some that is twice a month, for others it could be once a month, that is a personal choice based on budget and goals. Sure there are times in the year when advertising isn’t feasible. No I don’t think you should run a great chiropractic ad during the week of Christmas or any other major holiday or epic sales events. Although those are peak times when people read the paper and look at ads. I can see how you might think your marketing would be overshadowed by an over abundance other advertisements. And you have to think practical, the holidays do present issues with limited hours of operation, but again that is based on personal choice, however if you do have special hours during the holidays, then you would not want to bring in new patients during that time of year. Using an ad service to help you with these types of questions is worth the cost. In some instances the cost is minimal when you consider the time and money saved.

With so many choices in how people get their news and current events, you would assume there are that many choices in where you place your chiropractic ads. One thing to note is like trends, news changes minute to minute, so to stay up to date on the latest news people are linked, synced and notified in an instant. That’s how they want their news. But when they want to enjoy a good article or crossword puzzle they still reach for the daily newspaper and that is where you place your ads.

But if you’re convinced the newsprint is not what it used to be, then I do think there is reason to look at the online marketing options available. I will caution to do your homework and look at getting some help with getting your online advertising up and running. If done correctly you will yield some great results. I have dabbled with Facebook marketing and have done well, but I used a marketing service to help and highly recommend it.

The Secret Nugget That Makes Some Chiropractic Ads Work Better

By drbeck Leave a Comment Aug 14

Two questions that are emailed on a regular basis are; “Why do your Chiropractic ads work better than other ads?” “How are your ads different?”

I can answer that with one word…EMPATHY

The reason condition specific chiropractic ads work so well is because people can relate better to something they have experienced or are currently living with, better than they can relate to a chiropractic ad that shares information about the doctor or the practice.

Dale Carnegie said it best when he said;
“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”

Nothing makes a person more emotional than when they are living with pain or caring for a someone who is living with pain. Such an odd thing to say; who really “lives” with pain? In my book that’s not living, it’s more like coping to just get through another day. Typically, coping relates to pain management, a glossy term for pain pills or injections.

Actually, emotional is probably the wrong word, it more like distraught, desperate, they have lost hope and have given up on ever feeling “normal” again.

Countless numbers of people live with life altering pain caused by accidents, injuries, illness, unhealthy lifestyle, weight issues, and even stress.

We all have empathy for those who live with chronic pain, but rarely do we understand what they are going through or do we even consider the person living with and caring for a person who suffers with pain on a daily basis. You have to know their burden is heavy. I know that it grieves me to see anyone, especially those I love, living with any kind of pain.

Emotions Drive People to Act

When I see a person suffering I want to help. That is a human emotion called compassion. Compassion simply put is walking in another person’s shoes, imagining what it must be like to live as they do and wanting to help. This emotion is what drives a person to action.

That really is how I write my chiropractic ads as if looking through the eyes of a person who is living with pain, not because I pretend to know what they are feeling, but because I’ve had patients who have told me how they feel or how they were treated when exploring traditional medical options. Take a patient who lives with fibromyalgia or migraines, these conditions are often viewed as stress related or worse psychological.

Can you imagine the hopeless feelings many women go through when they seek help for the symptoms of fibromyalgia only to be told it could be all in their head?

I’ve found that when you can project your compassion into words on paper, this builds a relationship with the reader and because they are human and have emotions, they feel hopeful and they trust you. They begin to believe you can help relieve their pain.

Whether an athlete or a weekend warrior, when knees hurt because of too much fun on the playing field, my patients were happy to know they had an option to receive laser treatments that helped reduce pain and promote healing, rather than hassle with shots or surgery.

The same is true for patients experiencing back pain from herniated discs. For those, spinal decompression was the road to healing. How great it is for people to learn they can find understanding and non invasive treatment for the disc pain they are dealing with.

Even people who suffer from the numbness and pain of neuropathy find hope in knowing their doctor is one that understands their condition and can create a specific care plan for them.

Wrapping up, chiropractic advertising is most effective when you put the emphasis on the condition and symptoms the prospective patient is living with.

There will be plenty of time for them to get to know you and your background once they become your life long patient.

Avoiding 5 Common Pitfalls in Chiropractic Advertising

By drbeck Leave a Comment Oct 19

Aside from creating ads and other marketing tools for the chiropractic profession, one of the perks of what I do is sharing advice and wisdom about how to use those tools here on this site. The do’s and don’ts, the ins and outs, the how to’s, when, where.

It’s great to have a collection of chiropractic ads, but we all know that there is much more to marketing than placing an ad in the newspaper once or twice a month.

That is one of the reasons both of the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads editions come with one whole binder filled with instructions and helpful tips.

I know that there are some who might read this blog, who might still have some reservations about using chiropractic ads, they just aren’t sure if ads work. My assistant fills me in on feedback received from chiropractors. Not just docs here in the United States, but from all around the globe. Which when you think about it, it’s really amazing how much our profession has grown.

Personally, I’m excited to know that more and more people are seeking chiropractic care, but I’m not naive, I know there are so many more who have not ever seen a chiropractor, and many more who know nothing about the benefits of chiropractic care, even more who have been mislead by false claims and urban myths surrounding chiropractic.

Those people are the reason why you have need to advertise, that and advertising builds your practice.

I don’t mean you have to market your practice to the masses, only those who are your potential patients.

Yes, you have to put some thought into it. You’ll have to do some research and know the audience you need to target. The best part is as a chiropractor, you don’t have just one target, you have many groups of people to which you can direct your advertising.

Going over emails we receive, I see trends. At times there is feedback from several docs that have a common theme. Today’s issue is more than one thing, more like a collection of stumbling blocks or pitfalls. But as you will notice from the list below, some of these pitfalls are simple mistakes or omissions that can be avoided.

Pricing/Negotiating rates
Ad Size
Tracking ROI
Alerting your staff about the campaigns
Following up

All of the points in the list above are pretty self explanatory, except for negotiating rates for ad space. That one is not as much of a mistake as it is a learned technique. It is a task that gets easier the more you do it and the longer you work with your newspaper rep. The trick is working until you getting the best rate for your budget. If your rep won’t budge, ask to speak with their supervisor.

Ad size is simply knowing when not to waste your advertising dollars. If you can’t afford a decent sized ad, one that can be noticed, then don’t run the ad. An ad in the paper that is only the size of a post card, isn’t going to yield the same results as a full color insert or a half page ad. Yes they cost more, but they also give you a better return on your investment.

And since we are on the subject of your ROI, forgetting or worse, neglecting to track your ROI is a very avoidable pitfall. Knowing where your advertising dollars are bringing in the best results, is like knowing what investment company gives you the highest rates on your money. Track all of your advertising to the best of your ability, even any direct mail and email marketing.

Find the time to sit your staff down and share what you are doing, if not this can kill a great ad campaign. Explain how you want these calls handled. If you want your staff to go by a script then provide a script to go by. If you want all calls from your ads to be handled by a specific staff member, then let all of your staff know who to funnel the calls to. The last thing you want is one of your chiropractic ads to motivate prospective patients to call for an appointment or get more information, and the person answering the phone doesn’t know what the call is about or how to convert an info call into an appointment.

Following up is only an issue if you don’t have a system in place to capture those patients who came in for their initial exam and ROF, but didn’t continue with any care. If they called in, made an appointment, came in for the exam and came back for their ROF, don’t you think they might be motivated to continue care? So why aren’t they? If it’s just a matter of money, have some payment options available or risk losing that prospect and any residual patients from referrals.

Building a Great Chiropractic Ad

By drbeck Leave a Comment Oct 11

We live in an ad saturated world. Commercials on radio and television have been around for years, and we grew numb to it, until public radio and television appeared. We just had to endure the telethons to raise money for the “ad free” air time.

Then came cable television. Of coarse we had to pay for it, but it was commercial free and that was pretty cool right?

But now we have the internet and ads are even there too.

Of course there have always been ads in newspapers and magazines, it’s just business. I get it, the ads help pay for the cost of running the newspaper and magazines. And it’s a benefit to the company placing their ads too. For a price, any business can pay for space and have their ad seen by thousands of subscribers.

Clothing companies got really smart and began putting their name on their clothes and people pay them to advertise their brand. That’s brilliant! Now you see all types of businesses putting their name or logo on sweatshirts, tee shirts and hats. And people are more than willing to buy these things and wear them with pride, and yet they don’t really get the fact that they are walking advertisements for these businesses.

So you think I’m being pessimistic when I say that ads to most people is just another person pitching their business? Well I’m not a pessimist or I wouldn’t have pulled my practice out of the near bankruptcy with a series of chiropractic ads.

It was my belief, and honestly, my desperation to save my practice, that led me to write the first of many ads. But I had to learn that there was a method to building an great chiropractic ad. This method is based on the AIDA marketing model (attention, interest, desire, action).

This model proved to be pretty effective. So effective, I used it to create a line of chiropractic ads that have helped chiropractors, all over the world, grow their practices. But just knowing the meaning of the acronym does not make for perfect results. Ad structure is important, it could be more important than the content, because in reality, if you can’t get a person to stop and read the ad, then what good is the content anyway.

Let’s look at the way an ad begins. The headline should not only grab the reader’s attention, it should also pull the reader in. Common sense tells us that there are not really any two headed aliens roaming the earth, but that doesn’t stop the tabloids from using those words in their headlines, and it doesn’t stop us from taking a look at the photo as we stand in the grocery lines.

Headlines should stir emotions, create interest, commonality, empathy or even better; give validation.

Imagine how a person feels when they’ve been from one doctor to another looking for answers for their pain. Even family and friends don’t really understand their discomfort. But then there is this ad in the paper that describes what they’re feeling. No exaggerations or claims of miracle cures needed, just the possibility of understanding.

Think that person might continue to read your chiropractic ad if the headline speaks of their symptoms?

Relevant photos are key an ads success, because if you don’t catch the reader with the headline you might save the ad with the photo, especially if the photo relates to the reader. It becomes even more effective when a caption is added.

Humans are visual by nature, if we see something that peaks our interest, we might stop long enough to stimulate the other senses. For instance; how many people can pass by a cute puppy without smiling, making a comment, then stopping to pet it? I’ll go out on a limb and say that the more popular commercials on television are those with animals in them. The most memorable being a camel to reminding us it’s hump day. I bet you can even name the company who came up with that ad.

The body or content of the ad is where you build the relationship with the reader because by now they should be a prospective new patient. But all could be lost if you don’t create the desire for them to continue reading the ad. Sure there’s probably enough room in the ad space to talk about your accomplishments as a chiropractor, but rather than talk about it and take up space, why not get the patient in your office and show them first hand. This is why condition specific chiropractic ads are so successful, they open the door to understanding between you and the reader.

Just like every story needs a good ending, so does an ad. And the perfect ending is the call to action. The reason to make the appointment. This can come in many forms, one being an offer of discount. To some this might look like compromising, some even say it belittles our profession. But for that person who’s reading your ad, they only see an opportunity to feel better, to sleep through the night, to make it through the day without a pill, to sit or walk without pain.

Chiropractic Marketing in the New Year, What’s Your Plan?

By drbeck Leave a Comment Jan 3

Another year has passed in a blur and the New Year has arrived. Now that the noise of the holiday season has quieted down, it’s time to think about your chiropractic marketing for 2014.

Got a plan?

A new year always inspires people because they see the new year as a clean slate, a new beginning, a fresh start, a time for change. For some this change comes in the form of improving their health, for others it’s the urge to organize and put things in order, some vow to spend more time with loved ones and less time working.

Now is the time to dust off those chiropractic ads and get them ready to work for you while people are thinking about their health and eager to make some changes.

For businesses, 2014 will create many challenges in their marketing, one challenge in particular is just getting noticed amid all the other businesses vying for attention. The chiropractic profession already utilized many new ways to market this past year, social media and other online marketing like websites and blogs, and now mobile marketing has come into play. In fact there are so many marketing paths you might wonder where you should putting your marketing efforts. Worse case scenario, you try to take all the paths and spread yourself and budget too thin. This could result in lower ROI in the long run.

It also makes me wonder if all of this access to everything under the sun will eventually lead to a media meltdown. Will people begin to pull back from all the information they are exposed to on a daily basis? Will they long for the simplicity of turning a page in a book, or getting their fingers black from the print on the newspaper?

I’ve had people ask me; are the days of placing an ad in the newspaper gone? Lost to the digital age, buried beneath mountains of online media and electronic noise? I tell them no and not just because I write chiropractic ads specifically for the newspaper.

Consider this; you don’t see major retailers and real estate pulling their advertising from the newspapers do you? Even though they have other marketing resources. Large companies seem to have bottomless marketing budgets, they can pretty much and should use every means possible to push their brand and products. So if newspapers weren’t a valuable marketing tool then why would they still be sinking their marketing dollar into print advertising? Could it be that people still read the newspaper?

I am more than aware that a chiropractor’s marketing budget is limited. This is why I encourage you to look at ways to increase your exposure and keep costs within reason and one way to do this is to use what you already have.

If you already have a chiropractic website but it seems to have lost is punch, it might be time to consider adding a blog to your site. This will keep your site active as you add fresh content on a continuing basis. Fresh content with rich keywords will help your site rank higher as more and more people read your blog. Helping people find your site by promoting it on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn will also bring more traffic to your site.

It is also helpful to use, within reason, the online advertising available through Google Adwords and maybe even a few Facebook ads. These a great marketing tools because you can set your cost limits and work within those limits to bring in new patients, this is referred to a PPC (pay per click). Overtime as funds allow, you can always increase the budget on these campaigns. Both the Adwords and the Facebook ads allow you to direct traffic back to your website. Once there, having your blog filled with articles about health and wellness will further encourage people to read your blog posts regularly and potentially become your next patient.

One other consideration for your chiropractic website in 2014 is having your website mobile friendly. Since more and more people use their smartphones for reading emails and daily news, your site should be easy to access on a mobile phone. If you’ve not taken steps to do this already I would suggest discussing this with your webmaster or someone who can get your site set up for mobile viewing. If you are the webmaster and need help, you can check out Chiropractic Marketing Web and let Hill help you get your site tuned up for 2014.

If you already own any of my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads and you think they’ve seen better days, think again. You can revive those ads in no time with a little help from Carol Smith and her Ultimate Ad Service. But even if you’re not ready to take that step and you want some fresh ads, pull those ads out and give them a little face lift by adding some testimonials in place of studies. Or maybe you just need some new material or a few extra ads to round out your advertising plan, the Ultimate Ads Club is stocked and ready with 24 newly written ads that won’t be found anywhere else.

So are you ready for 2014? I think it’s going to be a great year and I hope all of you are eager to get your marketing working for you.

p.s. don’t forget to get those new ROI charts ready so you can track your marketing dollars.

p.s.s. don’t know much about ROI? find out more HERE

Marketing Decisions to Consider with Chiropractic Print Ads

By drbeck Leave a Comment Oct 11

Are you serious about management success and developing a thriving chiropractic practice? If you answered yes, then I will assume that by now you have a functional marketing strategy in place.

The whole point of a strategy is to help keep you from throwing away money on something that’s not really going to help your business grow. What do you want to achieve and how much money are you willing to commit in order to achieve it? This is what marketing strategy will enable you to determine – and achieve.

Where will you spend your hard earned money?

Optimization of your chiropractic website is no doubt pretty close to the top of your list. Newspaper advertising should be near the top too. Setting a budget is one thing. It’s also important to work out a plan to spend that money wisely.

I’ve put together a few pointers to help you on your way when deciding how to spend your allocated newspaper-advertising budget – to put your chiropractic office on the map.

Research is a must

Newspaper advertising is only effective if people actually read the publication in question. A little local knowledge comes in useful here. You should have a pretty good idea as to what newspapers and magazines are popular in your local area – and which ones aren’t. You need cold, hard figures though – so ask for a circulation breakdown from the newspaper itself. It’s also worth doing a little research. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly The Audit Bureau of Circulations) is able to provide not just circulation figures but also detailed social metrics for newspapers with a circulation above 25,000.

One bad result isn’t the end all

Be realistic, it’s perfectly normal to expect results just don’t base the rest of your marketing on the first ad you run. It could be a huge success, if so run it again, but at a later date, don’t risk wearing it out. If it’s not successful, try another ad.

Don’t give up if you don’t see instant results; give your marketing some time to grow. Newspaper advertising for a small business is all about raising your profile over time. If your chiropractic practice was recently established, you’re going to have to give it time for people to get to recognize your name. Recognition will come – but you’re going to have to stick with it.

Stay consistent and resist the urge to dip in and out of the market

It might be tempting to decide to splash out on the largest ad you can afford if you have a particular good month – but then not spend anything at all in those months when cash flow is tight. You need to resist this approach. If you simply ‘dip in and out’ of newspaper advertising then quite simply, people are going to forget who you are. Making a solid commitment to placing ads on a regular basis – rather than a big glossy ad once in a blue moon – will prove to be the best strategy.

Don’t be talked into buying advertising space you can’t afford

I cover this topic in the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads kit. A newspaper advertising sales team can be a pretty persuasive bunch. Hold off on package deals until you have a few runs under your belt.

But you might receive phone calls sometimes, offering great deals on unused advertising space. This can often be a great value, but not always a great location in the paper. It’s fine to take the paper up on these offers from time to time, but ask questions and weigh your options, it might not be such a great deal if your ad is tucked away on in an obscure section and not seen. Also consider, unplanned advertising could eat into other parts of your marketing budget. The same goes for seemingly great value advertising space in neighborhood newsletters and start-up magazines. These publications can be great for building up a friendly, community-based profile – just don’t let the spending spiral out of control.

A willingness to commit and the ability to keep a tight rein on your budget: if you get this right then you’ll soon see that newspaper advertising becomes a highly successful part of your chiropractic marketing plan.

Out of Adversity Came A Unique Chiropractic Ad Idea

By drbeck Leave a Comment May 1

If you had been told that being a chiropractor would involve marketing, keeping stats and in some cases spending your weekends doing spinal screenings, would you have continued down the path?

Maybe in the back of your head you suspected there might be more to it than seeing patients and using chiropractic to improve the quality of their life. The business side of chiropractic wasn’t the passion that gave you that push to complete chiropractic college. It was more than that.

Every chiropractor has his or her own story to tell about why they chose this wonderful profession. I myself had one, but if you’ve been reading this blog long enough you know that it’s the after story that changed my family’s life and turned my business around. My story involved debt, loss of a car and home, and about as close to loosing my practice via bankruptcy as I ever care to get again.

Looking back the whole experience taught me a lot. In the midst of all the chaos, there was an idea. Putting this idea on paper was the easy part, but implementing it was scary.

The idea was to reach people with a form of advertising that I wasn’t real familiar with. After all, I didn’t go to school for marketing or advertising. In fact, running a chiropractic office and marketing a practice was just barely discussed in one of the classes.

I knew something had to be done, I just wasn’t ready to give up on my dream or my practice. I had worked too hard and so had my wife. Plus there were patients out there that needed a chiropractor to help them and I wanted to be that chiropractor.

The form of marketing I’m talking about is called direct response advertising. In my case I used the direct response method within a condition specific chiropractic ad. I placed my ad in the newspaper with a call to action and prayed.
Maybe my story should be titled; “If you write it, they will come”, because they did, new patients began to come in.

I guess you could say the rest was history. The ad brought in new patients and so I ran another ad, soon my practice had turned around and we were working our way out of debt.

During this time I learned to record the ROI on each ad I ran, that way I would know where the new patients were coming from and which ad worked the best.

So you see, out of adversity came an idea, that idea gave me hope and confidence.

Marketing your practice is tough, especially today when there is so much information thrown at people all day long. Common sense might tell you that people just don’t have to time look at a newspaper let alone sit and read it, but don’t fall for that lie.

People will always have health issues ranging from low back pain to chronic illnesses. Remember, that is why you wanted to be a chiropractor…to give those people a choice in their health care.

A Chiropractic Marketing Budget for the Struggling Practice

By drbeck Leave a Comment Feb 20

In the last blog post we looked at how to set up a marketing budget for the new chiropractic practice. Today, I want to discuss how you should make your marketing money stretch if you have a struggling practice.

I know all about marketing a struggling practice, as I had less than $500 a month to market my practice, for many years.

Perhaps you feel like I did, and think that in times of hardship it is just better to conserve money and not market at all.

But a practice will not grow itself without your effort, so you must do some outside marketing to grow.

The truth is that the doctor who ends up struggling is in the worst spot for making good marketing decisions.

4 marketing mistakes of the struggling chiropractor.

1. Because of mistakes in the past, he’s hesitant to even use advertising.

2. He’s so desperate for a solution that he’ll risk large amounts of money to save himself from going out of business. This means spending money with any ad rep that comes by the office.

3. Thinking that advertising costs too much, he’ll just save his money and focus on “internal marketing” and referrals. Unfortunately, this is a downward spiral, as a struggling practice is struggling because of the lack of NEW patients.

4. Not measuring his return on investment and continuing to make stupid marketing decisions based on feelings (or bad coaching advice) instead of looking at the numbers.

You must get over these mistakes and advertise your services in an effective way. Pay special attention to #2 and #3 above. These are deadly to your business.

You can’t afford to waste money on bad advertising. Put your money where it counts, like running effective ads in the newspaper and magazines, which still works great.

The Struggling Practice
(0-$1500/month marketing budget)

If I had only $500 to spend each month on marketing, and had to pick just one form of advertising I would pick newspapers…and work the newspaper rep until I got a good ad placement for one of these ads!

This was one of the big strategies that saved my practice from bankruptcy! Getting high quality new patients and converting them to effective care plans is what I spend 90% of my time helping my clients do.

So a struggling practice’s advertising schedule would look similar to the above one for a new practice, with a slight difference. The struggling doctor is not going to ramp up his monthly marketing budget as quickly. Why? Because he’s got bills to pay. Bills that are already late. (Having been there, I know.) However, realize that if you don’t set aside something to move forward with, you’ll be back in the struggling situation. So a struggling doctors “ramp up” may looks something like this…

Never forget, new patient marketing is what drives the success of your practice. No matter what anyone else tries to cram down your throat, that’s the truth of the matter.

How To Choose The Best Ad Budget for the New Practice

By drbeck Leave a Comment Feb 11

Many doctors grab my advertising system, which is very effective at bringing in quality new patients.

However, if it sits on the bookshelf, never to be used, it’s useless.

I recommend they start the first week at implementing chiropractic marketing strategy and planning your next 3 months to a year.

However, you’re going to have to spend a bit of money to run your ads.

This article will help you to make smart decisions regarding that expense. I will also layout some good marketing plan examples for you to follow.

Each practice has its own unique monthly marketing budget.

Even if you don’t set a specific number for marketing each month, you still may be limited on the amount you can spend in the beginning.

But the amount of new patients you bring in from your advertising, as well as how fast you build your practice, is going to be determined by how much money you spend on marketing.

If you knew every ad would bring you $10 for every $1 you spent, how often would you run that ad?

Every chance you get! But the problem is, you can’t realistically run a winning ad every day in the same paper for very long… unless it’s a huge national paper like USA Today.

So how do you run that ad as much as possible, without wearing it out?

And even more important regarding The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads, how do you weave all of the ads into a marketing plan that get maximum effectiveness?

The answer to this question will depend on where you are at in practice. Most chiropractors divide up into 3 categories: the new practice, the struggling practice, and the successful practice.

#1. The New Practice (0-$500/month budget)

The problem that the new chiropractor in practice suffers is lack of knowledge. Also, a new practice owner is working with a limited budget.

Due to the lack of marketing and business classes taught in school, most chiropractors graduate with weak marketing muscles.

A new chiropractor is unsure of what works and what doesn’t. Which newspaper is the best in town? Which ad should I run? How often should I run an ad?

A new practice owner should follow these steps to develop and ramp up his/her advertising.

#1. Follow the instructions in sections 1 & 2 of my ad package to select the best newspaper to run an ad in.

#2. Determine the best ad based on your practice (or use Carol Smith take out all the guesswork for you by using her ad service). If you still can’t decide, just go with the ad you “feel” will do the best.

#3. Work the ad rep down to a price you can afford. If your max is $500, keep negotiating or lowering the ad size until you get that price (again Carol is better than I am at doing this). If you need to start with the small ads, then do so. But realize your goal is to step up to the larger ads soon. Don’t get comfortable with the new patients from a small ad, thinking you’ll just run those because they are cheaper. The big ads will bring in more new patients and income than the small ads 99% of the time.

#4. Run the ad and measure your ROI. (I would recommend a half page ad in the news section, unless you can run inserts for the same or better price.)

#5. Repeat the process but with the same ad, this time within 2 weeks in a different newspaper. Compare the newspapers.

#6. Measure the second newspapers ROI while continuing to run different small or large ads in the 1st paper. (Make sure to compare different ad’s results in the same newspaper.)

#7. Test inserts against the full or half page ads.

#8. Continue to increase your monthly marketing budget until you are running two different half page ads (or inserts) each in a different paper once a month.

With this type of advertising “ramp up”, you can build your practice really fast and not burn out any of the newspapers.

The above example assumes every ad is a winner in every paper (used for simplicity here), but this is not likely going to be the case. However, by diversifying your marketing plan, you’ll find out rather quickly which places to run your ads long term.

I would recommend testing at least 3 different ads, with good placement, in section A (or using inserts) in the same paper before determining that it’s a bad paper to run in.

One of the biggest mistakes I see doctors making with this plan is…

Not setting aside enough money each month to ramp up the ads.

All the sudden new money is flowing in, the urge to buy that new car or house is very tempting. (I know, I made this mistake too when I started and it set me back at least 1 year’s worth of growth.)

In the next two blogposts, we’ll look at how to budget for the “struggling practice” and the “successful practice”.