Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Here is your chance to see an updated version of my friend Paul Wright’s free webinar entitled “The Practice Acceleration Program – 12 Steps to a Great Health Business in ONLY 42 Days”.

There are 3 different days you can register, go here to find out more:

http://www.netofficetoolbox.com/app/?Clk=4287445

This presentation outlines the 12 Essential Steps that you DID NOT learn in your university or technical education, but MUST know to be a successful health professional in these trying financial times.

Here’s just a sample of what Paul will cover…

• The 12 essential steps to a great health business – are you using them?

• Why failing to use these steps will leave you chained to your business forever.

• How these steps allowed Paul to run his clinics remotely – in fact he has only visited his six clinics four times in one 10 week period.

• How your admin team can kill your profits and what to do about it.

• Actions steps you can implement NOW to make you thousands in lost profits.

• The importance of cancellation reduction and how to make every treatment session “too important to miss”.

• How to get your hands on Paul’s exact procedures, scripts, steps and protocols that have taken him 20 years to develop and refine.

Click on the link below to check webinar times and register for this FREE event.

http://www.netofficetoolbox.com/app/?Clk=4287445

Google Analytics is a free website tracking program,  to use it you’ll need a Google account setup (like gmail, Adwords, etc). If you haven’t, you can (and should) get started with Google Analytics at http://www.google.com/analytics/

It’s fairly easy to install and I’ll show you again in the beginning of today’s video. If you have a techy person who does things for you, the installation should take less than 5 minutes.

Here’s how analytics works. Enter the website you want to track, then they give you a short “script” to put on your page.

Every time someone comes to your website, the script is activated and starts tracking what that visitor does. The script is hidden in your website code, so it’s not even visible on your page.

What This Software Can Tell You

Analytics offers many features and Google adds new features monthly. What I want to do is show you which aspects you need to use and how it will increase the amount of new patients you get from the internet.

Here’s what Analytics reveals about your website and why it’s important to you.

Unique Visitors. What you need to know is the number of “unique visitors”. The stat only counts the visit when they first arrive on the site. No matter how many times they return to the website, they will only be counted as one visitor.

Time on site. Time on site is almost always a good thing. Assuming you have some content on your website (articles, videos, etc) the longer a person stays there, the more involved and interested they are in what you have to say. This is not justification for putting up lots of boring content, as people will still leave fast if it’s not interesting.

Sidenote: Also, “time on site” is very important to your Quality Score when running Google Adwords. You may remember in the last lesson we spent some time on quality score. At this point in time, it appears 1 minute is the critical time for your Adwords landing page. If visitors are staying less than 1 minute, you will be punished on your quality score.

Page Views. Depending on the type of website your tracking, a higher number of page views can be a good indication. For example, a blog site where you aren’t selling anything but just giving away free information is a place you want people to view a lot of pages. This is an indication of someone who wants more information from you.

If you have a “traditional” website with navigation bars and links, a high number of page views may be a bad sign. It’s likely that people are clicking around and having trouble finding the information they want.

Pages/visit. “Pages per visit” is a similar stat to the above page views. This is an important number to track if you have a blog. When running a blog, you want visitors to visit quite a few pages per visit. The reason you want this is because it means they are connecting with you each time they come to the site.

Traffic sources. In my opinion, this is one of the most important stats you can know about your website. Your traffic sources will tell you exactly where people are coming from when they land on your blog, landing page or website.

It will tell you if most of your traffic is coming from Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc. Use this information to go to these search engines and do pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. If you’re already doing PPC,  use this info to increase the PPC according to where your traffic is coming from.

You’ll also know if another website has linked to you, since people will click through the link and visit your site. The traffic sources page can tell you if your social networking is effective, since you may see visitors coming from LinkedIn or Facebook.

After you release a press release on PRweb, you’ll be able to tell how effective it was as a traffic generator. The same goes for posting articles on sites like Ezinearticles.com

Location of your visitors. Analytics will tell you where your website visitors are located down to the city level. This can be valuable if you practice in a populated area with many surrounding cities. You may notice a majority of your traffic coming from a certain area. Using this information, you can make some offline marketing decisions like where you want to advertise in the newspaper, with direct mail, etc.

Bounce Rate. This is one stat you want to be low. The bounce rate is how many people only see one page of your website and “bounce” off. So if you have a 71% bounce rate, that means almost 3/4ths of the people visiting your site are leaving before viewing another page. A high bounce rates means that people are not finding what they want and are hitting the “back” button on their browser. (A high bounce rate can also hurt your Adwords Quality Score.)

A good bounce rate is between 50-60%, as you can’t expect everyone that hits your site to view more than one page.

1. Monthly print newsletters will be more valuable.

I know, you’re probably thinking print newsletters have gone the way of the dinosaur, and that email, Facebook, etc. are “da bomb!” But the fact is people are starting to demand a more personal relationship with their businesses. All you have to do is look at the Occupy Wall Street movement to sense how people now see a big gap between the products they buy and the companies who provide them. (Also, for more on this, watch the second video here on Dr. Loop’s blog.)

What about email newsletters you ask? You should be sending those too, at least 2 per month. But does it mean more to you to receive a birthday card by snail mail or an e-card? Sending a print newsletter with a real postage stamp is still a very effective way to communicate with current patients and get more referrals.

2. Videos will be more effective on your website.

Video has been around for a number of years on the internet, but it really hasn’t become the norm yet. However I think in 2012 that will start to shift. A few reasons for this are: almost everyone has some type of broadband internet access now, Youtube is more popular than ever, and sites like Facebook are using more video. At the least you should test a video of yourself on the landing page of our website to see if it increases conversions. Using tools like Google website Optimizer will let you easily figure out if videos are more or less effective for your site.

3. Neuropathy, Decompression and other niche specific newspaper ads will continue to get high returns.

Like the print newsletters mentioned above, you may have bought into the lie that newspapers are now extinct. However, in most markets, this is not the case. Many of my clients got their best returns ever on newspaper ads in 2011, especially when using neuropathy and decompression ads. I know there are plenty of other people out there telling you how a jillion internet things will bring in hundreds of patients. And some of it will bring in patients. But don’t neglect the trusted source of patients like the newspaper. The key is using very good copywriting to reach specific niches that are really responsive.

4. Facebook, Google + and other Social Marketing sites will become more important in your chiropractic marketing plan.

Many chiropractors have heard of Facebook. Less have heard of Google+. Unfortunately, doctors treat these sites like everyone else, a place to post all your personal happenings. The problem is most patients aren’t interested in the fact you just “checked in” at the local burger barn. Sure, some personal interaction is necessary to maintain a following. But, you also need good copywriting and intentional posts to cause new patients to act and pick up the phone to call. Another important and often overlooked aspect of these sites is that they help with your search engine rankings. Having Facebook likes and Google+’s on your website will help it come up higher in Google Search, which will translate into more new patients. Just remember, Facebook and Google+ are effective tools, but they are not the only game in town. So, don’t spend 100% of your time and money fiddling with them.

5. Developing a mobile site will become a necessity.

As my friend Terry Dean recently pointed to, more and more people are using iphones to access websites like Facebook. Look at the stats from the link below, which state that “more than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices “:

https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Also, realize that one of the most common uses for a smart phone is to check email. That means every time you send an email with a link back to your website that person is going to your website on their phone. Even though I prefer to use the internet on my PC, I have an iPhone and iPad that I use often and realize it is just more convenient to click a link now rather than wait until later when I can access the website on my home desktop.

I’ll be working hard to implement these changes in 2012. I recommend you do the same. Also, I’ll keep you updated on any new tools and strategies I’m working on next year. Happy New Year’s.

I frequently get this type of email message…

“Hi Doc. I just ran one of your ads. We got 20 calls and 11 came in for the exam. How can we get better results from the ads?”

Unfortunately this is a huge problem in chiropractic offices (or any health practitioner for that matter!)

The problem here isn’t the ad. After all, it brought in 20 new patients calls! But to have only 55% of those calling in show up for the first visit is ridiculous.

But you want to know the scary part? This is happening in almost every office around the world.

Most doctors never realize this is happening in their clinic. I know I didn’t when it happened to me.

It may not be as bad as the example quoted above, but as you know, every lost new patient is worth thousands of dollars to your clinic.

How many new patients are you missing out on just from bad calls.

Here are a few current numbers on this issue reported in our industry:

• 98% of all new patients call on the phone first to schedule.
• 50% of all lost patients are caused by poor patient handling at the front desk.
• 79% of all advertising is wasted on leads that don’t convert to new patients

Think about it.

You may have spent thousands on marketing in your office which should bring in tons of new patients and revenue, but one person stands between the patient and the doctor; how well are they doing at their job?
For years I’ve urged the doctors using my ads to track their results. Not just from the calls coming in, but the return on investment for each ad campaign run.

Yet, we all get busy and tracking often falls by the wayside.

But finally I’ve found a solution…

Recently I came across a call tracking and call recording application designed specifically for doctors.

It’s called MyDoctorCalls and it is simply the best solution to tracking ads, staff phone training. In fact, the benefits this application will provide with amazing improvements in your marketing.

While this program is relatively new, I’m hearing reports of a 10% to 50% increase in new patient appointments showing up.

Here are the big 3 benefits you will see with MyDoctorCalls:

1. Increases new patient appointments so you can get more out of what you’re already doing.
2. Tracks the results (especially ROI) of every ad or marketing campaign you run.
3. Brings in more existing patients to stay on their recommended care plan.

Let’s do the math…

If you are currently booking 15 new patients per month without call tracking and call recording, you can expect to see an increase of 2 to 8 new patients per month after implementing the technology.

The same metrics apply to current patient appointments as well.

Here’s what a few big names in the profession are saying about this program…

Daniel Murphy, DC, DABCO – “MyDoctorCalls is the most innovative tool I have seen in years!

Gerard Clum, DC – “Recording your calls with MyDoctorCalls is the single-most important thing you can do for your practice.

John Brimhall, BA, BS, DC – “Doctors can double or triple the amount of new patients they receive with MyDoctorCalls!

I recommend you check out this service immediately. They have three very affordable, customized packages for you to choose from and no contracts.

Go to this website to sign up and use the code BECK100 to get $100 off:
www.MyDoctorCalls.com/sign-up

You can even get a live demonstration of the whole program at the convenience of your own computer. I did a live tour via screen sharing software and it was quick and easy.

I got to see all the benefits this program can provide and I flat out told them they are charging way too little for everything it does.

Go to this website to sign up and use the code “BECK100″ to get $100 off.

SEO is like Hollywood.  in so many ways…

But today this reference is to the fact that seo is going social.

You see Google has added a +1.  Facebook has added “like”.

Twitter has added “tweet”. LinkedIN has a new share button.

All this adds up to links to your site which is called link juice or back links.

Before you had to go comment on blogs or maybe ask to trade links etc.

Now you can get links from these social networks where people actually hand out online.

What is even better is when these links are created they are shared with the Friends, follows, connections etc.

That can add to lots of views and maybe even some re-sharing.

But why is this so important?

Because it should drive home the point that these sites or social networks are not some silly idea of marketing.

NO these are realty sites that can generate REAL targeted and relevant traffic to your site and therefore your office!

BUT imagine sending an automated robot to the chamber of commerce to do your “networking” for you.

You would be the joke of the town.

Lets get real folks social networking is NETWORKING!

Don’t be the joke of the town.  Take pride is what you put out.

Social networking is not about buttons on your site.

Social networking is not about a fancy designed page.  (not that there is anything wrong with custom pages)

Social networking is about getting good content out that people love and want to share and sharing it!

So be true to the profession.  Take pride in your marketing.

Write and produce good valuable content.

People will share it.

Their friends will like you.  And get links to make your site rank better all at the same time!

You really will become well known and because you added value you will make money.

So if you want links!  Produce good content.

If you liked this post share it, like it, tweet it, email it, google +1 and as many other things as you know how to share it.

Let chiropractors know to stop cutting corners on he marketing.  Tell the story and get patients that pay – stay and refer for life!

Be well.

Matt Prados
CEO ChiropracticTraffic.com

Tony Robbins said “There is no greatness without a passion to be great, whether it’s the aspiration of an athlete or an artist, a scientist, a parent, or a businessperson.”

Much has been said about the word “passion” in our profession. We were told in school we had to have a passion for chiropractic and a passion to help others.

A weekend seminar with most any chiropractic coaching group will fill you with enough passion to spend thousands of dollars on their services. And we’ve all heard that to be great in life, we must have a passion for what we do.

But what is passion?

Does it really have a place in the modern chiropractic practice?

There can be many uses for the word passion ranging from The Passion (as in the suffering of Christ) to “an outbreak of anger.”

However, the best definition for our for our discussions would be Merriam-Webster’s: “an intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction”.

Sounds like a good thing to have, right?

Not always…

My first year in practice, when I was really struggling, I often went to the gurus of chiropractic to find help. In almost every case, I was told I that I just needed more passion to be successful.

So I would rededicate myself to reading the Green Books, listening to Sigafoose tapes, going to more seminars, telling the chiropractic “story”; a daily “ritual” of passion. I reasoned that if it was passion that made success, I just needed more of it to succeed.

Needless to say, it wasn’t passion that saved my practice, unless you want to call it a “passion for trying to save my family from living on the street!”. (To find out more about my story, see my previous blog posts “Why We Do It?” and “Wait And See Marketing“.)

The type of passion being thrown around chiropractic is not always a good thing. It can lead you into mountains of debt. After all, what’s a few more dollars in debt to save the world, right?

Unbridled passion can cause you to turn decent patients away, by being a ‘my way or the highway’ type of practice. It can also cause you to spend crazy amounts of money on bad marketing that is never going to work.

So you may think I’m saying passion is not important in life. I’m not.

Passion is important, but it’s not the most important thing.

Passion is only part of success. I think these two guys said it best…

“If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.”
— Benjamin Franklin

“Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Passion is a tool that you should use to push you forward, in the right direction. It’s a defense against the constant onslaught of skeptics telling you chiropractic doesn’t work. It’s a determination to live a healthy lifestyle and keep out of the drug ‘merry-go-around’ of modern healthcare.

I know it’s rare to hear someone speak out against passion in chiropractic. (Some might consider it blasphemous!)

Hey, I’m not against chiropractic passion. There’s nothing wrong with reading the Green Books or listening to Sigafoose tapes. But don’t think by simply being more passionate, you’re going to have a successful practice.

There are chiropractors who need a bit more philosophy and more passion for chiropractic. But is it really the overriding issue that struggling doctors are suffering from? An outsider attending chiropractic seminars might get think it is. But I would say we have bigger problems keeping chiros down than a lack of passion.

Do you agree or disagree?

What’s your strategy for growing your practice during this current recession? Are you trying to keep doing things as usual, “wait it out” and hope to make it through…or do you have a specific action plan you’re working on this week, this month, and this year?

I hope it’s the latter, because the “wait it out” plan is only a plan for failure.You’d better not be asking yourself “How can I survive the recession?”

To sit around hoping next month will be better, yet not taking action steps to make it so is how businesses end up in debt up to their ears and going bankrupt.

Sure, the government is spending billions to try and stimulate the economy…but you have better odds of winning the lottery than getting any “stimulus money” in your pocket. No one is going to save your practice from being affected by the recession except you.

You should be asking yourself “how can I thrive during the recession?” While all my competition is cutting back on their advertising and marketing efforts, what can I do to make mine better?

There were many companies (billion dollar companies today) that got their start during the recessions and depressions. A great article by marketing author Dave Chase states the following in his research…

Because so many companies cut spending during the Great Depression era, advertising budgets were largely eliminated in many industries. Not only did spending decline, but some companies actually dropped out of public sight because of short-sighted decisions made about spending money to keep a high profile. Advertising cutbacks caused many customers to feel abandoned. They associated the brands that cut back on advertising with a lack of staying power. This not only drove customers to more aggressive competitors, but it also caused financial mistrust when it came to making additional investments in the no-longer-visible companies.

Both anecdotal and empirical evidence support the case that advertising was the main factor in the growth or downfall of companies during the Great Depression. To put it bluntly, the companies that demonstrated the most growth and that rang up the most sales were those that advertised heavily.

Are you beginning to see what the key is for your practice to thrive during the recession?

It’s using laser targeted, measurable marketing to bring in more new patients. People are still suffering out there, and they still need our services. In fact, many experts are finding the typical chronic conditions we help with are on the rise. Is it the stress? The loss of retirement assets? Who knows, but the point is patients need us now more than ever.

It’s important to realize that I’m not talking about “pretty” marketing that impresses other doctors but doesn’t do crap to bring in new patients. I’m strongly urging you to use direct response marketing where you can measure a return on investment. Later in the above mentioned article, the Mr. Chase mentions the following…

In general, it appears that direct marketing and interactive marketing will benefit the most — or, at least, will suffer the least — in today’s tough economic climate. Investment bank Cowen and Co. looked at the last six recessions and found that spending on direct marketing actually grew during all six recessions. Understandably, when the budget axe falls, those channels with the least ability to measure ROI will lose revenue to measurable marketing channels.

If you find yourself saying your marketing doesn’t work, I’ll bet 1 of 2 things is occurring. Either you’re not measuring your ROI (return on investment) and you really don’t know which marketing pieces are working and which aren’t, or you have sucky marketing materials.

Direct marketing can come in many forms. Email, telemarketing, chiropractic newspaper ads, internet marketing, yellow page ads, etc. The key is making a call to action in the ads and measuring that response.

Take 30 minutes today and write down your plan for thriving during the recession. What focused, measurable marketing are you going to do next month and the rest of this year? When you’re done with your list, tape it to your desk or wall where you’ll see it everyday and be reminded of what you need to do.

Where is your practice going in 2009?

In this month’s issues of The Chiropractic Marketing Newsletter, I’m covering the 7 most important numbers you must track in your office…and what you should be doing to improve them. This newsletter is an 11 page ‘seminar-in-a-box’ mailed right to your doorstep every month. It’s only $29.97 per month, can you cancel at any time (but I don’t think you’ll want to when you see the valuable information that’s revealed.)

This issue mails out on March 9th at 10AM CST. If you want to receive your issue in the mail, make sure you subscribe by then.

Click Here to Subscribe

Here is an excerpt that covers #5 out of 7. The newsletter goes into much more detail about how to improve each of these 7 numbers to bring more growth and profits to your practice.

#5. Case average.

Case average is a number that represents how much money a new patient will generate over time in your practice. You will sometimes hear it referred to as “lifetime value of a patient.”

You figure it by taking your collections for the month (or quarterly, yearly) and dividing by the number of new patients during the month. And make sure to use the new patients defined as in #1 above, not just the number of patients who started care.

Some chiropractors don’t like to figure this number, because they say you’re putting a dollar value on the patient’s head. But let’s face it, you’re running a business here. There are two parts to running your own practice… a clinical aspect and a business aspect. This newsletter is about the business aspect. (I trust you’ve got the clinical side figured out.)

The biggest reason to determine case average in your practice is to make good marketing decisions. Combine it with your conversion rate and you can really drill down on your marketing

Let’s run through an example…

An ad costs you $1500 to run. The last two times you ran it you got 13 new patients. You’re thinking about running it again, but your not sure if its really worth it.

But because you read this newsletter, you’ve been keeping track of your numbers for awhile. You know that every new patient that walks in the door will equal an average case of $1500. And you know that if a new patients comes in, you have a history of converting about 60% of them to care.

So if the ad produces 13 new patients, you’re going to convert 8 of them (13 x .60 = 7.8 rounded up).

8 new patients times $1500 case average is $12,000.

So now back to the question. Should you spend $1,300 on an ad to get $12,000 in return?

If you said “NO”, you need to go back and reread the above paragraph until you get a yes.

As a side-note….

This is the problem with judging your marketing solely on the number of new patients. Some chiropractors think…”13 new patients, well gosh Dr.. Beck, that’s not very many. Dr. Joe Blow said he got 187 new patients from an ad!”

That’s great for Dr. Joe. But I wonder what his conversion percentage is? And what’s his case average? Because if he really did get 187 new patients and converted most of them, he’s got a million dollar a year practice.

This bring us to our next number you must be tracking…

Subscribe Now to get the full issue…

I’ve noticed more and more people talking about the recession and the economy lately. It’s on the news 24/7, my pastor talks about it at church, and friends bring it up in almost every conversation.

I consider myself a realist and acknowledge people are going through tough times, but I tell my coaching clients to ask themselves…

“What am I going to do about it? What can I do to make sure my business
grows during these troubled times?”

There are practices growing during this recession. I spoke with 4 doctors last week that said February was their best month in years. Real quick, here’s the 2 most important steps they took…

1. More qualified new patients. In this case they were using my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads, but regardless of how you do it, get more quality new ones in the door. And stop wasting money on marketing that hasn’t worked for years. The days of look-pretty ads that aren’t condition specific are over. People need to be persuaded on why they should come see you and let go of their hard earned money. An ad that just has your picture, address and phone # isn’t going to do that.

2. Convert more new patients to care. You must have a simple, yet effective care plan to present to the patient. I’m not talking about using hard sell scripts or getting prepays for 60 years of care up front — these things will only hurt your conversions. Just figure up how much active care it will take for the patient to get to a level of stabilization. Total up the cost and present everything to the patient with at least 3 terms of financial payments — weekly, monthly,  or paid up front with a (small) bookkeeping discount.

How much effort are you putting into these two vital practice builders?

You’re a great chiropractor and you just want to help people get better. And the only way that’s going to happen is if you put some work into getting more and converting more new patients.

This isn’t like real estate or investing in the stock market, where you can hold on to your money and wait it out. It’s your business. Your livelihood. Your dream.

You must plow ahead regardless of the external circumstances. Chiropractic school wasn’t easy. Preparing and taking the National Board Exams was hell. (Double for me — my wife was set to go into labor at any moment while I was taking Part 1). Practicing after 9/11 not a cakewalk either.

Yet, when you look back, you made it through. What else are you going to do? Fold up and go home?

Here’s one of my favorite Youtube videos that shows how one father never gives up. Watch and ask yourself “If he can get up every day and push himself, why can’t I do the same?”

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One of my goals with this blog, and my business, is to provide the information you need and want to help you grow your practice. In 2009, I’ll be launching a program where we dive deep into effective practice building strategies.

To do this, I need your help. What types of practice problems do you need help with? What do you want more information on? What are the best ways you learn?

How can I make sure my blog is giving you the best information to help you?

I’ve put together a simple six question survey that will only take you a couple of minutes to complete. As a regular reader, you care about the information that’s published here. This is your opportunity to let me know how I can best serve your needs.

As a thank you for filling out the survey, I’m giving away my chiropractic referral stick letter system. (I’ve also thrown in a decompression version for those whom it would benefit.)

This letter is mailed to all the patients who start care in your office. In 2006, I tracked the referrals I got from this simple system and it added up to over $100,000 or revenue for my practice.

Click here to take the survey…

THANK YOU!