Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Have you ever had people try and keep you from being successful? Enduring through trials in business and life is one of the major keys to success.

I’ll never forget going to over 20 banks to get a business loan, each of them telling me no. One Vice President of a community bank even said “Oh, you’re a chiropractor. Chiropractors just don’t do well in business” with a sad look on his face.

When my practice was struggling, many extended family members were pushing me to declare bankruptcy. One of them even said “You should go to medical school and become a real doctor!”

There will always be people and difficulties in your life that try to discourage you from being successful. How many times in the past year did you run up against a trial and think it was going to be a big struggle to overcome?

But many times these “tests” of character are what sharpen us for greater things…

If not for the banker “feeling sorry for me”, I may not have gotten mad and kept trying until I found a bank loan. If not for my family members insisting I declare bankruptcy when my practice was struggling, I may have not been so “stubborn” and resisted any notion of it.

What do you have to endure in practice?

One chiropractor recently spoke with me about his struggling practice. He said that his patients were complaining about paying for care and were even quitting care because their insurance wasn’t paying correctly.

My answer to this doctor…”Focus on getter better quality new patients so you don’t have to deal with these problems.”

This is why I created The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads. I got sick and tired of seeing chiropractors having to meagerly survive on spinal screenings and other outdated marketing strategies.

Whatever you are struggling with now, you can overcome it. Look for solutions and tools that can help you. It’s likely that someone else has gone through it before you, and now has the answers you need. Find those people and get the answers.

I hope you’ll find many of the answers you seek from this blog and my products (especially if it’s a marketing problem because that’s my purpose for this business). But if I don’t have the answers you need, then keep searching until you find it.

Don’t give up. There’s a reason you are a chiropractor.
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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!

Whether the economy is really in a recession or not, all the doom and gloom broadcasting 24/7 from the news media makes people panic. While some patients may begin to clinch their wallets a bit tighter, here are some ways you can survive, even thrive during the so called recession.

1. Only use marketing that works
Now is not the time to cut back on marketing. Stopping your marketing during a downturn in the economy is the exact opposite of what you need to do. Yes, you do need to refine your marketing, use direct response marketing (makes sure it pays for itself, bringing in a return on investment). Don’t commit to long turn contracts or stupid “pretty” advertising, then be shocked when you’ve spent $10,000 and not seen a return. Also, you should be able to get better deals as newspaper, direct mail print shops and other forms of media struggle for marketshare. Your competition will go with the flow and think it’s time to cut back, this is exactly why it’s going to be your best time to market and lead the field.

2. Start using internet marketing
Chiropractic internet marketing is very inexpensive, and if done correctly, can provide a huge return on investment. Why spend $5-10k on a yellow pages ad for a whole year, when you can spend a few dollars on the internet and change it if it’s not working? When I mention internet marketing, I’m not talking about just having a traditional website. Thats like putting a flyer up on a bulletin board somewhere in town and hoping for someone to find it and become a new patient. To maximize your online marketing, you’ll need a complete automated system that’s easy to run and manage. See my ChiroMarketing Academy for details on this.

Another great aspect of the internet is that the affluent (wealthy) use the internet to make buying decision more so than any other income level. This makes them a great group to market towards since they are least affected by any economic turbulence.

3. Market to current patients more
It’s much less expensive to market to your current patients then it is to go out and acquire new patients. This doesn’t mean you can only market to current patients and grow, but I bet you could so more with your patient base. Do they know about all the services and products you offer? Are they reminded on regular intervals to get adjusted? Do you send a monthly printed newsletter in edition to 2-4 emails a month? Do you have special events like P.A.D.’s, toy drives, etc?

4. Redefine your marketing message
As I mentioned above, during tougher economic times, you can’t waste money on marketing that doesn’t work. Therefore, you have to make sure you are marketing the right message to the right people. The generalized “I’m a chiropractor and we help everybody with everything” isn’t a marketing message at all. Patients want a doctor with two things: experience (positioning yourself as an expert) and empathy (understanding how they feel). Master these two in your marketing message and direct it at specific conditions people suffer with, and you’ll never have to worry about new patients.

It is said more millionaires were made during the Great Depression than any other time in our nations history. Most likely this was due to great deals on stocks, real estate and businesses. You can see these economic times as an advantage or disadvantage, it’s your choice. But whatever you do, don’t pull back on all your marketing and think you can wait it out.

We’ll continue with the next 3 in part 2 in my next post…

Do you ever look back and think about the mistakes you made in your business? Do you have wonder how much money those mistakes cost you?

In this post, I’m going to cover 3 big mistakes I made early on in marketing my practice. If you’re just starting a practice or buying a new practice, you should avoid these mistakes like the plague. Even if you’ve been in practice awhile, it may be time to brush up on a few of these points.

Mistake #1. Not Measuring ROI

My first year in practice, I blew so much money on marketing that didn’t work. If an ad rep stopped by, and convinced me that his paper/mailer/service was good enough, I would give it a try. Then I would see how successful it was based on the number of new patients it brought in. So what was the mistake in this? I gave no thought to the quality of patient, their ability to pay (ever had marketing bring in all unemployed patients?), the referrals they generated, etc.

Here’s the point…if I just measured the marketing based on new patient numbers, I wasn’t getting the real picture. I would not be able to judge whether I should run this type of marketing again or not. What you need to do is measure every dollar that comes from that marketing piece in a simple spreadsheet. For more details on how to do this, check out my previous post “How Did Your Last Marketing Piece Do?”

Mistake #2: Not Understanding Lifetime Value

This mistake is closely related to mistake #1. Lifetime value of a patient is a phrase that describes how much money that patient will generate over time in your practice. (For those of you who don’t like to talk about patients as a monetary value, get over it , you’re running a business here. There’s a clinical aspect to practice and a business aspect. We’re talking business here.) How do you measure this? Take all the money you have collected in your practice, and divide by the total number of new patients you’ve seen. You could go back 1 year or 10 years, but the further you go back the more accurate the numbers will be. Some doctors also refer to this as the “case average” value.

Why do you need to know this number? Because it tells you how much you can spend to get a new patient.  If your lifetime value is $5000 for every new patient that walks in the door, how much would you spend to get that person as a patient? I’ve heard coaching groups say “Never, ever spend more than $100 to get a new patient!” Where does that number come from? If I spend $300 to get a new patient that brings me $5000 in revenue, isn’t this a good business model? Yes, not everyone spends $5k, some spend less, some spend more. That’s why it’s an average. Figure your lifetime value of a patient and start using that number in your decision making.

Mistake #3: Not Focusing On Condition Specific Marketing

This one will bring the controversies in chiropractic out. No matter, it cost me a ton of money early on in practice and it’s important I tell you about it. If you don’t think chiropractors should market to or even talk about symptoms, you’re in big trouble financially. People have problems. People want solutions to their problems. You can’t sell new patients on wellness. You can teach them about it once they are patients, but you aren’t going to gain most people’s trust trying to sell them something they don’t want.

Now this doesn’t mean you can only adjust that area of complaint, only take x-rays there, etc. That’s not what I’m talking about. But you should market to new patients that have specific problems, then analyze and take care of them the way you see fit. I tried to market and sell my patients wellness, and while I did convert a few patients to care, it almost bankrupted me. Most patients just thought I was speaking a different language and not listening to them. Needless to say, it didn’t take me long to correct this mistake. Educate your patients about wellness once you have them getting better and they are on their way to correction.

While these aren’t the kind of mistakes that get you into trouble with the law or your state board, they are stupid business mistakes that can cost you thousands of dollars and even put you into bankruptcy. Make sure you don’t make them in your practice and you’ll be much more successful because of it.

There are certain key elements that if applied to your practice can have a huge impact on your success. Whenever I speak with a coaching client or teach in my chiropractic marketing course, at some point we will cover the following 7 Keys to Success in detail.

1. Market to the right people.

While it’s certainly true everyone can benefit from chiropractic care, it’s also true that not everyone wants to. So it doesn’t make sense to market to every human being on the planet and you’ll simply go broke or burnout trying to do it (this is a lesson I learned the hard way, but that’s another story.) Decide who your ideal patient is, and spend your marketing time and money on them. Consider factors like where they live, where work, what type of conditions they have, PI vs insurance vs cash, etc.

2. Use the right marketing media.

Certain types of ads just don’t do well in certain types of media. Types of media include…newspaper, TV, radio, direct mail, internet, etc. Most chiropractors would agree that billboards are a waste of money. Some chiropractors are running image type ads in newspapers and never seeing a new patient from them. The key here is to make the advertising work for you. If it’s not making you money, that’s a clue you need a new ad or a new type of media. Use less expensive types of advertising first, like internet, direct mail, and newspaper because they are more forgiving on the pocketbook if you make a mistake.

3. Find the right staff.

This is probably one of the most difficult aspects of running a practice. Finding staff who doesn’t run off patients, text all day or surf the net, dresses trashy, shows up late, etc is sometimes hard. Sometimes you can do your best at refining them through the hiring process, but 6 months later you find out they just aren’t going to work out. But don’t give up, and don’t settle for sloppy work. By using specific guidelines during the hiring and training process, you can reduce you hiring “mistakes” and get some great team members. I highly recommend the book “No B.S. Ruthless Management of People and Profits“. Don’t let the name scare you off, this is really a ‘shoot-ya-straight’ type of book.

4. Have a plan.

The saying “No plan is a plan to fail” is true. If you get wrapped up in seeing patients, doing paperwork, and teaching staff you aren’t “working on” your practice, you’re “working in” your practice. Setting up a plan that you can reference is the only way to move forward consistently. And the “I’d like to see x number of patients per week” is not a plan at all. If you find it hard to work on your practice, you should hire a coach to help you do it. This is the absolute best way to develop a plan and implement changes in your practice. A coach will have past experiences and a different viewpoint to look at your practice. One word of caution…be careful what type of coach you hire. Some coaches are just “hype” peddlers and can lead your practice in the wrong direction.