Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

This is a guest post by Dr. Jonathan Walker

For most chiropractors, receiving referrals from medical physicians is looked upon with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you’ve been in practice for a long time you likely remember a day when MDs would just as soon refer their patient to a witch doctor as a chiropractor. If you’re newer to the profession you might feel intimidated by the prospect of trying to explain the neurophysiology of spinal manipulation to a seasoned medical veteran.

There is no single “magic phrase” to open the referral floodgate, but there are 3 crippling fears keep MDs from referring patients for chiropractic care. These are not pie in the sky theories, but rather secrets I’ve learned from marketing to over 300 medical providers in my area as well as working with doctors all over the country.

1. Fear #1: You’ll steal their patient
Regardless of what variety of conditions you treat in your practice, when working with MDs your emphasis must be that you’re a specialist in conservative musculoskeletal care and will not try and usurp their role as the patient’s primary care provider (PCP).

I always make sure to tell other doctors that we do not function as PCPs, but that we find patients are best served when their chiropractor and medical physicians are all communicating together. This gives them the comfort that you won’t try and undermine their treatment of the patient. We expect professional respect and courtesy from MD and this goes both ways, even when you may disagree with a particular element of their management plan.

As a matter of fact it’s a good business (and social) practice to go out of your way to tell the patient what a great doctor they have and what good hands they’re in. Odds are this compliment will make it back to the referring physician, and that’s always a good thing!

2. Fear #2: They don’t really understand what chiropractors do
Most MDs seem to view chiropractic in the same light as many chiropractors do acupuncture. They believe that there is validity to the treatment, but they don’t know a lot about how it actually works.

This fear is easily conquered by ongoing education to provide familiarity with chiropractic, our level of expertise in treating musculoskeletal conditions, and the latest peer-reviewed research. For all of my PI Marketing Elite doctors we recommend one print, one electronic (e-mail) and one live contact a month. We provide cutting-edge MD newsletters and e-newsletters 100% “done for you” to make this process automatic.

3. Fear #3: Their patient will get a 6 month long treatment plan on their first visit to your office
I’m not going to debate the pros and cons of recommending long courses of care with cash pre-payment, but I do want to point out that if you want to receive medical referrals MDs cringe at the idea of a 6 month long treatment plan given on the first visit.

I explain that in my office we do a trial course of care, typically lasting anywhere from 2-4 weeks, depending on the patient’s condition. At the end of the trial we reassess the patient and if they’re making progress we start spacing out the time between visits and giving them home exercises to do.

This type of approach fits the paradigm they’re used to working within when they refer to a physical therapist, so in their minds you then become a viable option for referrals.

By preemptively dealing with these three common fears you’ll unlock an untapped goldmine of referrals, and help countless patients find relief with chiropractic care. I’ve seen it work first-hand in my own practice, and you can replicate this success in your office!

Dr. Jonathan Walker is president of PI Marketing Elite, and a full-time practicing chiropractor. MD marketing is a key area addressed in the marketing modules of PI Marketing Elite, and we provide you with turnkey tools, scripts, and strategies to use in your practice. Log onto www.newpimarketing.com or call Dr. Walker directly at 904-616-1284.

Carl has sciatica. He knows this because his wife used that medical thingy online where you put in your symptoms and it tells you what you have.

Carl hates this constant, annoying pain in his right buttocks and leg. Carl has had back pain in the past, but that went away 2 years ago.

Now it’s a “completely different” problem that just won’t go away! And worst of all, he can’t play golf, go dancing with his wife, or even sit for 20 minutes in the car.

Carl knows deep down that if this problem doesn’t get better soon, he’s going to have to see a medical doctor and he’s going to give him a bunch of prescriptions he isn’t crazy about.

He grabs a newspaper on the way to work, and sees an ad for the local chiropractor. Carl knows nothing about chiropractic except that his uncle used to go to one for back pain. This ad is classy, sharp, and has a professional picture of the doctor. The name of the office is in large letters with the phone number underneath the photo.

He briefly makes a mental note that if he ever has low back pain again, he should call this chiropractor’s office.

Carl turns a few pages, reading an article on government overspending and debt accumulation. As he glances down at the bottom half of the page, his mind begins racing. To Carl’s astonishment, there in large bold letters, is a headline that reads “Eliminate Sciatica Without Surgery, Drugs, or Painful Exercises”.

Carl can’t read the “article” fast enough. It describes exactly what he is suffering from. And there’s a solution described and backed up with testimonials.

Carl reads that if he comes in for help during the next 10 days, he will get an exam and x-rays for less than $40. Wow!

Who is article from? Oh, a D.C. Hmmm, not sure what kind of doctor that is. But I’m open to anything that can help with sciatica.

Carl quickly picks up the phone, calls the office, and quickly begs the receptionist to get him in this week, “before this special ends.”

——–
This isn’t a fairy tale. It happens every day around the world. The point of the story is that when you advertise your services, you must enter the conversation already going in the prospect’s mind.

Just talking about the history of chiropractic is not something that a new patient, who doesn’t know anything about chiropractic, is going to respond to.

Your marketing cannot be geared towards what chiropractors love, but not what patients are thinking about.

Once they come in, then you can educate them all about chiropractic and what it can help.
It’s a common phrase in marketing, “what’s in it for me?” At that point in their life, it doesn’t really matter who D.D. Palmer is.

Look, chiropractors can help a lot of different people with a lot of different issues. But, to speak to that new patient on their level, you need to talk to them in their language.

As Bob Dylan once sang, ‘times they are are a changing’, and this is especially true in the profession of chiropractic.

Most of you can feel it, knowing that there is a wind of change blowing through our industry. Currently it may feel like a small breeze. But soon I fear it will be a strong, gale force wind.

But while some things are changing, still others remain the same. Which is good if it’s a rock solid marketing method, as I’ll soon show you below with the results of my recent survey.

Why are things changing? Two big reasons.

#1. A recent recession and still weak economy. This has caused some chiropractors to withdraw all marketing ( very dumb move if your marketing was previously working). Others had thought their low return-on-investment marketing would get them through the recession, but it didn’t. And still others sought after the magic pill that would save their practice, expecting a new marketing product would undo years of bad business management.

#2. Health care reform. (Also called Obamacare by some.) This is the biggest reason for change occurring in chiropractic. While there are still a lot of questions over this recent congressional bill, many chiropractors get the sense this bill is bad news for their practice. The ACA and ICA both seem to be convinced this is an “historic pro-chiropractic” bill, mostly because it will not allow insurers to discriminate against us. Of course some chiropractors have said to me they’d gladly take a little discrimination as opposed to an across-the-board-medicare-like system that has low payouts and excludes payment for exams, x-rays, therapies, etc.

Other chiropractors have taken a “wait-and-see” approach to this bill. After all, we have 4 years to figure things out, right? Well, if you are anything like me, being reactive is not something I like. Being proactive in growing my businesses has always been extremely successful, whereas being reactive to problems others throw at me ends in mediocrity at best.

Last week, I ran a quick survey to my list of blog readers. I limited the survey to 100 respondents and offered a package of marketing audios to those who answered every question of the survey. (Links to the audios will go out Wednesday to those who completed the survey. Thank you!)

Let’s look at some results of the survey. The first question I asked was:

Question 1. What area of marketing do you want the most help with right now

Now I expected a wide range of answers, which I certainly got. But I did not expect the answers to be strongly skewed toward what’s referred to today as “offline advertising”. Over 67% of the responders chose an answer in the offline group of marketing which contained newspaper advertising, internal referrals, MD referrals, attorney referrals and public lectures. Very few wanted help with their websites, pay per click, blogs, Facebook & Twitter. Is this because D.C.’s don’t fully understand these online methods yet? Or is it that the offline methods are continuing to outperform newer, online marketing strategies? (What do you think? Please leave a comment below.)

Question 2. What area do you currently spend most of your marketing budget on?

Big surprise here! A whopping 38% of respondents chose newspaper advertising compared to the second most popular answer (websites) being only 17%. This result was very telling of our profession for 2 reasons. First, there are many ‘salesmen’ shouting that newspaper ads are dead. If this was the case, why are so many chiropractors in June, 2010 still spending a large amount on them? And secondly, most businesses don’t continue to spend money where there is no return. Therefore, newspaper ads must be bringing in a decent ROI at least, compared to other advertising.

You may think this answer is not surprising, because after all I developed the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads, so of course the answers would be biased. But the interesting thing is, most of the people filling out the survey have never bought my newspaper ads.

So here is an example of one thing that hasn’t changed much, which is good because its working and continues to work well. Marketing that works well doesn’t need to change.

Question 3. Which form of marketing/advertising is currently most effective for you?

Here I gave the same choices as I had given in the previous 2 questions. No surprise here that the answer “internal referrals” won by a large margin. Everyone knows referrals are the easiest to convert to care and cost almost nothing to bring in. Taking 2nd place was public lectures and 3rd was newspaper advertising (which confirms the assumption I made about ROI above.)

Question 4. Which of these products, if any, would most interest you?

The answers to choose from were  weight loss, associate hiring /training, massage therapy and write in your own. This question brought a pretty broad range of answers. Write-in answers varied with 16 different answers typed in. Weight loss won, (but just barely) and all the other answers pretty much tied for 2nd place.

5. What is the biggest challenge you see facing you as a chiropractor over the next year?

This was a completely open ended question, with the ability to type in what you wanted here. This is where I saw the biggest change in our profession. Huge actually! But you’ll have to wait until Friday because I’m going to do a whole blog post just on this topic. I know, it’s annoying to wait, but sometimes it’s well worth the wait, right?

See ya Friday.

One of the best ways to “wow” new patients and get patient compliance in your treatment plans is to be recognized as an expert in your field. Getting more letters in the form of degrees after your name can help some. But there is a better way.

Do you know the fastest way to become an expert?

The answer is to become a published author of a book. As soon as you write a book on any health problem and how to solve it, you will be seen as an expert.

Imagine every new patient who comes into your office receiving, as a free gift, a nice copy of your newest book. By the time you get to your report of findings, this patient is going to feel very comfortable trusting you with their health.

Also, realize that people will quickly loose or throw a business card away. But how many will throw away your professionally published book?

Having your own book will set you apart from all the other chiropractors in your town.

To bring in high quality new patients, you need to focus on specific niche markets. A niche market is simply a “subset” of a larger market.
There is everyone who could be a chiropractic patient, but within that group, you can divide them even further into specific niches.

Niche marketing can make a huge impact on your practice. The spinal decompression boom of the last 4-5 years shows this to be true. But you don’t have to invest in expensive equipment to do niche marketing. Just match up good advertising with niche conditions, and do what you already know how to do…help people get well!

So what are the best conditions to focus on in 2009 and beyond?

The answer to the question of “what niches should you focus on” will depend quite a bit on how your office is set up. If you have special equipment, like detox machines, decompression tables, or cold la-sers, you’ll want to focus on those niches first.

With that said, there are some very good niches that will bring you good quality new patients, thereby being more profitable. Here are my top 5

1. Fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia affects at least 6 million women in the US each year, and these patients aren’t getting answers anywhere else. The key is connecting with these patients on their level. These patients usually need nutritional and lifestyle advice as well. Important to recognize if you sell products in your office that can help their condition.

2. Herniated/ Degenerative Discs. These patients have usually tried multiple medical routes with little to no help. Many of them are facing surgery and would love to find a more natural solution. This market is available even if you don’t own a decompression table. But having one can help.

3. Arthritis. Osteoarthritis alone affects nearly 21 million people, accounts for nearly a quarter of primary care visits, and half of all NSAID use in the U.S. This group focuses on the baby boomers which are currently the most affluent group in America. You may be thinking you’ve been helping people with arthritis for years, but are you using the term “arthritis” specifically in your marketing?

4. Neuropathies. Sciatica, numbness, tingling, radiculopathies, and other never problems fall into this group. This is a very motivated group that must hear from you soon so they will not be confined to a life of surgeries and dangerous medications. This is the newest of the 5 listed, because so many people are getting neuropathies these days. One doctor recently sent me the following email about doing neuropathy marketing…

5. Headaches and migraines. Approximately 22 million women are affected by migraines alone in the United States. Because these patients have suffered for many years (some since childhood), they will be a very good patient and can be easily helped by chiropractic care.

There’s my Top 5 niche conditions to focus on in 2009. You could probably add a few more but you’ll find the 5 above to be excellent quality patients when it comes to staying, paying and referring.

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.

What is the purpose of your practice? Is it to help people or to make money?

Quite a few chiropractors and even chiropractic gurus beat around the bush on this one. It’s often quoted in some “rah-rah” chiropractic seminars that if “you just help the patients the money will follow.”  While this quote has truth to it, it’s not the whole truth.

Think about it. If you are an associate doctor, you are helping patients, but yet making a meager salary. If you have no financial policies in your office and everyone gets care for free, you can help a lot of people, but make no money.

So what is the purpose of practice? I would venture to say that you have two purposes in practice. Your chiropractic purpose is to help people get well. Your business purpose is to make a profit. I know, in today’s politically correct world, making a profit is seen as some kind of evil. Yet that’s why we became business owners. Our main reason to start a practice is not to employ people or pay more in taxes. You didn’t wake up one day and say “I want to start a business so I can be an employer!”

Being a chiropractic doctor is easy. Once you learn to adjust patients, it’s really not that difficult. Yet, being a business owner is quite challenging. It’s your job not only to see patients, but to make sure everything is running smoothly. To keep things running smoothly you need systems in place. In fact, the whole book “E-Myth” by Michael Gerber was all about having systems in your business.

Here’s a short list of the systems you need in place…

-new patient marketing system (including external and internal marketing)
-a system to convert new patients to care
-a case fee system that allows for you to be profitable
-a patient reactivation system
-a system to convert patients to wellness/maintenance/lifetime care
-an education system to keep retention (patient visit average) high

So what should the saying really be? How about “Help your patients, with the right systems in place, and the money will follow.”

In my last post, we discussed how you could start preparing for economic change. Today I’ll continue with the last 3 steps you can take to win during the recession.

5. Get out of debt.
If you’ve ever had a slow month of collections, you realize how tough carrying debt can be. You’re debtors don’t care if you are having a slow month, or the economy is in turmoil, they just want to be paid. Proverbs 22:7 says “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.” Lest you think this is some kind of outdated, old-fashioned wisdom, try going a few months not paying your debtors and see what happens.

I know it’s not politically correct to say “get out of debt” these days, in a country gone wild with borrowing up to their eyeballs. But truth is truth, and carrying debt during a slower economic time is a recipe for disaster. So focus today on paying it off.

6. Add other streams of income to your practice.
It’s said that one is the loneliest number. In business and marketing this is certainly true. It’s not wise to rely on one stream of income. Many businesses have been wiped out overnight because they only had one method of making money. What can you add to your practice that builds on what you have, but is different than chiropractic services. Can you add nutrition, weight loss, detox, or decompression programs to your practice? Can you better diversify your marketing, so you aren’t getting new patients from just a few sources?

7. Stay focused on your business.
Who’s going to win the elections? Will the stock market go up? Will real estate go back up? Who cares, none of these things are going to make a difference in your practice in the coming year. You’re a chiropractor. Stop watching the news and get busy on your practice! Did George Bush help build your practice? How about Bill Clinton? No, your practice grew as a result of you, not Congress or the President. It’s what you do over the next year that matters.

Some chiropractors will go out of business in the next 12 months. Some will just do ok. Others will explode past their limitations and build the lifestyle of their dreams. Which will you be?

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…