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.

Have you set up your 2012 chiropractic marketing calendar yet?

I know it’s already 2 weeks into the year, but if your holiday season is anything like mine, it takes the first week or two in 2012 to actually relax and catch up from the end of the previous year.

One of the things you must do is write down all your plans and goals on a yearly calendar.You can not just wait until you need new patients, and then figure out what to do. This is reactive marketing and you want to be proactive this year.

For years, I used a monthly calendar on the wall that my staff and I could write marketing events down and see what was coming up.

But the furthest you can see on these types of calendars is only 30 days at a time. What we need is a “year at a glance” type of calendar.

Well thankfully this year I found the NeuYear Calendar, which is a complete year at a glance. This will hang great on the wall or back of my door.

I recommend you grab one too, and start planning your monthly marketing events, promotions, ads, etc.

Here’s some benefits listed on their site, which led me to buy one immediately:

• It’s big, coming in at 27″ x 39″ this means you can see the whole year at once. “You no longer have to page through a traditional calendar (or on your small computer screen), to see the whole year. You can layout your goals for the year, set future deadlines, and clearly see the passing of time. Also, it has bigger squares so you can write more.”
• No space between months. “The week is the currency we think in, so this calendar focuses on presenting 52 weeks, rather than 12 months.”
• Brilliant aesthetics. In Making Ideas Happen, author Scott Belsky says “the design of your productivity tools will affect how eager you are to use them; attraction often breeds commitment.”
• 2 calendars in 1! It has a horizontal orientation that fits perfectly above your desk, or you can flip it over for a vertical orientation that fits perfectly on your door.

Now that I shown you which calendar I think is best, what do you do with it?

Call a staff meeting one day during lunch. Start by explaining your mission for your practice and the goals you have for this year.

Then begin brainstorming with your staff about the different types of marketing ideas they have. Make sure to give them room and freedom to talk. Even if they have a bunch of bad ideas, just write them down. You never know when they’ll say something you’ve never thought of.

My staff would often come up with many successful in-office marketing procedures from the past that I had totally forgotten about.

Once you have written down, everything you can think of, start prioritizing your list. Put a “1″ by the most effective, “2″ be second most effective, and so on.

Side note: Do not base effectiveness on what feels like it did the best last year. Feelings do not turn into dollars. Measure effectiveness based on your return on investment numbers you recorded for all marketing last year. And if you didn’t keep good records, go back and see if you can figure it up now. Remember, ROI equals the amount you brought in from a given marketing campaign divided by the money spent on it.

You might want to throw in something new for 2012 that you haven’t tried before. A few suggestions would be:

• Neuropathy or decompression newspaper ads
• Google Adwords
• spinal screenings (but with a caveat, see here)

Then begin writing on your calendar all the 1′s, 2′s, etc. spread out somewhat evenly throughout the year. So you don’t want all your ads to come out in March and have the rest of the year empty.

If you wanted to do it according to budget, you should write the amount to spend beside each campaign to. For example, on February 20th you might write “Run Neuropathy Ad for $1000 or less”. (To see how to save money on running your monthly newspaper ads, watch this free webinar.)

If a month get’s too busy, slide things forward into the next month. You should be marketing every month of the year, no exceptions.

Now you have a marketing calendar set up. Try to stick to it as much as possible. You may need to edit and change things throughout the year. That’s fine, but make sure you take a look at the big picture before making rash decisions.

Do you have any other good ideas on planning your marketing calendar? Let us know in the comments below.

Let’s see how good your math is today. Prizes go to anyone who gets the right answer!

Math never was my favorite subject in school, but I got by with passing grades at least.

Well, there was that one time I made a D with Mr. Drill Sergent Teacher in college Algebra! But, I retook it later with a different teacher and got an A.

Anyways, enough about my report card. Let’s see if you can do some business math…

Nothing complicated of course. I realize most of my readers are doctors and have other skills sets.

Hang with me here and you’ll see there’s a very important marketing lesson that goes along with this math problem.

The most important number in marketing is ROI (which stands for Return On Investment.) According to Investopedia.com the technical definition is:

A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

It’s the money you make back, the return, on what you originally invested. So if you put $1 into marketing and make back $7. That’s a 7:1 ROI, also expressed 700%

This is an excellent return. You made $6 that you did not have when you started. All the big box stores would love to have that kind of return on their merchandise.

Let me make the example a little more complicated.

Let’s say you want to start an egg business. But, you need to invest in getting chickens first, before you can have any eggs to sell. Your first step is to hire a chicken catcher (work with me here, it’s an example!) You find a highly recommended chicken catcher for the nice sum of $100.

You ask Mr. Chickengetter (heretofore known as CG) how many chickens he can catch for you. He says he’s not sure, as those buggers are pretty fast. But he’ll do his best. Tomorrow he comes back with 9 chickens. Now it’s time for the egg laying to begin!

Within the first month these fine chickens produce 300 organic, free-range eggs to sell to Whole Foods, who pays you $700 for them.

Wow, this makes you feel really good about your business.

Let’s throw in a little twist. Let’s say all your chickens burn up in a horrible fire after 30 days (hey, stuff happens)!

You’ve now got to go back to Mr. CG and have him catch you some more chickens. But on your way to meet him, you strike up a conversation with another farmer down the road, Mr. Poach.

He informs you that he never pays more than $5 for a new chicken, never, ever! Even though Mr. Poach’s farm is looking pretty shabby, you thank him for his good advice and go on your way.

You then hire Mr. CG for $200 this time and tell him you need a lot of chickens to restart your business. He brings back 18 chickens. You do a quick calculation in your head, while thinking about your previous conversation you had with Mr. Poach. You just paid a whopping $11.11 per chicken! You feel completely duped.

Doesn’t Mr. CG understand how tight money is after the fire? If he really cared, he would have brought back more chickens. At least 50, or maybe 70 chickens.

After giving Mr. CG a piece of your mind for charging you so much per chicken, you go back home and start producing those wonderful eggs.

After 30 days, you have about 600 eggs, which you sell to Whole Foods for $1400.

How depressing this chicken business is.  Last month you felt good about your business ,but this month you only got 18 chickens from Mr. CG. If only he could have brought you 80 or 90 chickens, you could be feeling good right now. You think to yourself, “maybe the money’s in turkey farming.”

What’s the moral of the story?

It doesn’t matter how you feel about the number of chickens you get, it’s the amount of eggs they produce that matters!

In both scenarios, the return is exactly the same, 7:1 or 700%. In both cases you put in $1 and got $7 back. It doesn’t matter how much the chickens cost, because that’s not part of the ROI formula!

How many investors on Wall Street would be ecstatic about buying stocks for $1 and selling them for $7?

Now for the true test of your arithmetic prowess. Here’s a real life example I got in email form.

“I just ran my first ad. We got 6 calls to schedule and 5 came in. I’ve already done one report and he paid $995 today. If he keeps his treatment recommendations he’ll pay an additional $500 to finish his care. 5 NP’s from a $1000 cost to run the ad is not a very good return, don’t you agree?”

Be one of the first 10 comments to get all of the following questions right and I’ll give you a free video for improving your website ranking on Google.

1. Assuming all 5 patients finish the care plan of $1495 each, what will this doctor’s ROI be?

2. Would you be happy with these results?

3. Multiple choice, choose only one:

Would you:

A. Run the chiropractor’s ad again.

B. Not run the ad again because it only brought in 5 new patients.

C. Not run the ad again because it lost you money.

Recently a student from University of California Riverside contacted me for an interview regarding chiropractic marketing. I thought you might be interested in his questions and my answers. It’s a little longer than my usual blog posts, but I didn’t want to divide it up into parts.

Here is the interview:
——

Greg: I’m a student at UC Riverside. I am taking an internet marketing course and we were all assigned a niche (ex. chiropractors, plumbers, dentists) and was told to create an online marketing plan for these professions. I was assigned chiropractors and in my research, I found this site. You seem to be an authority in the industry so would it be ok if I ask you a few questions either through email or phone about Chiropractic Marketing and ROI.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I really appreciate it. My class revolves around internet marketing and its impact for businesses today. I have a couple of generic chiropractor questions and a few more specific internet marketing questions.

My first question: When you are training to become a chiropractor, do they teach you just what you need to be a skilled practitioner or do they also teach you how to run your own chiropractic business. Basically, do they teach you how to market yourself?

Dr. Beck: No. Most chiropractic colleges have one class on the business side of chiropractic and it is very bland. The teacher is often not in practice or if he/she is in practice, they are reluctant to give too much information on marketing, fearing that the college would not approve. The chiropractic schools do a great job of teaching us how to be skilled practitioners and caring doctors, but the business training is really lacking. And you see this affecting the profession with many chiropractors struggling to make ends meet.

Greg:  Do Chiropractors in large cities charge significantly more/make more than those in smaller cities? Or is it mostly standardized across the nation.

Dr. Beck:  There is certainly more potential in a large city for higher income, due to the higher density of potential patients. However there is more competition in large cities and overhead expenses are much higher. Smaller towns allow lower monthly overhead so that the business can have a higher profit margin. Plus smaller towns can allow for easier referral capacity. So it’s a toss up in my mind. I say live where you want to live and raise your family.

Greg: I saw on your website that you mentioned for one example that the lifetime value of a patient is $1800. Is this factual or was it just used for the example? If the latter, what would you estimate the lifetime value of a patient to be.

Dr. Beck: The term “lifetime value” is a typical marketing term used to estimate marketing costs and return on investment. If you take the lifetime value of a customer, then you can determine how much you can spend on marketing to acquire that customer. The lifetime value of a chiropractic patient is between $1000-3000 on average, depending on the type of practice, location and services offered. Some highly specialized niche practices will make higher than $3000. Anyone making less than $1000 per patient, averaged across 12 months, will find it very hard to be profitable in today’s world, unless of course they are getting hundreds of new patients per month.

Greg: I’ve noticed that in many large cities, the Google PPC ads are about $2-$3 a click. Even with a 10% conversion rate (just a guess by me), $30 for a patient worth $1000+ seems like a steal. What are you thoughts on this? Are chiropractors just unaware of these options in acquiring more patients?

Dr. Beck: A 10% conversions directly from Google Adwords would be quite high in my opinion, for any business. The actual number ranges between .5-2% depending mostly on the landing page copy on the doctor’s website. If we assume a conservative 1% conversion rate and high (in most areas) $3 per click, then it would take $300 to get a new patient. At a lifetime value of $1800, that is still a “steal” as you say. The return on investment (ROI) is quite high, with a $1500 profit per patient. Are chiropractors unaware of this? I don’t think most chiropractors understand Pay Per Click well like Google Adwords and they may have been screwed over by a company running it for them in the past. Also, many chiros have been told bad marketing proverbs like “you should never pay over $100 per new patient”, which causes them to quickly decline paying $300 per new patient.

Greg:  In our study one of the questions that we have to answer is if we had a website that ranked for “chiropractor in city” and was getting 100 targeted clicks a month. Not knowing how many people are going to call the chiropractic business, what should we charge the chiropractor for this website per month. What would be a fair price for the chiropractor as well as the webmaster on a monthly basis?

Dr. Beck: Words like “fair price” will mean different things to different chiropractors. So if asking them directly what they would pay for a website, it would depend on the money they are making at the time. Many chiropractors are paying upwards of $3000-5000 for really bad websites; websites that looks great but fail at getting new patients. Other companies charge a monthly fee like $500 for a website design and maintenance (which does not include an PPC.) I personally think no more than $1000-1500 for a website and additional monthly fees for Adwords management.

Greg: What would be the maximum you pay for the lead. We are going to assume he is a random patient meaning he may only go to the initial appointment or he may stay for a few years.

Dr. Beck: How much would I pay for a lead in practice? Almost nothing since leads do not equal new patients. I once bought a chiropractor’s files who was going out of business and mailed out letters to all 1000 of them. Not one came in. But I assume by the word “lead” you mean new patient. How much would I pay for a new patient? I would pay at least 70% of the lifetime value. But few chiropractors will do this high of a number, because of multiple factors mostly related to now knowing their numbers. (Most physicians and healthcare practitioners are not known for their ability to keep good business statistics.) Many chiropractors have been told they should pay little to nothing to get new patients in. Some have even been taught it’s unethical for a doctor to do any type of marketing. Also as I mentioned above, there is this proverb going around that we shouldn’t pay more than $100 per new patient, so that’s a baseline for you to consider.

Regarding a “random patient” who might stay one or might stay 100 visits, all this is factored into the lifetime value number as it is an average across your practice.

Greg:  I appreciate your time. I’m grateful for any help and I am looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much, Greg Larkin, Student at UC Riverside.

It was a hot, sunny July 4th weekend in the Texas hill country. Thankfully there was a slight breeze, but not much help when the thermometer is near 100.

After returning home from church, I was reading on the couch when I heard a loud cracking sound outside. At first, I thought it was my air conditioning unit falling apart. Great! It’s gonna be a hot afternoon now! But then the sound was gone so fast, I thought maybe it was only the wind,

Then about an hour later my daughter took the dog for a walk and nearly fell over this tree in the front yard. She ran saying “Daddy, this huge tree just fell in our yard!” I thought she must have been exaggerating, as some of the females in our house are prone to do.

But sure enough, a huge post oak, over 40 feet tall and with a trunk bigger than my waist, had cracked and fallen in the front yard.

The very tree that my little children had been playing under just the previous day. Next to this tree, another one exactly like it shades our picnic table and holds up a swing for the kids.

Why did the tree fall?

It was perfectly healthy. No disease. No bugs inside. Sure we’re in the worst drought in Texas history right now, but this tree had green leaves and was thriving.And it’s not like we’ve had any hurricane winds lately.

There was absolutely no outward sign this tree would fall over.

Yet once it fell, you could see what the cause of death really was. I’ll get to that in a moment.

Why am I telling you about a majestic oak falling down in my yard?

Because it applies to how you run your practice. Let me explain…

When my practice was struggling, it looked great on the outside. The patients really had no idea it was in trouble. The carpet was clean, the paint looked good, I dressed well and my staff was professional. And while it’s true there weren’t ever more than a couple of people in the office at the time, most patients just thought we had scheduled them during a special time.

However, on the inside the whole business was starting to crack. Marketing was pretty much useless, because every time I let the newspaper design an ad for me it failed miserably. New patients began to dwindle, visits decreased and cash flow quickly dried up.

My family noticed though. They noticed every time we climbed into the 1998 4 door Ford Escort in the August heat (with a broken AC to boot!) Anyone who came by the house noticed, as there was sparse furniture and even less food. Business associates and friends noticed as well, but I pretty much ignored their sage advice.

After all, I was told not to associate with such “negative thinking people”.

Things did turn around at the 11th hour of my practice, thanks to finally mastering marketing and patient care plans. (You can read the whole story at my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads site.) And we were blessed to be given a second chance right on the verge of bankruptcy.

But the point is there were signs–very big signs—that my practice was headed south. But I just ignored them and chose not to deal with the problems.

The same thing is true with the tree collapse. There were signs. I had been warned when we moved in to this house. And as soon as I saw what had happened, his words came back to me, “Ya, post oaks are pretty. But they grow up to just fall over in your yard!”

But I thought, “No way, won’t happen to my trees.” Just because the tree trunk weighs a thousand pounds and is growing at 45 degree angle doesn’t mean anything. Just because the neighboring lot has 5 or 10 trees that have fallen over doesn’t mean anything. I just need to ignore those negative trees

Of course, once it fell you could see the inside of the trunk had split. The crack was completely undetectable on the outside. But inside, the crack had completely taken the support out of the base, going 2-3 feet into the ground even. Once that trunk base split inside, it was just a matter of time before the tree collapsed. Thank God my children weren’t playing under it at that moment.

Here’s the point. Wherever your practice is right now…whether it’s super successful or fallen on hard times…you better take a look at it’s health. What’s your marketing look like? Are you focusing on condition-specific marketing yet? Is your monthly new patient volume trending up or down?

There are a lot of factors to look at in addition to marketing. I’ve listed just a few. But often the loss of new patients (which means no or poor marketing strategies) is where serious problems start.

Don’t wait until the whole thing collapses. Fix the cracks before they get worse. Next week we’ll look at specifically how to do just that.

Recently on the LinkedIn Chiropractic Professional group Jonathan asked, “Anyone have any good ideas for marketing to attract new patients? What has the best return on investment?”

The answers from different people that came in truly show the confusion in the profession. The 62 comments so far have ranged from “get out in your community” to “Become an MD.”

A doc named Brian has left multiple comments where he gives suggestions for getting more new patients. I’d like to respond to some of them in this blog post. I don’t know Brian, so this is no slight to him personally, but I found his comments summarize the typical DC leaving chiropractic school.

One of the most interesting comments Brian posted was “keep going to school advancing your credentials and until enough of us learn better.” I would have to totally disagree with this recommendation for getting more new patients. Let me explain…

After your initial degree to practice and State/National boards, further schooling is not likely to help you bring in more new patients.

Now you may learn additional skills and become more specialized in the type of patient you see. And this can be a good thing since people have different problems for which they need help with. But really all you’ve done here is slightly shift the type of patient you see. You haven’t really added any additional new patients.

How many patients have ever come to see you because of some specific credential you have? Very few, if any.

Don’t get me wrong. You can use the specialized postgraduate training you received to market to specific conditions, which I highly recommend. But the key here is that you have to market your unique qualifications.

And Brian, along with many doctors, clearly does not want to have any thing to do with marketing or advertising. He goes on to say:

“Trust me, the world would still turn and doctors would still doctor obtaining what’s needed from producers if all marketing disappeared today. Let US hope marketing and other bottom dwelling middle people disappears soon. It’s time for healthy change!”

I’m not certain as to how Dr. Brian is defining marketing here, but he has certainly cast the baby out with the bathwater. Are there bad marketing strategies and outright scammers trying to get your money? Certainly. But is all marketing bad? No. Ambulance chasing is not the same as running an ad on your website.

If you really wanted to help people get better, and make a good living doing it, wouldn’t you use whatever ethical and moral tools you can get your hands on to accomplish that task?

So what is Brian’s solution to getting more new patients? Serving and word of mouth:

“May I humbly suggest; learn to create and maintain healthy relationships with your community. Word Of Mouth is by far much more effective and has far greater benefit than any other scam marketing contrivance that once engaged, One Must Serve.”

[...]

“Go out and open yourself creating loving relationships with “everyone and anyone”, Ignore the sales scam claiming “niche” and or “specific target client” language whether based on geography, issue, etc. (demographic or psychographic)”

It’s interesting that when doctors are so against marketing, and they suggest word of mouth or community relationships…which are both forms of marketing. You see, marketing is the action or business of promoting and selling products or services. So every time you pull out a business card, mention your office name, or speak in the community you are marketing your practice.

Marketing is not always evil. Merchants have marketed their services to customers from the beginning. The only other option today is to simply “put out your shingle” and wait for patients to show up. As many bankrupt doctors have found, this strategy doesn’t work. And gone are the days when there was only one clinic per town and no competition. This type of monopoly is not likely to return to your area either.

Word of mouth referrals are the best. And building relationships in your community is necessary. They may take years and years to properly develop, but they do work. But these two strategies alone will not get you a large number of new patients.

You’ve got to directly speak to those who need your services and tell them why they should come see you. You and I both know most people aren’t going to come see you because of ignorance of what our profession really does — unless you teach them.

Therefore marketing and advertising are not only effective ways to bring in more new patients, but can be used to educate the community on what you actually do. This is the answer to getting more new patients. If you use ads and marketing that speak to the patient where they are at, and focus on offering solutions to their problems, you will have more new patients than you can handle.

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

How long does it take to dramatically change your practice?

A lot faster than you think…

In fact, I find that most successful doctors I work with have a point in their practice where things really took off for them.

And from that day on, everything changes.

I know it was like this for me. Early on in my practice, I struggled for years trying to bring in enough new patients to grow and make a profit.

I tried all the normal stuff. Seminars, marketing gurus, chiropractic management groups, yellow pages, Val-paks, money mailers, ad displays, health fair and convention center booths, newspaper ads, spinal screenings – I even went knocking on doors after being in practice for almost two years.

After throwing countless hours and dollars at the “new patient problem”, I got a few new ones trickling in. But many of them were not very interested in care, and their conversion rate was terrible.

The problem is, that almost none of these approaches worked. Most of the marketing techniques were overpriced, outdated or too sleazy.

The problem is chiropractic marketing can be a “brutal – and very time consuming – challenge” to building and sustaining a growing practice.

For my first two years in practice, my frustration with getting quality new patients was agonizing, often making me depressed and bringing me close to tears on more than one occasion.

It’s not our fault really.

None of us learned about marketing in Chiropractic College. After spending four years and over $100,000 on my chiropractic education, I didn’t have one class on how to use effective advertising to grow my practice.

All of this led up to a fight for survival for me. Two years into practice, I was only averaging 3 new patients a month and collecting about $3000 – with an overhead of $15,000!

Describing how bad things were would not even do it justice. I was doing 2-4 spinal screenings per week and holding talks for audiences of one – both with awful results.

I got fed up with marketing, “pushing” patients to refer, hard-sell tactics – honestly I was ready to quit the profession entirely.

It wasn’t that I hated chiropractic. It was that no one could show me an effective way to market and grow my practice. I had spent thousands on marketing systems and coaches, but to what point?

My pregnant wife was struggling up three flights of stairs each day in our new “apartment home” – sometimes having to lug over 50lbs of groceries with two toddlers in tow.

This lack of effective marketing tools forced me to look outside the profession for answers. My practice depended on it. I had no time to “hope” something worked. I needed a solution fast!

At the “eleventh hour” of my practice (and just barely in time to save it) I discovered effective marketing strategies and put them into place for my practice. And I began to see results almost immediately.

Finally, real marketing that works for chiropractic. (Unlike all that other crap out there being pushed on us from advertising sales people and over-hyped chiropractic marketing gurus.)

Within 6 months from this point, my practice volume and income had increased by a multiple of 10! I was making $30,000 and could finally afford to take one day off a week to spend with my family. Later my practice continued to increase as I tweaked my marketing and conversion procedures.

Now $30k may or may not sound like a lot to you per month, depending on where you’re at now. But that’s not the point. The point is the change from $3,000 to $30,000 in such a short time span.

What this meant for me was that my kids could have a less stressful father, who spent more quality time with them. My wife could worry less about buying groceries or clothes. And we could go on that family vacation we always talked about.

What would your life be like if your income increased by a multiple of 10? What would change if it just doubled? And what would that really mean to you?

If you’re not using effective marketing, don’t wait. It can make a huge difference to more than just your practice.

Click Here to Grab Proven Chiropractic Ads

There aren’t too many books published specifically for chiropractic marketing, so I was very interested in seeing what Dr. Reizer has to say in his new book CHIROPRACTIC MARKETING TOOLS THAT WILL ABSOLUTELY GROW YOUR PRACTICE. According to his site, Dr. Reizer “is a former associate professor of Sherman College and has taught numerous graduate level courses in chiropractic technique, x-ray analysis, diagnostic interpretation, chiropractic philosophical applications, and chiropractic communications.”

Dr. Reizer has published numerous other books on chiropractic (which I have listed at the end of this post), as well as three science fiction novels.

The subject matter of Chiropractic Marketing Tools ranges from simple business cards and newspapers to more advanced strategies like writing your own newspaper ads, developing a weight loss campaign, and marketing to health clubs. The book is only 133 pages, but packed full of ideas. I counted at least 24 different marketing tools mentioned. Dr. Reizer spends about 3-6 pages on each of the marketing tools mentioned. In most of the chapters he briefly explains the tool and how to use it, and sometimes gives an sample piece that you can easily use in your office.

One Amazon reviewer said,”Every morning our staff reads a few pages to get everyone thinking about how to promote the office.” This is actually a pretty good idea, as these are mostly marketing tools that your staff could do for you (or setup for you.) So to have them thinking about marketing each day is vital to your practice. Also, many of these strategies your staff has never heard of before, so you can provide a quick and easy manual of marketing ideas for them to use.

I do have two critiques of the book.

The biggest critique is that while the tools mentioned are useful and will “absolutely grow your practice” if done correctly, one of the most effective marketing tools available to chiropractors is only mentioned in passing: direct response marketing. These exact words are not found in the book, but Dr. Reizer does spend a few pages talking about lead generation marketing, which is a form of direct response marketing. He then provides a sample free report, which well written. But no mention of long copy newspaper ads or direct mail pieces. Seeing as one of my Decompression Marketing Elite clients just notified me that they got over 300 new patients this year from my ads, I think newspaper ads are pretty important!

The other critique is related to the first. Overall the book is a great summary of marketing ideas for every chiropractor to use. But the book is going to be used most by those who are new to practice or operating on a low marketing budget. For example, all of the strategies in the book could be done each month for less than $500 (there is no mention of radio or TV marketing). While this is a great place to start, and even marketing veterans should be doing some of the things Dr. Reizer mentions, there is much more that can be done in the way of effective marketing strategies.

Overall I think it’s a book every chiropractor should have in their arsenal. For those in practice less than 2 years, or for doctors struggling, it is a must read ASAP. For others, this book will be very useful for your staff and as a reference guide for ideas.

Dr. Reizer’s other chiropractic books include:

• 15 Secrets to Becoming a Successful Chiropractor
• Up and Running – Opening A Chiropractic Office
• Teaching Your Patients Chiropractic
• Depression – Proofing Your Chiropractic Career

The more fishing poles you have in the water, the more fish you’ll catch, right?

I’m not a big fan of this analogy, and here’s why.

First, let’s look at what’s true about it.

It is certainly true that you want to have more than one marketing method being used in your office. And seeing as most chiropractors don’t have any solid marketing strategies in use, I can see why so many marketers are teaching this analogy.

In fact, many chiropractors expect there to be one magic pill that fixes their marketing woes. Relying on only one marketing strategy in your practice, even if it works great, is a recipe for failure. Hey, my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads work great in getting hundreds of new patients and thousands of dollars into your practice over time, but I have never claimed they’re the only marketing method you’ll ever need in practice.

With that said, let’s look at the fishing poles analogy a little closer.

More fishing poles is always better, right?

Are more new patients always a good thing, or does quality factor into the equation?

I don’t know about you, but I’d take 10 referral new patients over 50 telemarketing new patients any day of the week. You see, quality of patients is a big factor as well. Therefore, all marketing methods are not created equal.

I realize when we start talking about patients (people) having a measurement of quality associated with them, it’s going to make some doctors uncomfortable. I hope you realize I’m not talking about the way they dress, talk, or even act. Truth is, there is only so much time in the day. I would rather spend that time working with people who really want help and are willing to pay full price for it.

Back to our fishing poles analogy. After hearing it, you might think, “if having more marketing strategies is always better, why not 50 of them? Why not 100? Why not 500?” and so on.

I grew up fishing. My grandparents fished the rivers of Central Texas. My parents still fish the lakes every summer. By the time I was 18, I had eaten more catfish then most people do in a lifetime (and catfish is not the healthiest fish either!) I still like to go with my kids, when I can actually get away.

And there’s one thing I know about fishing…there’s a limit to how many poles you can handle at one time. At most you can hold one in each hand, then maybe have 4-6 in holders on the boat if you are really good. What do you think is going to happen if you try and add a couple more?

It’s very likely you’ll spend all your time just trying to keep your lines baited. If you get more than one fish on a line at a time, you’ll be in a bind, and maybe even loose one fish or both.

Now you could hire a “fishing pole” manager, akin to a marketing manager. And now that person can handle 8-10 poles while you can still handle your 8-10 poles. But the manager has to check with you every few minutes to see if she’s doing it right. Plus, you still got to tell them what kind of bait to put on the line, how long to leave the line out there, how far to cast, etc.

And what happens if you get a line tangled up? Now you’ve got to go mess with that and clean it up. Are you seeing the similarities to your practice yet?

Here’s the point…

You can only handle so many fishing poles at one time. That’s not being pessimistic, it’s just being real. It’s much better to have 8-10 really strong ones, shaving off the bad ones and adding news ones as you go along.

Perhaps over 5,10, or 20 years you can build up marketing strategies that can be left alone to work. By using the internet you can plug in many marketing methods which will run on autopilot, taking up a very small amount of time. But getting 100 strategies set up? Not likely.

That’s why you’ve got to make sure your 8-10 are working well. I recommend doing niche specific marketing like PI marketing, decompression marketing, neuropathy marketing,  and fibromyalgia marketing. You should do market in the newspaper, on the internet, through referrals, in office marketing, snail mail, email…even the radio and TV is your budget allows.