Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

It’s proven that testimonials increase the response of your ads. We’ve all heard the saying that “what others say about us is more powerful than what we say about ourselves.”

In a way it validates your treatment, your practice, and who you are. It also makes you a real person because you can’t fake a local person’s name (never do this).

Readers realize that it’s very difficult to fake a testimonial. That’s why they’re so believable, not that you should ever do that.

In fact, that’s a good way to get in trouble with your state boards. It’s a good way to get in trouble with the federal regulations.

So never, ever, ever make up, change, or fake a testimonial.

There are legal issues in some parts of the world that deal with testimonials. I’m not an attorney so I’m not going to advise you on that, but you need to know your state laws. You need to know what it says.

Not only do you want testimonials, but you want condition specific testimonials.

The best way to do it is to use a form with different conditions.

This allows you to divide and segment your testimonials by conditions. So you might have 8-10 different testimonial forms in your office. It’s ok if they fill out the wrong form, you can still use it but it will just be harder to keep track of.

Remember to get all of your testimonials signed!

When they sign it they are giving you permission to use the testimonial in your marketing. It says it clearly right there on the form, so you won’t have to worry about someone coming back later and saying they never gave you permission.

Provide a before and an after section on the form. Your patients are going to answer the questions and then make any other statements that they would like at the bottom of the form.

Patients will write different things, some will be good, some are not going to be so good. They might write two words. That’s okay, you’re not going to use those testimonials.

What you’re looking for is out of 10 or 20 testimonials that you collect, one or two sentences that are specific and say what they have to say with a lot of emotion.

These testimonials should be crystal clear.

You don’t need three paragraphs. While that’s great to use in your office, as far as an ad, there’s just not enough space to put that much.

You need to pick out one or two complete sentences in the testimonial that you think are the best. Use those 2-3 powerful sentences in your ad with the full name of the person and the city. That makes it real.

If there is extra room on your chiropractic newspaper ad, you could consider a picture of the person. But usually you just don’t have room. The space is very precious and expensive in the paper or in an insert.

It’s best to collect testimonials when the patient is in your office, after they’ve started care and they have begun to see some improvement.

A patient may tell you in the adjusting room that they’re really feeling well, usually somewhere between two and four weeks of care.  At this time have your front desk assistant hand them a testimonial form and ask them if they would write it out.

When I first started out in practice, newspaper ads were all very popular. A well known ad “kit” was being sold that contained a handful of advertorial style full page chiropractic ads.

These were reported to bring in 60, 80 and even 100 new patients upon running them in a local newspaper. While I never received 60 patients from just one ad, I did get 20 or more the first time I ran it. Friends of mine in smaller towns got 40-60 every time they used the ad.

The reason these newspaper ads worked well was because of the way the ad looked. The ads were developed in the 1920-30′s by marketers selling books and “home study courses.” They were designed to look like editorial in the newspaper, but written to persuade the customer to take action and buy. Since the ad is a combination of an advertisement and editorial, it is now referred to as an “advertorial”.

But over the years, two things have made these ads less effective.

1. Everyone else bought the ad kits and started running them in the papers. So the ads weren’t as believable and personalized because every chiropractor in town was running the same exact ad.

2. Newspapers became less and less effective in certain markets due to the increase of internet news.

So do they still work?

My clients and I have not noticed a huge decline in newspaper ads over the years, unless everyone is running the same type ad in our area. Granted, we aren’t running the same chiropractic advertorials that came out 10 years ago either.

I’ve written my own advertorials to more closely match recent trends like decompression and fibromyalgia. I also created my own so that no one in my area would run the same ad, therefore the ad looked personalized for my practice.

And remember, the most important number to look at is your return on investment. If you spend a $1, does it come back and make you $1 or more. If newspaper ads do that, then it’s obvious you should still invest in them as part of your marketing plan.