Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

by Michael Beck, DC

This is Why Your Website and Marketing Need to Be Mobile Friendly

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When I began writing this post, this thought popped into my head; “not all aliens come from Mars.”  To be clear I don’t believe in aliens or UFO’s but…given the infinity of the universe, if there were such a thing as extra-terrestrial beings,  it’s probable Mars would not be the only home to little green men.

Now to explain why this ridiculous thought was even written;  after typing out the title of this post it seemed almost silly that I would need to write about this subject.  I figure most every chiropractor understands the need to point their marketing toward the mobility of our world.

But maybe I’m being a little naive or worse, casting assumptions.  But really?  Is that so ridiculous to assume that a high percentage of persons in your targeted marketing zone uses a mobile device? According to this article from Pew Research, 64% of Americans now own a smartphone of some kind.  And 62% of those who own a smartphone, have in the past year, used it to look up information about a health condition.

The article goes on to breakdown the various ages and ethnicity of smartphone users.  I found this extremely interesting, because if what the report is accurate, then it isn’t just important that your marketing is mobile friendly, it imperative.

Ask yourself this question; if you had to choose between owning a cell phone or having internet in your home, which would you choose?

Most of us don’t have to choose, but there are those that do.  So I’m thinking; I would choose the cell phone because I could access the internet anywhere, including my home, via my phone without the need of WiFi.  However, if I choose to have internet in my home, that wouldn’t help me when I’m away from home which for most people is about 8-10 hours a day on average.  Even if people struggle to stay within the boundaries of their data plans, there are enough WiFi hot spots to help alleviate the problem of not having web access until the next month.

So you see it really is imperative that your marketing be mobile.  This means that you are going to have to roll up your pants legs and wade into the social media marketing waters.  Not to worry, it’s not as scary or as expensive you might think.  Almost every, and mean every social media platform offers a way to advertise.  Facebook has proven that this is not only a prudent decision for most business owners, but it’s necessary to be seen.  Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are just a few the offer advertising for businesses.  You can set up your chiropractic ads all over social media and this is only the beginning.

Okay now what about your chiropractic website; is it mobile friendly?  If by chance a prospective patient should stumble across your website while they are looking for a chiropractor in their area, what would the see?   Would they have to get out their magnifying glass to read it?  Would it take forever in a day to load?  Or are they pleasantly surprised to find your nice streamlined, mobile friendly website?

What about finding your website and being able to tap the screen to call your office and set up an appointment? Have you made it that easy?

If not, you can bet your competition has.

 

 

 

Connecting the Dots in Chiropractic Marketing

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A few days ago when working on a few Google AdWord campaigns, I noticed there seemed to be a system of gradual steps that had to be completed before setting up these campaigns,  almost like a network of connections.  Think about it, there is always a starting point then several other tasks that have to be completed before setting up an ad campaign.

Then it hit me, this was just like one of those dot to dot puzzles.

You remember those connect the dot pictures when you were a kid don’t you?  I do and even though as an adult I can look at one today and pretty much figure out what the picture will be once the dots are all connected, as a child, it wasn’t that easy.

Ever wonder what it would be like if the dots weren’t numbered?  Where would you begin and what would the finished picture look like?  Even the easy ones, think you would end up with a recognizable picture?

Probably not.

What seems like an easy game would turn out to be a frustrating flop.

Just like the connecting of dots, the starting point in your chiropractic marketing is important. Point A or dot number 1 in your marketing could be several things depending on what type of marketing you are preparing to do.

If you’re considering newsprint ads followed by some zone targeted direct mail marketing, then your first step would be to get some quality chiropractic ads lined up.

If online marketing is where you want to focus your chiropractic advertising, then your first step would be setting up a chiropractic website. Dot #1 website, dot #2 would be setting up a way to capture emails from your site visitors, dot #3 would be setting up pages for conditions. Dot #4 would be setting up your Google AdWord campaign linking back to one of those pages on your site.

Are you beginning to see picture?

The numbers on connect the dot puzzles represent a system of order.  Like a guide, so the person equipped with a writing tool and a desire to draw can create a picture. Talent or artistic gifting would have little to do with the outcome if the person knows how to count as high as the numbers are ordered.

So it goes for any type of marketing.

There are even extremely complex connect the dot puzzles available for those who love a good challenge.  And you can become a master in your chiropractic marketing skills by creating a complex network of points that when connected, make your practice a picture of success.

Train and Retrain Your Staff in Marketing 101

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Redundancy is not always a bad thing, why do you think refresher courses exist?   Sometimes we need to be reminded of the things that seem obvious, but are often overlooked.  Providing your staff with some marketing 101 training is important, retraining from time to time is essential, but no training is guaranteed missed marketing opportunities.

Unfortunately, marketing can often be overlooked or forgotten. When I had my practice, my staff was in charge of all referral and direct mail marketing.  More often than not, when they got busy, especially if we experienced higher volumes of patient visits that week, marketing would be pushed to the back burner. It would get done but not in a timely manner, which meant more missed opportunities. 

Now that online marketing is essential in the chiropractic marketing mix, if I still had a practice, my staff would probably take on this task too.  Now we’re looking at multiple lanes of marketing that could easily be overlooked if not watched carefully.

Obviously if your practice is so busy that your staff can’t keep up with simple marketing tasks, you might need to hire a marketing assistant for your office.   Even so, you  still need to keep staff accountable for completing their tasks so things like marketing don’t fall through the cracks.

This is why I liked having weekly staff meetings.  If  done on a weekly basis, the meetings were shorter and tasks such as marketing, tracking stats and insurance payments or the status of claims, were more likely to be up to date if my staff knew they had to have reports ready to bring to the meeting.

I also used this meeting time to set goals for my staff.  The goals usually had a reward if met, therefore my staff was eager to meet their assigned goals, especially if the reward was monetary.

Maybe you’ve recently hired new or additional staff.  When this happens, is marketing part of their training?

Are you sharing with your staff that your goal is to attract and pull in more patients?  My philosophy; “Your goals should be their goals”

Training and cross training will only help your staff in the long run because it will become rote in their interactions with existing patients and new patients.  Equipping your staff with this marketing mindset along with the knowledge of how chiropractic can benefit a person’s health, will give your staff confidence and pride in their career and this will be seen when they share about their job with others outside of the work environment.

It’s a fact that one or more of your staff will at one time or another encounter a hostile response when asked where they work. This can happen in person or on a social media site where there are others listening or watching.   It is to your benefit to educate your staff on how to effectively respond to those types of attitudes, if not for the person who is being unkind, but for those who might be watching to see and hear the reaction to this type of mentality.   Train your staff to know how to diffuse these situations without getting caught up in an argument.  A simple short answer like; “Chiropractic care helps many people, you should drop by our office and we’ll give you a tour”.

Training and retraining your staff in simple marketing techniques is really an extension of your practice building.

Agreeably there are many types and levels of chiropractic marketing. While most of your chiropractic marketing, like chiropractic ads and your website should be handled by you or your marketing assistant, there is some marketing that should always be handled by your staff.

Below are some simple lanes of chiropractic marketing that all staff members should be trained in.  Of course any marketing sent out from your office should be supervised, but there are several things that can be done independently.

  • Referral marketing (S)
  • Some online and all Social Marketing (I) with consent or supplied suggestions
  • Email marketing (S)
  • Direct mail marketing – Reactivation, Existing and Targeted (S)
  • In office marketing (I) with supplied suggestions
  • Securing Testimonials (I)
  • Whiteboard marketing  (I) with supplied suggestions
  • Promoting chiropractic through conversation on phone and in person (I)

I wouldn’t be concerned about giving your staff a lot of responsibility with your marketing, you might be surprised how much they enjoy the challenge.

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” ~Charles F. Kettering

 

Revisiting Your Marketing Goals, Practice Housekeeping and Reviews

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If you’re like me, you probably jot down goals from time, but what happens after you write them down. Are they abandoned on your desk only to be buries under stacks of papers?  Maybe you are organized and write your goals down in a place where you can reference them from time to time, there are those that write their goals in a place where they can see them every day, like the bathroom mirror.

Traditionally, January is  the time for resolutions and goals, but as we approach the quarter mark of this newish year it might kind of interesting to take a minute and review those goals instead of waiting until the end of the year, just to see if you’re staying the course. I figure this way if there has been a loss in momentum towards reaching your goals, maybe this will give you a push to get back on track

As we all know, when you own a chiropractic business, between running your practice and maintaining a life outside of the office,  there are only so many hours in the day and marketing can slide off the agenda. If that’s the case,  then good intentions, such as well meaning resolutions and goals are usually forgotten about.

There are other tasks that probably get overlooked too. Below are a few common housekeeping items every chiropractic business should review and refresh every year

  • Update your chiropractic website yearly to keep it fresh and relevant
  • Update business cards, patient and practice brochures each year
  • Spruce up chiropractic ads with fresh photos and testimonials
  • Replace or rotate patient testimonials used in any direct mail marketing or chiropractic advertising
  • Rotate and refresh any products you sell in your office
  • Clean out old patient files, send out reactivation letters then archive those that do not respond

Outside of housekeeping, there are three other areas that should be addressed this year mainly because of the abundance of people who will use their computer or smartphones to find any and all types of services, including their healthcare needs.

Your Online Presence.  Are You Online Anywhere?

You really should have an online presence, somewhere.  One way to do this is with a website.  I am blown away when I talk to doctors who tell me they don’t have a website for their practice.

If you already have a website, then have you added a blog?  Readers want you to share your expertise. Make sure your chiropractic website has plenty of useful content, this will play a role in generating traffic and increasing the trustworthiness of your site and business overall. This in turn should help your rankings.  Here’s another point to consider,  Pew Internet shows that an impressive 72 per cent of internet users looked online for healthcare information last year.

Give Serious Consideration to Video Content

 I covered the topic of video marketing last week. If you missed it, you can find that HERE.  It was one of my most viewed post so far this year.

Some things are better explained in person – whether it’s an exercise guide or a brief presentation busting the myths about chiropractic care. Think about what will work best with video and don’t be afraid to experiment. Just take a look at YouTube’s own statistics if you need any more convincing about just how big video is.

People Want to Read Reviews, Write Reviews,Share and Talk About Reviews

You should already know the importance of positive reviews – and it seems this is going to become even more of a hot topic this year. This is because of a couple of changes Google brought in at the end of last year.

The first will apply if you’re signed up to Google AdWords. The new Review Extensions feature enables you to feature a small review (67 characters or less) directly under your ad. See what Google has to say about it here.

You also need to know about Shared Endorsements. Google will focus on on getting as much information as it can about your chiropractic business  – including photographs, +1s and reviews and show that on a SERP (search engine results page) if someone had searched for something connected to your service prior to the search. You can learn more from Google here.

In practical terms, you need to do as much as you can to make it easy for patients to leave reviews. Don’t be afraid to ask your regular patients for their comments – and make sure your chiropractic website has a visible box for review posting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video Marketing Attracts More Traffic for Chiropractic Businesses

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Have you ever watched a video on YouTube? I would imagine you answered yes.

Would you believe people actually go to YouTube and search for other people? Did you know that if you have videos on YouTube or another video sharing sites, when people go to the web to search for a condition they have or the words chiropractor or chiropractic in their area, a link to your video will show up on the results page. That is to say, if you have put the right information in the title and tags using the right key words.

Think of videos as a way to boost your marketing prowess, broaden your reach and zero in on your targeted audience.

If you have a website then you should be also be using videos as part of your marketing package, even if you don’t have a website, you should still create a few videos and get them loaded on a video sharing site, complete with key words.   From there you can share your video spot on your website, Facebook, Twitter, Google and more.

Isn’t it about time you started talking directly to your existing and potential patient base?  It’s one thing to use chiropractic ads in the newspaper on a regular basis, but video marketing is also important and easy too.  What is even better is you can actually create these videos yourself.   If you have a good video recorder or a digital camera with video capabilities, a tripod and good lighting you can make the videos.  Why not get your staff involved in a few of them, make it a team work day.

Don’t doubt yourself or your ability to do this, great communication skills played a part in helping you get your chiropractic business off the ground. If you haven’t already done so, it’s time to think about putting those skills to good use once again. Think about it, you talk to people all day long, everyday. It’s just like discussing a health and wellness one to one with a patient, this time you’ll be speaking to a whole audience of people, only through a lens.

I know, you’re wondering why should you bother with video marketing?

It might seem  like a big commitment of time and money or you may think you’ve got this marketing thing going good with other streams.   You may, but if you weren’t already aware that video content is huge then you probably haven’t been to any marketing seminars in the last couple of years.

Let’s just focus on YouTube, it gets 1 billion unique users each month. Also, useful video content that people want to view and that performs a specific function is more likely to be shared via social media – and is positive in terms of your search engine rankings. Even putting Google aside for a second, useful content demonstrates to your website visitors that you’re a name to trust.

So what should you consider when planning what to put in your videos? Here are a few pointers…

It’s not about you…It’s about what you do
It’s natural to assume that your first video should be an introductory one telling everyone who you are and the services you have to offer. There’s nothing wrong with a short bio video; just don’t expect it to set the world on fire in terms of views. Remember; no-one’s searching the Internet to watch your sales pitch.

Make a list of topics people want to hear about
What are the questions people ask you day to day? If you have a chiropractic website with a blog, which of your posts or pages get the most views on your site. Another reason to watch those site analytics, this could help you find a good starting point and some great conversation starters.

Rehearse…in front of real people
Work out a script and time it, then rehearse in front of people, like your spouse or kids, over repeated times, it will feel natural to say the script. You don’t want to look like you’re reading from a page but for your own benefit, it’s good to have something close by to refer to. If you’ve got a complicated topic you think people might want to hear about, consider breaking it down into bite-sized chunks of single broadcasts of about five minutes.  Oh, and before posting it live, ask someone to take a look at it.

Set the tone…be professional yet compassionate
One thing about the chiropractic profession is that we know how to talk to people. As a general rule, adopt the same tone as you would use with patient during their exam of report of findings. That’s not to say that you’ll necessarily be using an identical tone in each video. For example, think about the different way in which you might speak to a guy with a chronic condition brought about through a sports injury compared to the way in which you’d speak to a woman with fibromyalgia. Consider who will be watching this particular video? Speak directly to those people.

If you’ve got only limited time and resources to spend on your video, you might be far better off going straight into a short series of presentations on topics people are actually interested in such as Neuropathy or Sciatica.  People will get to know you through these presentations.  Just like with print advertising, you can create videos based on several conditions.

Last tip… keep it short, stay on topic and review your surroundings, remove clutter from the background.  You want viewers to focus on you, not the clutter in your office.

 

 

Make Your Marketing More Profitable

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I think in order to know how to implement plans to make your marketing more profitable, you first need to understand why you need to market yourself and your practice, and agree that you will have to sink a portion of your money and time into several sources in order to maintain a profitable business.

Inevitably every business has to put into motion a marketing plan with the intent that it will generate profitable revenue. For you, a chiropractor, revenue and profits come in the form of new patients, preferably a continuous flow of new patients.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s not enough to get a degree, lease a space, slap a sign up and wait for that steady stream of patients to walk through the door. If only it were that easy…right?

Like me you’ve probably asked these questions at one time;

Where do I begin and how much should I spend on marketing?
When it comes to getting more new patients, you want to focus on the marketing that gives you the best return on your time and money.

A sizable chunk of your marketing budget should be put toward external marketing with time spent on internal marketing. For example, you can expect to spend a good portion of your marketing dollars to run newspaper ads and set up a chiropractic website. In contrast, sending out referral stream letters are more time consuming but less expensive.

Where is the best place to spend my marketing dollars?
There a many places and ways to spend your marketing money. While starting small is ideal, you should eventually get to a point where you can spread out and use multiple sources for marketing.

Once you become seasoned and gain confidence, why not branch out starting with a minimum of 5 good sources for reeling in new patients.

Some examples would be…
-newspaper ads
-internet
-internal referrals
-networking groups
-yellow pages

Why a minimum of 5? Of course your long term goal should be to have 8 or even 10 good sources of new patients…but 5 is a good number to get comfortable with, and then add more over time.

Here’s what I mean by “good source”, something that consistently produces 5 or more new patients per month, giving you 25 new patients per month, which as long as their good (meaning the patients not only convert to care but stay in your care) should put you in the $30-40k range in collections each month (this assumes your case average is good).

What is the best way to get a better return on my marketing dollars?
Want a better return on your marketing dollar? Then stop spending money on marketing that doesn’t produce results and sink that money back into the campaigns with the better results. And the only way to know what campaign is producing the best results is to track all the marketing you do. It won’t take long for your stats to show which campaign is working better.

If your stats show you that newspaper ad A yields a higher ROI than newspaper ad B, then you should be running with newspaper ad A.

Does this mean you should never run ad B? No, as long as it’s bringing in a positive ROI, you should. You want as many ‘poles in the water’ as you can afford to maintain.

If you’re budget doesn’t allow you to run multiple newspaper ads in the same month, go with the more profitable one this month and build up to working both ads the next month.

What’s considered “good results”?
When it comes to chiropractic marketing, anything above a 2-to-1 ROI is desirable. Obviously an ROI of 2:1 on all your marketing sources won’t build your practice effectively, so you’ll want to have a few 10:1 or even 20:1 marketing channels working at the same time.

Chiropractic Marketing in the New Year, What’s Your Plan?

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Another year has passed in a blur and the New Year has arrived.  Now that the noise of the holiday season has quieted down, it’s time to think about your chiropractic marketing for 2014.

Got a plan?

A new year always inspires people because they see the new year as a clean slate, a new beginning, a fresh start, a time for change.   For some this change comes in the form of improving their health, for others it’s the urge to organize and put things in order, some vow to spend more time with loved ones and less time working.

Now is the time to dust off those chiropractic ads and get them ready to work for you while people are thinking about their health and eager to make some changes.

For businesses, 2014 will create many challenges in their marketing, one challenge in particular is just getting noticed amid all the other businesses vying for attention.  The chiropractic profession already utilized many new ways to market this past year, social media and other online marketing like websites and blogs, and now mobile marketing has come into play.  In fact there are so many marketing paths you might wonder where you should putting your marketing efforts.  Worse case scenario, you try to take all the paths and spread yourself and budget too thin. This could result in lower ROI in the long run.

It also makes me wonder if all of this access to everything under the sun will eventually lead to a media meltdown.  Will people begin to pull back from all the information they are exposed to on a daily basis? Will they long for the simplicity of turning a page in a book, or getting their fingers black from the print on the newspaper?

I’ve had people ask me; are the days of placing an ad in the newspaper gone?  Lost to the digital age, buried beneath mountains of online media and electronic noise?  I tell them no and not just because I write chiropractic ads specifically for the newspaper.

Consider this; you don’t see major retailers and real estate pulling their advertising from the newspapers do you? Even though they have other marketing resources. Large companies seem to have bottomless marketing budgets, they can pretty much and should use every means possible to push their brand and products.  So if newspapers weren’t a valuable marketing tool then why would they still be sinking their marketing dollar into print advertising?  Could it be that people still read the newspaper?

I am more than aware that a chiropractor’s marketing budget is limited.  This is why I encourage you to look at ways to increase your exposure and keep costs within reason and one way to do this is to use what you already have.

If you already have a chiropractic website but it seems to have lost is punch, it might be time to consider adding a blog to your site.  This will keep your site active as you add fresh content on a continuing basis.  Fresh content with rich keywords will help your site rank higher as more and more people read your blog.  Helping people find your site by promoting it on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn will also bring more traffic to your site.

It is also helpful to use, within reason, the online advertising available through Google Adwords and maybe even a few Facebook ads. These a great marketing tools because you can set your cost limits and work within those limits to bring in new patients, this is referred to a PPC (pay per click). Overtime as funds allow, you can always increase the budget on these campaigns.  Both the Adwords and the Facebook ads allow you to direct traffic back to your website.  Once there, having your blog filled with articles about health and wellness will further encourage people to read your blog posts regularly and potentially become your next patient.

One other consideration for your chiropractic website in 2014 is having your website mobile friendly.  Since more and more people use their smartphones for reading emails and daily news, your site should be easy to access on a mobile phone.  If you’ve not taken steps to do this already I would suggest discussing this with your webmaster or someone who can get your site set up for mobile viewing. If you are the webmaster and need help, you can check out Chiropractic Marketing Web and let Hill help you get your site tuned up for 2014.

If you already own any of my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads and you think they’ve seen better days, think again.  You can revive those ads in no time with a little help from Carol Smith and her Ultimate Ad Service.   But even if you’re not ready to take that step and you want some fresh ads, pull those ads out and give them a little face lift by adding some testimonials in place of studies.  Or maybe you just need some new material or a few extra ads to round out your advertising plan, the Ultimate Ads Club is stocked and ready with 24 newly written ads that won’t be found anywhere else.

So  are you ready for 2014?  I think it’s going to be a great year and I hope all of you are eager to get your marketing working for you.

p.s.  don’t forget to get those new ROI charts ready so you can track your marketing dollars.

p.s.s. don’t know much about ROI?  find out more HERE

Marketing Decisions to Consider with Chiropractic Print Ads

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Are you serious about management success and developing a thriving chiropractic practice? If you answered yes, then I will assume that by now you have a functional marketing strategy in place.

The whole point of a strategy is to help keep you from throwing away money on something that’s not really going to help your business grow. What do you want to achieve and how much money are you willing to commit in order to achieve it? This is what marketing strategy will enable you to determine – and achieve.

Where will you spend your hard earned money?

Optimization of your chiropractic website is no doubt pretty close to the top of your list. Newspaper advertising should be near the top too. Setting a budget is one thing. It’s also important to work out a plan to spend that money wisely.

I’ve put together a few pointers to help you on your way when deciding how to spend your allocated newspaper-advertising budget – to put your chiropractic office on the map.

Research is a must

Newspaper advertising is only effective if people actually read the publication in question. A little local knowledge comes in useful here. You should have a pretty good idea as to what newspapers and magazines are popular in your local area – and which ones aren’t. You need cold, hard figures though – so ask for a circulation breakdown from the newspaper itself. It’s also worth doing a little research. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly The Audit Bureau of Circulations) is able to provide not just circulation figures but also detailed social metrics for newspapers with a circulation above 25,000.

 One bad result isn’t the end all

Be realistic, it’s perfectly normal to expect results just don’t base the rest of your marketing on the first ad you run.  It could be a huge success, if so run it again, but at a later date, don’t risk wearing it out. If it’s not successful, try another ad.

Don’t give up if you don’t see instant results; give your marketing some time to grow. Newspaper advertising for a small business is all about raising your profile over time. If your chiropractic practice was recently established, you’re going to have to give it time for people to get to recognize your name. Recognition will come – but you’re going to have to stick with it.

Stay consistent and resist the urge to dip in and out of the market

It might be tempting to decide to splash out on the largest ad you can afford if you have a particular good month – but then not spend anything at all in those months when cash flow is tight. You need to resist this approach. If you simply ‘dip in and out’ of newspaper advertising then quite simply, people are going to forget who you are. Making a solid commitment to placing ads on a regular basis – rather than a big glossy ad once in a blue moon – will prove to be the best strategy.

Don’t be talked into buying advertising space you can’t afford

I cover this topic in the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads kit.  A newspaper advertising sales team can be a pretty persuasive bunch.  Hold off on package deals until you have a few runs under your belt.

But you might receive phone calls sometimes, offering great deals on unused advertising space. This can often be a great value, but not always a great location in the paper.  It’s fine to take the paper up on these offers from time to time, but ask questions and weigh your options, it might not be such a great deal if your ad is tucked away on in an obscure section and not seen. Also consider, unplanned advertising could eat into other parts of your marketing budget. The same goes for seemingly great value advertising space in neighborhood newsletters and start-up magazines. These publications can be great for building up a friendly, community-based profile – just don’t let the spending spiral out of control.

A willingness to commit and the ability to keep a tight rein on your budget: if you get this right then you’ll soon see that newspaper advertising becomes a highly successful part of your chiropractic marketing plan.