Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Occasionally I’ll get an email asking if my newspaper ads really do work like I claim on the website.

And while I can’t say that they will work 100% of the time in every town, since there are factors outside my control like crummy newspapers, they bring in quite a few new patients.

I often wonder “why are chiropractors so skeptical of good marketing ideas?”

But, then I remember all the hyped up, over-exaggerated claims out there in our profession.

You know the ones that make huge claims with very little to no proof. Websites with almost unbelievable crap. Smooth sounding salesmen on the phone with a rough, scratchy ‘I’m-your-buddy’ voice. Or ads in chiropractic journals with headlines like… 

“208 New Patients with One Ad!”

or

“I have the BIGGEST practice in the whole world and make $145,270.16 per month!!!!”

(I particularly like this last example. I’m thankful he put the exact number down to the penny, because until I saw that 16 cents I was really doubting it. Alas, now my doubts are resolved.)

Maybe these claims are true. It’s certainly possible to get hundreds of patients and have the biggest practice in the world. Yet not very probable.

But it sure would help if they gave some real PROOF to back up these enormous claims!

For example, if there is a testimonial, how about giving the person’s full name and town they live in. And I’m not talking about “Dr. T — California” or “P.M.–Montana” either. I’ve heard of marketers (especially internet marketers) out there who flat out lie and make up testimonials to put on their site. So, just having someone’s initials isn’t enough proof to back up a claim. Especially a big, unbelievable claim.

If a doctor got 202 new patients from one ad, I want to see his name, age, town…maybe even a video of him showing how excited he is.  200 new patients is more than some chiropractors see all year.

What really sets a customer’s mind at ease when buying a marketing product is having a 100% money back guarantee.

If these products and marketers had a guarantee then you could feel better about taking the risk when buying their material. If their claims are hyped up, you’ll know when you buy their product and you can simply send it back.

When I wrote my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads, I knew there would be some skepticism. This is why I put in a 90 day guarantee. If someone isn’t happy — for any reason — they can send it back for a full refund. All I ask is that they run at least 1 ad. That’s fair isn’t it?

So be careful out there. Examine every claim with common sense and reason.

But don’t assume everything that has to do with chiropractic marketing is hype. There are marketing strategies and tools that work to bring in an extra 10, 20 or 30 new patients a month. For most doctors, these are welcome numbers to be adding to their other new patient endeavors.

Everyone has an opinion on what works in marketing a chiropractic office. Some will tell you just to “get your name out there” or “hang your shingle”. Others will tell you that if you aren’t speaking at an event every week or holding a spinal screening daily, you aren’t growing your practice.

But the question remains, what truly works to grow your practice?

I have found 7 chiropractic marketing tools that work consistently over time to grow a practice. Before I list all 7, it’s important to mention two important factors that limit your marketing: time and money.

Therefore, you must choose where to spend your time or money wisely. For example, spinal screenings take a lot of time. Since time equals money, most doctors find that their time spent at screenings doesn’t bring in enough money to justify the time spent.

The same goes with your money. If your marketing budget is $2000 per month, you may not be able to do as much marketing as you want right now. So you should spend that $2000 where it will have the best return on investment.

With that said, let’s jump into the 7 Marketing Strategies…

#1. Newspaper Ads.
Don’t think for a minute newspaper ads are dead (see my previous article “Are Chiropractic Ads in the Newspaper Dead?“). It’s by far one of the fastest ways to get new patients in the door. And I’ve heard from many doctors that are getting high returns on their investment, that even during a down economy. For example, a doctor in Northern Ireland wrote me last week to say he’d ran one of my small ads and gotten a 23 to 1 return on investment. Do newspaper ads work every time? Certainly not! Many times the paper is just terrible and has completely lost its readership over the years by ignoring their readers interests. Even my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads don’t work 100% of the time  in papers that are failing. But even in a bad paper you can try different conditions and hit on one that works well — like Dr. Carter in Oklahoma did last week with his first neuropathy ad.

#2. An Effective Web Presence.
Everyone knows you have to be marketing on the internet. But the question is what exactly should you be doing there?

The key to marketing your practice online is to think of it like a library. When I take my kids to the library, I want it to be nice and clean, but of utmost importance is the information they have there, i.e. the quality and number of books. And I want that information easily accessible, not buried away in a box somewhere that’s hard to find. The same goes with your internet marketing. People want information and education, not flashy pictures, graphics or 250 links to click on!

Also, notice I mentioned the word “effective” in the subtitle above. This means your only reason to be on the internet is to get new patients. To do this, you need to use tools like email marketing, landing pages, pay-per-clicks ads, facebook, twitter, and more.

#3. A Strategy for Getting Referrals.
We’ve all heard about the mythical chiropractor who gets 50 new patient referrals each month without lifting a finger. But for those of us in the real world, we need to have a strategy laid out to accomplish this. Sure, a few patients will refer people in even if you never did anything. But why not ad a few subtle strategies that make it easier for people to refer. (Realize I’m not talking about forceful procedures either.)  Chiropractic referral strategies should include new patient stick letters with referral coupons, monthly print newsletters, email newsletters, blogs, patient appreciation days, and much more.

Even the uniqueness of your office can get you more referrals. For example, my J-Tech ROM system and it’s report I sent home would impress patients so much, they would insist their spouse come in to get tested on it. One lady said “I just had to come in and do this since no other chiropractor I’ve been to has this program.” I could’ve just put the printed reports in their file after going over it, but by sending it home with them it generated more family referrals.

To be continued…

Are we seeing the end of newspapers as we know it? Hasn’t the internet pushed the newspapers out of business? Should you even spend money putting ads in your local paper?

Since releasing my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads in January of this year, occasionally I get asked the above questions. So I thought it would be a good idea to discuss some of the answers on the blog.

First let’s address the question…”Are newspapers disappearing?”

Before I answer this question, let’s look at a couple of other industries going through tough times. GM and Chrysler are getting bailed out and on the verge of bankruptcy. Yet, new cars are still being sold and, my guess is, will continue to be built for years into the future. In the past year, hundreds of banks have folded and been bailed out by the government. But, I predict banks will be around for a long time. My bank just built a whole new wing for “wealth management”.

What do these businesses have in common? They  made bad decisions for years and are now paying the consequences during a recession. The same goes for large newspaper companies. The newspaper corporations grew large and wasteful. They disconnected with their readership and begin to twist stories into one-sided arguments. Plus, they designed and encouraged the use of poor ads for their clients. When the economy took a dip, these same clients were not willing to pay for advertising that couldn’t bring in a return on investment.

So the answer is yes, some newspapers have gone out of business. But, does this really mean anything? Businesses disappear everyday. A few that have folded: The Rocky Mountain News, Baltimore Examine, Kentucky Post, and the Cincinnati Post. However, the important point here is that newspapers didn’t disappear into thin air in these cities. Someone is still printing papers and making money. For example, the Cincinnati Enquirer, Baltimore Sun, etc.

A recent MarketWatch.com (owned by the Wall Street Journal) report shows newspaper readership down 7% in the last six months. Not surprising, since the economy itself is down more than that. Spending is down. The stock market is down. My retirement account is down 40 %! So, in the big scheme of things, a 7% decline is rather healthy.

Does newspaper advertising still work? Yes, of course it does.  (If a chiropractic office closes it’s doors because of poor marketing, does this mean chiropractic itself no longer works?) But the key is running the right kind of ad.

Here are a few examples of it working in chiropractic offices for 2009…

Dr. Beck, Just an update on the ads I’ve run .  On Feb. 10, I ran the “Could One Hour With This Doctor…” half page ad and got 13 patients to come in . We closed 10 of those for a total of $18,885 already collected. We paid $1134 for the ad. That’s a 16:1 ROI !!

On March 24, we ran the same half page ad and 10 patients have come in. We converted 6 of those so far and have 1 more coming in today for ROF. We have collected $14,,066 so far. That’s a 12:1 ROI !!

I just ran the “Herniated Disc” ad yesterday. We are scheduling patients as we speak.

THANKS!!!
Denton James, DC

P.S. I ran 2 other ads from another source on 1/21/09 and 3/3/09. The ROI is about 5:1, which isn’t bad, but your ads get us 3 times the ROI !!

Here’s another email I received from a doctor running a full page ad (which is not required with my ads, but he did so to get a bigger ROI)…

Hey Doc,
Just wanted to let you know how great the ads are working for me.  We ran the \”Are you living with sciatica or back pain\” ad on March 30, 2009 which is a Monday. It was $2950 for a full page ad. We had 8 new patients scheduled before lunch on Monday.  For the week we ended up with 14 new patients. We have had 3 referrals so far this week. (the week after running the ad). We have a case $ average of around $1500, so we are figuring about $26000 in income. I couldn’t be happier with the ads so far.  We are looking forward to running another ad in the very near future. – Dr. Chad Keeney

But aren’t online news sites competing with newspapers? Yes, but there’s still a lot of money to be made with print newspapers ads. Many newspapers realize they need an online presence, and are now creating hybrid type papers that are in print and online. Some papers have shut down their print editions, but publish regular online newspapers.

This is why you should be in both places. Never focus on one source of new patients too much. Better to diversify. This is very easy to do on the internet. This is why I spend quite a bit of time teaching about internet marketing in my ChiroMarketing Academy.

No one can say if and when newspapers will become obsolete. If you’re concerned about it, my advice is to stop trying to predict the future and focus on what is working now. The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads are bringing in new patients for chiropractors in 2009.

My final recommendation today is this: Keep running effective print ads for all their worth, while putting more and more empahasis on internet marketing strategies.

The study of marketing and advertising is one of my life’s passions. I’ve read and studied the greatest sales letters and ads of today, as well as successful ads of the past 100 years. (I’ve even handwritten a replica of a Master Copywriter’s 50 page sales letter, a marketing autopsy if you will .)

While the words, strategies, and offers in these ads may have changed over time, the 5 “secrets” to making them successful never change.

I call them secrets, because if they were well known, more practices would be using them in their chiropractic ads. But I’m going to reveal them here, so you’ll forever know them.

1. Have A Compelling headline. Famous ad man John Caples, author of Tested Advertising Methods and writer of what may be the greatest ad in history, accurately stated the headline is responsible for 80% of the ad’s results. Your headline is the “ad for the ad”. If the headline isn’t noticed, you’re ad is surely doomed.

2. Use an advertorial style ad. If you’re a well-known company making billions of dollars, you can run an ad with only your name, picture and some pretty colors. For those of us that have not yet acquired that level of success, it’s been proven that an educational style ad called an “advertorial” works much better. An advertorial looks like an article, or an editorial, so hence the name. They are typically bigger than a display ad and are written by an expert copywriter. And who in the world would actually read all those words in your ad? Your ideal patient who wants to refer all their friends and family  members in, that’s who!

3. Make an offer. While it’s not a requirement in chiropractic to give a discount on the first visit, it will certainly bring in more new patients when offered in your ads. If you’re going to spend the money to run an ad, then you should give an incentive to the reader to pick up the phone and call now. You don’t need to make a special offer because you have to, (as if chiropractic is some second-rate type of healthcare) but because you want to do it so more people will respond to the ad. This allows you to help more people, build a bigger practice, and live a better lifestyle.

4. Use a photo with a caption. A caption on a well placed photo can be the second most read part of your ad, after the headline. You must be careful to use this one right though. We aren’t going to make the focus of the ad the photo. On the other end of the spectrum, even a lot of average copywriters get this one wrong. They think using any kind of of picture is bad marketing. And the photo doesn’t necessarily have to be a picture of you. It depends on what the ad is written for.

5. Give proof. Your ad should have as much proof as can be squeezed in it. Two powerful forms of proof are testimonials and scientific studies. Testimonials work because they back up the fact you really can and do help people. Studies prove you aren’t just making stuff up. For example, if your ad focuses on headaches, it should mention the Duke University Study or the study in the Journal of Neuromusculoskeletal System 2002.

Does your advertising follow these 5 guidelines?

In a comment to my last post, Jay said…

What I’d like to know is how to build value in what I offer, such that the potential patient sees that value and is therefore willing to pay FULL FEE for my exam. (Is there really a need to give away our exams for $17 or $27?).

And, do the above in a non-cheesy format. I’m not really interested in sending out free reports/sales pitches to my prospective patients. I think today’s consumer is privy to these “reports” and they know it’s just a sales pitch.

And, while you are seeking my questions; I’d like to know how to market my practice such that I’m not offending any of my potential patients. (Let’s face it, some of the chiro marketing gurus’ marketing methods are downright offending and low class). And that last statement is true, no matter how many patients were attracted with a particular ad.

So…bottom line, is there a method of marketing that is classy and effective??? (That’s the million dollar question).

Jay brings up a valid question that many chiropractors have, so I decided to dedicate today’s post to the subject.

The first issue Jay brings up is he wants his new patients to pay full price for an exam. That’s fair. You can certainly collect $200-300 per exam, I’ve done it as well as many other doctors. However, at this price level there are many prospective patients who simply will not “try” chiropractic if this is what they perceive each visit to cost. So yes, you can certainly charge full price for each exam, but how much are you loosing out on. What we have to ask ourselves is wouldn’t you rather have the patient come in at a lower cost then realize you aren’t a weird doctor, so they stay with you for life and refer their circle of friends? There’s no “need” to charge $17 or $27 for an exam (especially if you are doing well), but there’s no doubt this offer is going to lower the risk for someone to overcome the rumors they’ve heard of chiropractic.

How to build enough value in your practice to actually collect $200-300 for an exam would make this post too long. I’ll address it in a post of it’s own at a later point.

The next issue Jay addresses is “cheesy marketing” and the use of free reports. Assuming he means “cheasy” as in the overhyped, hard selling techniques and kits being sold and taught to chiropractors today… I totally agree. There is a lot of hype in some of those free reports I’ve seen.

Yes, there is marketing that is classy and effective…but not much of it out there. There’s a lot of fancy-smancy stuff that doesn’t work (pretty websites,brochures, cards), and there’s certainly lots of non-classy junk that doesn’t work (although some docs will swear up and down it does work).

There are a lot of salesmen out there trying to get our marketing dollars. They come into our offices, call us on the phone, and send mail or email, all with the hopes of getting our hard earned money. Then we go and spend thousands of dollars with them, because they made it sound so good. Maybe it’s on a chiropractic website, a pretty yellow page ad, or a telemarketing deal.

When the dust settles, you look back and realized you got little to no new patients. Oh well, at least you “got your name out there”, right?

Has this ever happened to you?

I know I’ve fell for this more times than I should, especially in the early days of my practice. I remember a couple of guys came by the office selling me a spot on the “ad board at the local golf course”. It was only $600 and “all the golfers would see it in the locker room”. I wasn’t into golf at the time, but I thought this would surely bring in new patients, so it was a great deal. Six months later, I had not seen a single new patient from this ad. I called the ad company up, no working phone number. I asked a patient who played golf there if he had ever seen it in the locker room, and he said…”there are no locker rooms there, only bathrooms and there aren’t any ads in the bathrooms” (it’s a public course). Another $600 down the drain.

Not all marketing is bad. Not every ad rep is bad, but many will gladly take your money and run, not caring one bit if you make a good return on your investment or not.

When investing in marketing, make sure the marketer, coach or “guru” is straight forward with you. Do they talk about return on investment, or conveniently leave that out? Do they have a guarantee? It’s best if they have actually run a practice at some point, because then you know they’ve “lived it”.

We’ve all had our challenges marketing our practice. What I want to know is how can I help you better understand marketing? What would you like to know or learn more about when it comes to chiropractic marketing? There’s already too much hyped up marketing B.S. in chiropractic, let’s cut right to the point and talk about the issues that matter most to the hard working chiropractor.

Please leave a comment below with your most important question about marketing?

[This offer has expired and is no longer available.]

Over the years of running my practice, I’ve not been happy with any of the newspaper ads I bought or I received as part of a coaching program. Why?

Two reasons: not enough new patients and a low return on investment.

After spending the last year and thousands of dollars to fine tune my own copywriting skills, I’ve written a couple of ads that have already produced awesome ROI’s (return on investment) for myself and another doctor. A few colleagues and some well known copywriters suggested I write more ads for chiropractors to use in growing their practice.

Here’s where you can benefit…

I’m working on a set of chiropractic newspaper ads that are designed to get results and will be launched later this year. Because I want all my ads to be tested and proven before they are launched to the profession, for a limited time only, I’ll be accepting a handful of chiropractors to beta-test my ads. The ads will be given to you for free, in exchange you’ll report back the results as part of a case study. You’ll of course be responsible for paying the paper to run them, and making sure they comply with your state laws. The ads can be run as full page, half page, (even 1/4 page if your paper is big enough) or inserts – you decide.

Ads already written and tested include: Sciatica/decompression and fibromyalgia. Future ads to be written will be for headaches/migraines, weight loss, cold laser, work comp, PI and more.

If you are interested in participating, post a comment below and I’ll contact you via email by Monday.

**You will be only licensed to use the ad for your practice (you can not share it with anyone else – copyright laws will be enforced!)**

Last week, I put the finishing touches on a full page chiropractic “fibromyalgia” ad I’ve been writing. While conducting my research for the ad, it really hit me how many women are out there suffering from this condition. They’re not happy with the answers the doctors are giving them. They are tired of being drug company guinea pigs. They just want someone to listen.

Many women with fibromyalgia have nowhere to turn, and would gladly try anything (chiropractic!) if only they could ‘find’ someone who could help. This is where your marketing comes in.

Marketing to fibromyalgia patients is a huge win-win for both parties. The patient is looking to get help, and is tired of being told she’s crazy. We as chiropractors are looking to help those with health problems (particularly spinal issues). The key is reaching these patients in a way that connects to what they’re thinking and feeling.

It’s estimated at least 6 million women suffer from fibromyalgia. Are you focusing on helping these women live happier, healthier and more pain free lives?

What are other patient “niches” that you should be focusing on?

- sciatica and disc problems

-pregnant women having problems or babies/kids having health issues

- weight loss/detox

-sinus problems

-sports injuries

and so much more.

You’ll find that when you focus on 3-4 niches, your marketing is going to work much better and have a great return on investment. This is because people in those niches feel like you are talking directly to them and are somewhat of an expert on their problem. If you just run a generic “chiropractic can help everyone” ad, then many of these patients will simply say “oh, they can’t help me”.

I’ll let you know how the “fibro ad” works, as it’s being tested in two different offices over the next week. What are some other niches you currently or would like to focus on in your practice? (Comment below)