Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Does everyone who calls in for an appoint show up? Do you ever wonder how many new patient appointments are being lost on the first phone call?

I frequently get this type of email message…

“Hi Doc. I just ran one of your ads. We got 20 calls and 11 came in for the exam. How can we get better results from the ads?

Unfortunately, this is a huge problem in chiropractic offices (or any health practitioner for that matter!)

The problem here isn’t the ad. After all, it intitiated 20 new patients calls! But to have only 55% of those calling in show up for the first visit is ridiculous.

But you want to know the scary part? This is happening in almost every office around the world.

Your office may not be as bad as the example quoted above, but as you know even one lost new patient is worth thousands of dollars to your clinic.

How many new patients are you missing out on just from bad calls.

Here are a few current numbers on this issue reported in our industry:

• 98% of all new patients call on the phone first to schedule.
• 50% of all lost patients are caused by poor patient handling at the front desk.
• 79% of all advertising is wasted on leads that don’t convert to new patients

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1. Monthly print newsletters will be more valuable.

I know, you’re probably thinking print newsletters have gone the way of the dinosaur, and that email, Facebook, etc. are “da bomb!” But the fact is people are starting to demand a more personal relationship with their businesses. All you have to do is look at the Occupy Wall Street movement to sense how people now see a big gap between the products they buy and the companies who provide them. (Also, for more on this, watch the second video here on Dr. Loop’s blog.)

What about email newsletters you ask? You should be sending those too, at least 2 per month. But does it mean more to you to receive a birthday card by snail mail or an e-card? Sending a print newsletter with a real postage stamp is still a very effective way to communicate with current patients and get more referrals.

2. Videos will be more effective on your website.

Video has been around for a number of years on the internet, but it really hasn’t become the norm yet. However I think in 2012 that will start to shift. A few reasons for this are: almost everyone has some type of broadband internet access now, Youtube is more popular than ever, and sites like Facebook are using more video. At the least you should test a video of yourself on the landing page of our website to see if it increases conversions. Using tools like Google website Optimizer will let you easily figure out if videos are more or less effective for your site.

3. Neuropathy, Decompression and other niche specific newspaper ads will continue to get high returns.

Like the print newsletters mentioned above, you may have bought into the lie that newspapers are now extinct. However, in most markets, this is not the case. Many of my clients got their best returns ever on newspaper ads in 2011, especially when using neuropathy and decompression ads. I know there are plenty of other people out there telling you how a jillion internet things will bring in hundreds of patients. And some of it will bring in patients. But don’t neglect the trusted source of patients like the newspaper. The key is using very good copywriting to reach specific niches that are really responsive.

4. Facebook, Google + and other Social Marketing sites will become more important in your chiropractic marketing plan.

Many chiropractors have heard of Facebook. Less have heard of Google+. Unfortunately, doctors treat these sites like everyone else, a place to post all your personal happenings. The problem is most patients aren’t interested in the fact you just “checked in” at the local burger barn. Sure, some personal interaction is necessary to maintain a following. But, you also need good copywriting and intentional posts to cause new patients to act and pick up the phone to call. Another important and often overlooked aspect of these sites is that they help with your search engine rankings. Having Facebook likes and Google+’s on your website will help it come up higher in Google Search, which will translate into more new patients. Just remember, Facebook and Google+ are effective tools, but they are not the only game in town. So, don’t spend 100% of your time and money fiddling with them.

5. Developing a mobile site will become a necessity.

As my friend Terry Dean recently pointed to, more and more people are using iphones to access websites like Facebook. Look at the stats from the link below, which state that “more than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices “:

https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Also, realize that one of the most common uses for a smart phone is to check email. That means every time you send an email with a link back to your website that person is going to your website on their phone. Even though I prefer to use the internet on my PC, I have an iPhone and iPad that I use often and realize it is just more convenient to click a link now rather than wait until later when I can access the website on my home desktop.

I’ll be working hard to implement these changes in 2012. I recommend you do the same. Also, I’ll keep you updated on any new tools and strategies I’m working on next year. Happy New Year’s.

What’s the secret to getting new patients, month after month, year after year? How do you set up and run low-cost, high-profit chiropractic marketing plan?

I spent years trying to learn the answers to these questions. I wrote checks totaling in the tens of thousands to ad reps, consultants, and marketing gurus.

What did I learn from all this time and money I invested? Very little, and then quite a bit. Let me explain…

For the first 2 years of my practice life, I struggled just to survive. If an ad rep showed up at my office, I thought I needed to spend money to make money. After all, my coach at the time didn’t seem to advise me otherwise, so I wrote checks faster than a bailout happy congress. Yellow pages, val paks, money mailers, displays, health fair booths, convention center booths, newspaper ads, gym screenings, direct mail — I even knocked on doors (at the advice of another consultant!) 2 years into my chiropractic career.

With all this busyness of marketing activity, I was bound to have a booming practice, right? Not hardly. Mostly I had an empty bank account. (Was I the only one who did this, surely no one else in chiropractic has ever done this kind of thing, right?:)

I learned very little from these people about how to get new patients. They were teaching and selling old rehashed marketing strategies that worked in the 1980′s. That’s when I figured out I needed to study marketing a bit myself, so I could spot an effective marketing approach before I spent the money on it.

Here is my short list of criteria necessary for making buying decisions. Maybe you will find it helpful as well.

1. How much hype and over-exaggeration do you feel or hear coming from the ad rep or sales person? Can they back it up with proof?
2. If it’s a chiropractic coach or guru, do they make you feel good about buying their product or do they make you feel bad, like you are pushed into the sale? (If they are pushy in their approach, how do you think they will teach you to market and convert patients? This is a big clue!)
3. How is the “quality” of new patients using their product or service compared to others? (To many chiropractors worry about numbers and volume, and not enough about quality and profitability.)
4. IS THERE A MONEY BACK GUARANTEE ON THEIR MARKETING PRODUCTS?
5. Is there a long term contract or is it month-to-month?
6. Does their product or service produce new patients right away, do they want me to run ads into infinity because it “builds awareness”?

This was my list. Maybe you have more to add. If so, don’t be shy, post it in the comments below.

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?