How do you know if you’re marketing is working?

Many would say the answer is “by the number of new patients” or “by the number of phone calls.”

While these are both good signs that help you to determine if an ad is successful or not, they are not the right way to measure success in marketing.

Let me show you how measuring your return on the number of new patients only can mislead you. Here’s an example of a conversation I once had:

Doc: Dr. Beck, I only got 5 new patients from the ad I ran. I consider this a failure!

Me: How much did the ad cost you to run?

Doc: $500

Me: Did all 5 patients start care? And how much is your average case fee (or lifetime value)?

Doc: $1,800

Me: So you made $9,000 from an ad that cost you only $500 and you consider that a failure?

I know as chiropractors we get all wrapped up in talking about the number of new patients we get from certain marketing campaigns. It is an important stat to keep. But successful business know that it’s your return on investment (ROI) that really matters.

That’s ROI for the whole practice and specifically for each ad we run.

So how do you figure the ROI? Let me show you by using some real numbers. Here’s an email I just received from one of my Decompression Marketing Elite clients:

Hello doc,

Stats update from first EM ad ran as insert; collections in my hand. Ready for this? lol!

I ran in as 21,500 inserts in a free paper; printing cost $515.41 Distribution for inserts cost me $376.25 = total of $891.25 combined
15 day only offer of $35 expired 9-6-11;

Grand total= $17,490.00 collected with residual collections for multipal payment program option uncollected yet. Table is now filled for next 6.5 weeks!

27 new SD patients were scheduled
7 still remaining to be seen.
8 signed and paid in full

Now let’s do some math. I calculate marketing return on investment the quick and easy way. Take the total amount collection and divide it by the cost to run the ad. 20:1 ROI (19.6 rounded up) as of right now, just 2 days after the expiration date of the ad!

$17,940/$891 = 1962% ROI
or 20:1 Return

It goes without saying that not everyone will get these kinds of results. Some will do even better. Many will get a great return although it may not be this high.

But the point is this doctor has kept excellent records of his ad and is quickly able to figure ROI. He’ll need to re-figure the results later after ALL the money has come in. So in the end, it should be even higher than a a 20:1 ROI since 7 new patients have not yet come in and the residual payments have not all been collected.

What kind of returns are you getting from your chiropractic marketing? And if you aren’t measuring ROI, how do you know if your campaigns are successful or not?

One of the most frequent questions we get about the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads (and even Decompression Marketing Elite) is…

“Can you send me a sample of one of your ads?”

In most cases, I understand that this is an honest, sincere question to see what type of ads I write. Usually, it’s to compare to past advertisements the doctor has used in his office. So I realize people aren’t out to steal my ads. But there’s a big problem with this request. To me, this question might as well be…

“Can you send me $50,000 in cash as a sample, to just look at?”

Why would I equate the two requests? Because unlike custom made advertisements, where a copywriter sends over samples he’s written in other industries, my ads are ready to go for one specific industry. That means any chiropractor can quickly change their name and number, insert them into the paper and start getting new patients. (Like the customer who called us yesterday from North Carolina and said his phone has not stopped ringing after running the neuropathy ad one time, scheduling over 40 new patients so far!)

You see, the ads I write aren’t “samples”. They are real ads I’ve spent quite a bit of time and money researching and writing. We don’t have any samples. The ads are all ads, ready to go and bring in quality new patients. Even if we did have samples, reading it would tell you very little. Unless you’ve spent thousands of hours studying copywriting and testing ads, you’re not going to be able to see the nuances of how my ads work.

That’s not being harsh, just being honest. I’ve had two chiropractors, who’ve spent years writing their own ads, now use mine and love them. They’ll be the first to tell you that their own ads worked okay, but after using mine they won’t likely ever go back.

An advertisement works because it produces new patients. Not because it looks beautiful or professional (although I think my ads are both!) Even if the words of an ad are the most beautiful prose ever written, if they don’t bring in new patients they are rubbish.

To ask the question a slightly different way is to say…

“How are your ads different than what I’ve used before?”

Now this is the question most people want to know, and 90% of the time the ‘question behind the question’ of “can you send me a sample”. There are really only 2 reasons to want a sample. Either to run it and see how it does or to see how it looks and reads to differentiate it from other advertising the doctor has seen in the past.

As an aside, sometimes we get the “if you’re ads are so good, why don’t you let us try one for free, then we’ll buy the rest” type of request. I guess we could do that, if we were willing to get our attorney to write up a very long, lengthy contract, making this requester promise to pay a percentage of what he makes, with various clauses for defaulting on the agreement, etc, then pay said attorney thousands of dollars to prosecute violations of this contract, which we all know would be numerous. OR I could just give you a 90 day trial period with a money-back guarantee, and save both of us some legal bills!

But seriously, if you’re struggling in practice ( I feel for you, as I was once there myself), as hard as it  is to sometimes admit it to ourselves, if the 3 payments are too steep for your budget right now it’s time to hold off from buying. If $365 is too much, then you aren’t going to have the money to run an ad in the paper once you get them. And I know for a fact my ads will not work if you shrink them down to a tiny little business card-sized ad to save money.

As to the question of “how are your ads different”, let me attempt to give a quick summary. (More detailed information about these differences are given on the websites linked above.)

• They work better at bringing in quality new patients. Why? Various reasons: they employ empathy, photos with captions, effective offers with a deadline, etc.
• You get 40 different ads (Or a new decompression ad every month in the Decompression program.), as opposed to a small handful.
• You get multiple sub-niched ads, including neuropathy, fibromyalgia, numbness, sciatica, back pain, headaches, decompression, laser, scoliosis, etc.
• You get a money-back guarantee for 90 days on the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads and an area exclusive 60 day trial (nonrefundable) with no long term commitment with Decompression Marketing Elite. Do the other ads give this?
• You get the “how-to” reports. How to get the best ROI with these ads. How to save money with your newspaper ad rep. How often to run the ads. What size. Which ones work best.
• You get bonus marketing letters that you can use via mail to get more referrals, re-activations, new homeowners and more.

I could go on and on, but these are just a few that I’ve listed here. We really have tried to come up with the best chiropractic marketing product available for you to bring in quality new patients. If you haven’t tried them out, what are you waiting for?

We get quite a few questions about my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads, both from those interested in buying and from doctors who are using them. Today, I wanted to let you in on the 5 biggest questions (and the answers) we get from doctors using the system.

What’s the best ad to start with?

We recently conducted a survey of all the doctors using the chiropractic ads. One question in the survey asked “Which ad has brought you the most new patients?”

The winner by a long shot was my neuropathy ad. This is not surprising since neuropathy is such a hot niche right now with one else really marketing to these patients. While not everyone will get these kinds of numbers, some chiropractors have reported 20-30 and up to 50 new patients from one single run of this neuropathy ad.

A three-way tie for second occurred between my fibromyalgia, sciatica, and numbness/tingling ads. If you haven’t tried these ads yet, I would recommend you do so soon. Also, the winning decompression ad was my “Decompression Sciatica” ad, which has been a proven winner for over 2 years now.

What about making an offer when I’m in an insurance contract, my patient have deductibles and copays, etc?

We get this question a lot from doctors who’ve never run special offers before. And as much as I wished I could answer this one directly, it’s just impossible. Every insurance company is different. Every contract with an insurance company is different. What I can say here is that if you’re in the U.S.,  Medicare and Federal BCBS do not allow offers to be made to their insureds.

Many doctors want us to give free billing, coding and legal advice in addition to the great marketing tools we provide in our kit. While I did put together some great chiropractic appeal letters a few years back, billing and coding is just not my expertise. Marketing is, and those who use my ads are happy that it is.

But I’ve seen doctors so scared of 1 insurance company that they won’t even run an ad with an offer period! Even though there are thousands of new patients out there with other insurance plans or no insurance at all. Do what is right and legal, but don’t let insurance companies cripple you’re marketing. If you’re going to let that happen, you’d be better off going all cash.

I don’t have an x-ray machine, what do I do?

This is probably the most common question we get. Since none of my chiropractic ads are built around “x-rays” or even spend much time talking about them, the answer is fairly simple: take that bullet point out.

Now its best if you can offer some type of objective test that gives your offer some value, like surface EMG, thermal scan, computerized ROM, etc. But it’s not necessary, and the ads will be ok without any mention of x-rays. This is especially the case if you are marketing to a specific niche, like neuropathy or decompression. These people just want help and they see any qualified doctor’s exam as a step in the right direction. But the more perceived value you can put in the offer, the better.

What size ad should I run?

The answer to this question will depend on the size of your marketing budget and the newspaper you run in. The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads includes large and small ads, but doctors using the large ads are getting the best results by far. The “large ads” are ready to go as an insert and can easily be printed as such once you change your name and contact information. Half page or full page is also recommended. In a large paper, sometimes a quarter page will work. Any smaller than a quarter page and you’re results are going to be slim.

What I strongly discourage is cutting out sections of my ads to make them fit into a tiny ad that saves you a few bucks. Better to spend a few extra dollars and run the full ad to bring in 15 or 20 new patients, than to chop the ad up and get nothing for your money.

I can not tell you how frustrating it is to see an ad I spent weeks writing — and proven to work by doctors for years — to have someone say “it doesn’t work” when they have completely butchered it. I’ve seen newspapers change up the ad, replace my photos, and even had doctors put their contact info in huge letters that are bigger than the ad headline itself. For example, someone just sent me a copy of my ad where they paid thousands of dollars for a full page numbness ad, then put something like this at the bottom:

Dr. Messup DisAd DC CCSMP, PSST, BS, BA
201 Anywhere St., Anytown, PA, 12345
815-999-1234
MOST INSURANCE ACCEPTED

Actually this is about to 50% scale, but you get the point. Now he still got some new patients, since the rest of my ad was still intact above this monstrosity. But he was not pleased with his response. Hmm, can anyone determine why his response was low?

Hmm, I wonder where the reader is going to look first? The headline, the copy, nope…the reader is going to look right down at the bottom of the ad, say “this looks like another stinking advertisement”, and turn the page. Nowhere in my kit, nor on my blog, nor anywhere have I ever recommended, implied or suggested doctors do this. It’s like the doctor thought to himself “well, I know Dr. Beck is the copywriter and his ads brought in over $20 million for chiros last year, but what does he know, I want to get my name out there so everyone doesn’t miss it.” Come on! My ads aren’t designed to get your name out there, these ads are designed to bring in new patients! If you want to get your name out there, take a full page ad with just your name, address and phone number.

Ok, I’ll get down off my soap box now.

There’s one question left, and it’s a big one. But since I spent so many words on the last question, this post has already exceeded it’s intended length. We’ll continue next time with the #5 question that’s most commonly asked.

If you haven’t grabbed the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads yet, click here to do so.

Why isn’t your decompression table packed with patients all day long?

This really is the ‘Million Dollar’ question for your practice. So the answer must be more marketing, right?

Well, yes and No. Join me for a Free webinar, where I’ll explain “How to Fill Your Practice With High Quality Decompression Patients”

To watch the replay, go here:
http://www.decompressionmarketingelite.com

You see, almost all chiropractors with decompression tables are using outdated, rehashed advertising and marketing techniques — those that worked in the golden days when decompression first came out.

But we both know these techniques don’t work anymore.

The world has changed. Potential patients you’re trying to persuade to come in have grown increasingly resistant to these obsolete marketing strategies

This year, I’m going to help one doctor per area have their best year ever by using my new Decompression Marketing Elite program.
Life’s too short to sit around waiting for the next patient to come in, while the table you paid thousands of dollars for collects dust.
No secrets held back.

Find out everything you need to know about this decompression marketing program now…without closing your office and spending thousands of dollars to travel to a high-pressure “Discovery Day”.

On this free webinar, here’s what you’ll discover…

• How to receive a new decompression marketing tool each month, bringing in quality new patients who stay, pay and refer.
• The only one-on-one personal decompression coaching, tailored to your practice to personalize the proven system to your own unique practice and city.
• How to get monthly decompression marketing webinars, where you’ll see exactly what other successful doctors are doing in their practice and discover how to increase your conversion rate to high-fee care plans.
• How to guarantee you’re the only doctor using this decompression marketing system in your area.
• How to finally stop living on the threshold of financial freedom and take your practice to a new level.

If you have a decompression table in your practice, you do not want to miss this call. Come and watch me reveal exactly how I’ll be doing it.

Because this program will be area exclusive, if you’re in a competitive area you should at least attend to make sure you’re not giving up a golden opportunity.

There was even a Q & A session after the webinar. Join me from the comfort of your office or home computer.

http://www.decompressionmarketingelite.com

P.S. Do you think there will be more or less patients with herniated discs this year? How about in 5 years from now?
Decompression is not a fad, because disc problems are not a fad. It’s time you really tapped into this booming market.