Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

by Michael Beck, DC

Turn Negative Online Feedback and Reviews Into Positive

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If you’ve ever been on sites like eBay, Etsy or Amazon, you are probably very familiar with the meaning of “feedback”.  Sellers on these sites know the value of positive feedback. This value translates into sales and a savvy business owner will use the positive feedback in their marketing.

Buyers also use the feedback system when deciding between two businesses offering the same products or services.  When facing this type of decision, positive reviews are a huge factor in bringing the sales to a business.

Positive feedback and reviews will drive new patients into your office especially when you use those reviews in your chiropractic marketing.

However, people typically do not seek out places to post a positive review, but they will go to great measures to post their unhappiness all over the internet.

Don’t read this the wrong way, people love to share their good experiences in a tweet or on their facebook page, but those who have a bad experiences are more likely to share their dislike about a business in a lengthy review on a business’s Google places page or another site with similar review options.

I myself read reviews of products or services that I research to buy.  Do I take all of the negative reviews seriously?  Absolutely not, because after reading a ton of reviews on a certain product, you can usually tell which reviews are legit and which ones are bitter grapes.

In the end, it’s a judgment call.   But is that what you want those reading your reviews to do?  Make a judgment call on whether you are the chiropractor they want to begin treatment with?

Negative reviews and critiques are part of owning a business.  There will never be a day when you will please all of the people all of the time, but there are a few things that you can do to turn a negative into a positive.

If you do receive a negative review, first of all, don’t freak out.  Grow some thick skin and chew on the review for a day or two.  Sometimes you will see a small hint of truth in the review.  In that case, take what was said and use it to make some changes in the way you do things.

If the review or feedback is unsubstantiated or grossly incorrect, try these suggestions;

Reply if you have that option – there are places where you can reply to your reviews.  If you do choose to share your side of the story, remember to be kind and leave your feelings in another room, a reply will be there for the world to see so your rebuttal should be done in a professional way.  However, if you feel this can’t be done there are some other options.

Disputing reviews – You need to have a few things in place before you put this plan into action.  Documentation is a must.  If it’s a review about an offer in your chiropractic advertising, you will need to have the documentation to support your dispute.  Of course in the case of disputing a service or treatment in your office this could get a bit sticky due to patient privacy issues.  Therefore, you might not be able to dispute all claims, but you can write a personal letter to the person who left the review.  Ask them why they left the review and ask if they are willing to settle the issue amicably.  You can also ask if they would be willing to remove or edit there review.

If that doesn’t work, there is another option…

Submit a request to have a review removed – Yahoo provides an option to request removal of a negative review.  Again, I would suggest you have documentation to support your request. A friend of mine owns a small business; and member of his staff frequently monitors reviews and feedback on several sites where his business information is located.  After reading a negative review regarding service, the business owner wrote a letter to Yahoo explaining his side of the story along with support documents.

Yahoo removed the review, no questions asked.

Amplify Your Practice Marketing with Location, Places, Pages & Reviews

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In real estate the mantra is “location, location, location”.  Simply meaning that if you are fortunate enough to have a home or business in the right location, then this will bring you higher resale value and profits.

In the business sense location is just as important when deciding on where to place retail, restaurants or offices.  Demographics play a huge role in this decision.  You can bet that extensive research and planning are done when deciding where a company should build.  One thing for sure is business owners want to be confident that the area will support their business.  Example; does the area have enough traffic to pull in a good flow of revenue?

Ease of access and visibility should be considered too.

When I set out to find the prime location for my practice years ago I had to consider these questions; would the office be visible to the public from the road?  Would this location provide easy to access for my future patients?   Is it in a high traffic area; main road or shopping area?  Or, is it tucked away in a medical plaza where the only traffic passing by are the people coming into the area to see another doctor?

You could say that deciding a location is one of the first steps you take to market your chiropractic practice.

Signage is also important, not just on the front door either.  You also need to have visible signage out where traffic can see your office when passing by or when new patients are trying to find your office.

Another important location for your practice marketing is online.  Brick and motor buildings with signs are needed to bring your patients into, but an online presence is needed to direct those patients to you.

Obviously the most practical online presence is a website, blog or both.  Although having a website built and maintained can be costly, it shouldn’t be shelved because of cost.  If you know your way around computers, you can probably build your own chiropractic website.  If not a website at least a blog so your practice can be found via web searches.

I’ve found that there are many advantages to being online, but those advantages are easily amplified when using the free marketing tools offered by the following online entities.  Many of these sites already have your information; all you need to do is claim and verify your business.

  • Bing
  • Google
  • Yahoo
  • Yelp
  • Yellow Pages

All of these will require you to register and set up a profile, you probably already use one of the top three.

Using Google for my example; if you are not already registered with Google, take the time to access the site and sign up for an account. This is something your office staff can do for you as well.

After you have registered, you can then set up your profile in Google +, once this is done find the “local” tab on the navigation menu.  Set your location (city, state) and type “chiropractor” in the search.  If your practice doesn’t show up in the results you should add your business then verify.

If it does show up in the results, you can then claim the business and verify.  You will then have access to your business profile and you can begin adding information.  This is also where you will receive reviews from your patients.

Do the same with Bing and Yahoo and any other search engines.  Add your practice logo, contact information and description of services.

This will accomplish two things; visibility and credibility.

Yelp and Yellow Pages essentially work the same way, you will need to sign up and create a profile, then search for your listing, if it is there you can now claim it and begin to add information.

It’s also important to check all of these sites periodically for updating and monitoring reviews.

Remember these suggestions should not replace regular chiropractic advertising or marketing campaigns.  These suggestions are basic additions to your marketing tool kit.   Your chiropractic marketing should remain consistent throughout the year to keep your practice in the best location…in front of the competition.

You Want the “Where the Rubber Meets the Road” Kind of Marketing

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As a new graduate of chiropractic school, your determination to begin your chiropractic career is at its highest point.

There is nothing that can hold you back.  Fresh out of clinical rotations, you are mentally ready to open your own office and begin seeing your own patients.  You even have a few patients already lined up, and they aren’t even related to you.

When setting up your chiropractic office, you thought you had covered all of your bases; equipment, furniture, office supplies, even some nice chiropractic art for the walls.

There might have even been enough loan money left to hire one chiropractic assistant.

You even made it through the credentialing process without too much stress, so now you can proudly answer ‘yes’, when a patient asks if you are in their network.   Although, you’re pretty sure this was the right decision, you inwardly cringe when you see your rates reduced by half.

But hey!  This will only hurt for a little while because after all, being in network with all the major insurance groups will help you get more patients…right?

You don’t even realize you’ve left something out before reality sets in.

This timeline is different for everyone, but at some point you begin to notice your bubbly determination has turned to desperation.   That once giddy chiropractic graduate has begun to see life on the other side of the rose colored glasses and it’s pretty black and white.

I think this happens when you begin to get more claim denials in the mail than checks.  This is when you learn the dance of insurance appeals.  Nobody warned you about that did they?

In hindsight, I can say optimistically, it will get better.

Would you believe me if I told you this was a choice?

The choice between aggressively marketing your business or to continue down the road of denial  seems like a no brainer.

However there are those who turn a blind eye to the obvious signs of a sinking ship.  I can’t say that I blame them, the decision to spend money on marketing and chiropractic advertising is a hard pill to swallow for some, for others it’s an all-out emotional roller coaster.  Whether it’s fierce independence, fear or pride, all of these emotions will only hold you back and stunt the growth of your practice and your chiropractic career.

It is my hope that I can reach some of you before you spend tons of money on marketing seminars and valuable time on weekend spinal screenings.  Not that these two things are bad, you can learn a lot at marketing seminars and you can actually get a few good patients from spinal screenings.

But…

You can learn just as much about marketing from your computer, in the comfort of your home or office. There are some really amazing chiropractic marketing resources online. You can learn as much as you want for free and when you have the time.

And are you really ready to settle for a few good patients?  Or would you prefer a continuous flow of great patients?

There are a lot of marketing services and product choices.  In fact, in can become very overwhelming.

Questions come faster than you can write them down. But one question asked more than others…

“What kind of marketing is best for my practice?”

It’s a valid question as there are many products and services to choose from and how in the world are you supposed to know which one works best or which one is best for your practice?

Here’s my two cents worth; you want to look for the kind of marketing that is designed for the chiropractic practice, targets and connects with a large multi-generational audience and has been proven over time, not just once but over and over again, and the one that increases the flow of new patients into your office.

That’s where the rubber meets the road, when the money you spend plus the credibility of the marketing product you buy, gives you the results you need to bring growth to your practice.

Do you follow these 12 steps in business?

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Here is your chance to see an updated version of my friend Paul Wright’s free webinar entitled “The Practice Acceleration Program – 12 Steps to a Great Health Business in ONLY 42 Days”.

There are 3 different days you can register, go here to find out more:

http://www.netofficetoolbox.com/app/?Clk=4287445

This presentation outlines the 12 Essential Steps that you DID NOT learn in your university or technical education, but MUST know to be a successful health professional in these trying financial times.

Here’s just a sample of what Paul will cover…

  • The 12 essential steps to a great health business – are you using them?
  • Why failing to use these steps will leave you chained to your business forever.
  • How these steps allowed Paul to run his clinics remotely – in fact he has only visited his six clinics four times in one 10 week period.
  • How your admin team can kill your profits and what to do about it.
  • Actions steps you can implement NOW to make you thousands in lost profits.
  • The importance of cancellation reduction and how to make every treatment session “too important to miss”.
  • How to get your hands on Paul’s exact procedures, scripts, steps and protocols that have taken him 20 years to develop and refine.

Click on the link below to check webinar times and register for this FREE event.

http://www.netofficetoolbox.com/app/?Clk=4287445

7 Steps to Raising Your Google Adwords Quality Score

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The most difficult (and most frustrating for some) part of Google Adwords is dealing with the quality score.

The quality score is a way for Google to keep a high “quality” advertising network. It punishes people for being dishonest and stupid.

So if your website is selling chiropractic services, you are going to pay a lot more for running ads that only talk about back surgeries and don’t mention chiropractic. In many cases you will pay 10 times more!

Therefore, you do not want to make Google mad when it comes to quality score.

Let’s look at some things you can do to raise your quality score…

1. Make sure your keyword is in your ad headline. This means if your ad is about back pain, you should have the word back pain in the headline for sure, and possibly the first line and the domain name. That means in this example, don’t write an ad all about chiropractic and not mention the keyword “back pain”. Google will just think your site has nothing to do with back pain and make you pay a lot more for these bids.

2. Use ad groups in your account. We looked at this one above.

3. Use your keyword in your headline on your landing page. Continuing our “back pain” example above, if your site is really about “back pain”, then you should have that phrase prominently on your website somewhere right? If you don’t, another strike against you in Google’s book. More strikes = higher bid prices.

4. Make sure your landing page or main website loads fast. If your site loads slow, and Google’s searchers are going there, then it can make Google look bad. Would you refer one of your patient’s to a restaurant where the service was slow?

5. Use items on your landing page that makes the visitor stay longer (video,
audio, etc). The longer people stay on your site, and the more pages they visit, the more relevant Google thinks your site is to that keyword. If people go to your site after clicking your Adwords ad, and then click the “back button” immediately, that’s going to lower your quality score.

6. Make sure your landing page has a privacy policy link on it. For an example of this, go to http://www.ultimatechiropracticads.com/ads and look at the bottom of the page for the privacy policy.

7. Put a link on your landing page that links to another website with a lot of
content (your blog!). This one is a big factor of quality score. Basically, the more pages you have on your site (or a site you link out to) that is relevant to a keyword, the better off you are. So for the keyword “back pain”, you can’t just have a small website with very few pages about back pain. This is why the blog is so important, because it gives you an “article database” of information to link to, some of which will be about “back pain”.

A Chiropractic Marketing Calendar for 2012

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Have you set up your 2012 chiropractic marketing calendar yet?

I know it’s already 2 weeks into the year, but if your holiday season is anything like mine, it takes the first week or two in 2012 to actually relax and catch up from the end of the previous year.

One of the things you must do is write down all your plans and goals on a yearly calendar.You can not just wait until you need new patients, and then figure out what to do. This is reactive marketing and you want to be proactive this year.

For years, I used a monthly calendar on the wall that my staff and I could write marketing events down and see what was coming up.

But the furthest you can see on these types of calendars is only 30 days at a time. What we need is a “year at a glance” type of calendar.

Well thankfully this year I found the NeuYear Calendar, which is a complete year at a glance. This will hang great on the wall or back of my door.

I recommend you grab one too, and start planning your monthly marketing events, promotions, ads, etc.

Here’s some benefits listed on their site, which led me to buy one immediately:

  • It’s big, coming in at 27″ x 39″ this means you can see the whole year at once. “You no longer have to page through a traditional calendar (or on your small computer screen), to see the whole year. You can layout your goals for the year, set future deadlines, and clearly see the passing of time. Also, it has bigger squares so you can write more.”
  • No space between months. “The week is the currency we think in, so this calendar focuses on presenting 52 weeks, rather than 12 months.”
  • Brilliant aesthetics. In Making Ideas Happen, author Scott Belsky says “the design of your productivity tools will affect how eager you are to use them; attraction often breeds commitment.”
  • 2 calendars in 1! It has a horizontal orientation that fits perfectly above your desk, or you can flip it over for a vertical orientation that fits perfectly on your door.

Now that I shown you which calendar I think is best, what do you do with it?

Call a staff meeting one day during lunch. Start by explaining your mission for your practice and the goals you have for this year.

Then begin brainstorming with your staff about the different types of marketing ideas they have. Make sure to give them room and freedom to talk. Even if they have a bunch of bad ideas, just write them down. You never know when they’ll say something you’ve never thought of.

My staff would often come up with many successful in-office marketing procedures from the past that I had totally forgotten about.

Once you have written down, everything you can think of, start prioritizing your list. Put a “1” by the most effective, “2” be second most effective, and so on.

Side note: Do not base effectiveness on what feels like it did the best last year. Feelings do not turn into dollars. Measure effectiveness based on your return on investment numbers you recorded for all marketing last year. And if you didn’t keep good records, go back and see if you can figure it up now. Remember, ROI equals the amount you brought in from a given marketing campaign divided by the money spent on it.

You might want to throw in something new for 2012 that you haven’t tried before. A few suggestions would be:

Then begin writing on your calendar all the 1’s, 2’s, etc. spread out somewhat evenly throughout the year. So you don’t want all your ads to come out in March and have the rest of the year empty.

If you wanted to do it according to budget, you should write the amount to spend beside each campaign to. For example, on February 20th you might write “Run Neuropathy Ad for $1000 or less”. (To see how to save money on running your monthly newspaper ads, watch this free webinar.)

If a month get’s too busy, slide things forward into the next month. You should be marketing every month of the year, no exceptions.

Now you have a marketing calendar set up. Try to stick to it as much as possible. You may need to edit and change things throughout the year. That’s fine, but make sure you take a look at the big picture before making rash decisions.

Do you have any other good ideas on planning your marketing calendar? Let us know in the comments below.

5 Chiropractic Marketing Predictions for 2012

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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.

A Student Interviews Me on Chiropractic Marketing

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Recently a student from University of California Riverside contacted me for an interview regarding chiropractic marketing. I thought you might be interested in his questions and my answers. It’s a little longer than my usual blog posts, but I didn’t want to divide it up into parts.

Here is the interview:
——

Greg: I’m a student at UC Riverside. I am taking an internet marketing course and we were all assigned a niche (ex. chiropractors, plumbers, dentists) and was told to create an online marketing plan for these professions. I was assigned chiropractors and in my research, I found this site. You seem to be an authority in the industry so would it be ok if I ask you a few questions either through email or phone about Chiropractic Marketing and ROI.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I really appreciate it. My class revolves around internet marketing and its impact for businesses today. I have a couple of generic chiropractor questions and a few more specific internet marketing questions.

My first question: When you are training to become a chiropractor, do they teach you just what you need to be a skilled practitioner or do they also teach you how to run your own chiropractic business. Basically, do they teach you how to market yourself?

Dr. Beck: No. Most chiropractic colleges have one class on the business side of chiropractic and it is very bland. The teacher is often not in practice or if he/she is in practice, they are reluctant to give too much information on marketing, fearing that the college would not approve. The chiropractic schools do a great job of teaching us how to be skilled practitioners and caring doctors, but the business training is really lacking. And you see this affecting the profession with many chiropractors struggling to make ends meet.

Greg:  Do Chiropractors in large cities charge significantly more/make more than those in smaller cities? Or is it mostly standardized across the nation.

Dr. Beck:  There is certainly more potential in a large city for higher income, due to the higher density of potential patients. However there is more competition in large cities and overhead expenses are much higher. Smaller towns allow lower monthly overhead so that the business can have a higher profit margin. Plus smaller towns can allow for easier referral capacity. So it’s a toss up in my mind. I say live where you want to live and raise your family.

Greg: I saw on your website that you mentioned for one example that the lifetime value of a patient is $1800. Is this factual or was it just used for the example? If the latter, what would you estimate the lifetime value of a patient to be.

Dr. Beck: The term “lifetime value” is a typical marketing term used to estimate marketing costs and return on investment. If you take the lifetime value of a customer, then you can determine how much you can spend on marketing to acquire that customer. The lifetime value of a chiropractic patient is between $1000-3000 on average, depending on the type of practice, location and services offered. Some highly specialized niche practices will make higher than $3000. Anyone making less than $1000 per patient, averaged across 12 months, will find it very hard to be profitable in today’s world, unless of course they are getting hundreds of new patients per month.

Greg: I’ve noticed that in many large cities, the Google PPC ads are about $2-$3 a click. Even with a 10% conversion rate (just a guess by me), $30 for a patient worth $1000+ seems like a steal. What are you thoughts on this? Are chiropractors just unaware of these options in acquiring more patients?

Dr. Beck: A 10% conversions directly from Google Adwords would be quite high in my opinion, for any business. The actual number ranges between .5-2% depending mostly on the landing page copy on the doctor’s website. If we assume a conservative 1% conversion rate and high (in most areas) $3 per click, then it would take $300 to get a new patient. At a lifetime value of $1800, that is still a “steal” as you say. The return on investment (ROI) is quite high, with a $1500 profit per patient. Are chiropractors unaware of this? I don’t think most chiropractors understand Pay Per Click well like Google Adwords and they may have been screwed over by a company running it for them in the past. Also, many chiros have been told bad marketing proverbs like “you should never pay over $100 per new patient”, which causes them to quickly decline paying $300 per new patient.

Greg:  In our study one of the questions that we have to answer is if we had a website that ranked for “chiropractor in city” and was getting 100 targeted clicks a month. Not knowing how many people are going to call the chiropractic business, what should we charge the chiropractor for this website per month. What would be a fair price for the chiropractor as well as the webmaster on a monthly basis?

Dr. Beck: Words like “fair price” will mean different things to different chiropractors. So if asking them directly what they would pay for a website, it would depend on the money they are making at the time. Many chiropractors are paying upwards of $3000-5000 for really bad websites; websites that looks great but fail at getting new patients. Other companies charge a monthly fee like $500 for a website design and maintenance (which does not include an PPC.) I personally think no more than $1000-1500 for a website and additional monthly fees for Adwords management.

Greg: What would be the maximum you pay for the lead. We are going to assume he is a random patient meaning he may only go to the initial appointment or he may stay for a few years.

Dr. Beck: How much would I pay for a lead in practice? Almost nothing since leads do not equal new patients. I once bought a chiropractor’s files who was going out of business and mailed out letters to all 1000 of them. Not one came in. But I assume by the word “lead” you mean new patient. How much would I pay for a new patient? I would pay at least 70% of the lifetime value. But few chiropractors will do this high of a number, because of multiple factors mostly related to now knowing their numbers. (Most physicians and healthcare practitioners are not known for their ability to keep good business statistics.) Many chiropractors have been told they should pay little to nothing to get new patients in. Some have even been taught it’s unethical for a doctor to do any type of marketing. Also as I mentioned above, there is this proverb going around that we shouldn’t pay more than $100 per new patient, so that’s a baseline for you to consider.

Regarding a “random patient” who might stay one or might stay 100 visits, all this is factored into the lifetime value number as it is an average across your practice.

Greg:  I appreciate your time. I’m grateful for any help and I am looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much, Greg Larkin, Student at UC Riverside.

How To Measure Your Marketing ROI

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graphYou should be measuring return on investment (ROI) for every marketing strategy or channel you use. To accurately measure ROI, you’ll need one very important number…the “case average” of your new patients.

Case average is a figure that represents how much money a patient will generate over time in your practice. You will sometimes hear it referred to as “lifetime value of a patient.”

You figure it by taking your collections for the month (or quarter, year) and dividing by the number of new patients during the month. And make sure to count all the new patients who’ve come into your practice, not the number of patients who started care. (I do exclude freebies who never get an exam though.)

You can also calculate a case average using a different forumla. Take your PVA (patient visit average) and multiply it by your $ collect per visit. So if your PVA in your office is 22 and you collect an average of $50 per visit, then your case average is around $1100 (which is too low.) But I don’t like this method as much because it can be inaccurate, since you’re figuring an average from averages (that have usually been rounded up or down).

Some chiropractors don’t like to calculate case averages in their office, because they think you’re putting a dollar value on the patient’s head. But let’s face it, you’re running a business here. There are two parts to running your own practice… a clinical aspect and a business aspect. This blog is about the business aspect.

The biggest reason to determine case average in your practice is to make good marketing decisions. Combine it with your conversion rate and you can really drill down on your marketing. Let’s run through an example…

An ad costs you $1500 to run. The last two times you ran it you got 13 new patients. You’re thinking about running it again, but your not sure if its really worth it. Because you’ve read this blog for awhile now, you’ve been keeping track of your numbers (right?). You know that every new patient that walks in the door will equal an average case of $1500. And you know that if a new patient comes in, you have a history of converting about 60% of them to care.

So if the ad produces 13 new patients, you’re going to convert 8 of them (13 x .60 = 7.8 rounded up).
8 new patients times $1500 case average is $12,000.

So now back to the question. Should you spend $1,300 on an ad to get $12,000 in return? If you said “NO, $1300 for one ad is crazy!”, you need to go back and reread the above paragraph until you get a yes.

This is the problem with judging your marketing solely on the number of new patients. Some chiropractors think…”13 new patients, well gosh Dr.. Beck, that’s not very many. Dr. Joe Blow said he got 187 new patients from an ad!”

That’s great for Dr. Joe. But I wonder what his conversion percentage is? And what?s his case average? Because if he really did get 187 new patients and converted most of them, he’s got a million dollar a year practice.

In today’s world, you need a case average well over $1500 to be profitable in practice. If this number gets below $1000 your usually going to struggle unless you have a ton of new patients coming the door. If the case average falls below $500 for more than a month, you?re practice is in big trouble.

The best way to get a higher case average is to increase your retention and collect more per visit.

Also, you can raise your case average by planning out each patient’s case in detail. This means around the time you do your report of findings with the patient, plan the services you’ll be performing with care plan. For example, if you are going to see a patient for 24 visits, what are all the services and billing codes you’ll be performing. Use a travel card, folder or software to keep track of this.
Planning the case out like this also helps your staff stay on track with the patient?s care. If a re-exam is supposed to take place on visit 12, your staff sees it and is able to make sure it gets done and billed. Or if an extremity adjustment is supposed to be done each visit, you are reminded of it.

This may sound like a simple step to take, but don’t overlook the pre-planning of a patients care. You’ll be surprised at how much you and your staff miss if you’re not watching it every day on every patient. Just one small service missed regularly can amount to hundreds of dollars on each case.

I once counted up how much revenue was lost one month because my staff had “missed” a few re-exams, extremity adjustments, re-xrays, computerized test-ing, home exercises, rehab etc. It came out to be over $3,000. From that point forward, I made sure everyone (including myself) kept up with each patient’s planned care.

Each month, figure your case average for your practice. Then check to see how your marketing is going. The number of new patients you get is important, but make sure you are considering the total dollars they are bringing into your business as well.

My new son and a gift for you.

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As a doctor, should you let your patients in on your personal life?

My answer to this question is “Absolutely yes!” There are two big reasons you’ll want to reveal personal aspects of your life to your patients…

#1. It connect your patients to you, building a much stronger bond. The reason social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, cell phones and blogs are so popular today is because people want to feel connected. We live in a very connected world where patients want to know about your good times and even be there for you during your hard times. Also, patients feel really put off by many doctors out they have seen in the past. They feel rushed, neglected and completely fed up with “the system.” If they can just see that you’re a real human with a life, then they are going to appreciate you and your office that much more. (I don’t recommend you let patients know about all your personal “problems”, but if they can “be there for you” or “pray for you” during hard times,  this would be acceptable.)

#2. Events in your life make for great marketing opportunities. One of the greatest marketers of all time, John E. Kennedy, wrote a book in the early 1900’s entitled “Reason-Why Advertising”. He stated that when you write and run an ad, you must give a believable reason why you are making an incredible offer. By sending a letter or email to your patients on special dates in your life or practice, you’ll be giving a great “reason why” you’re offering a discount, sale on certain products, or free food and refreshments.

Here’s a few examples of certain dates you could use…

-Practice anniversary
-Your marriage anniversary
-Birth of your child
-One of your children’s birthday
-Your birthday
-Getting a new pet
-Your pet’s birthday
-Your family’s summer vacation
-Your spring break plans

There’s really no end to the list of events you could come up with and use in your marketing. For example, after my daughter was born 2 years ago, I wrote and sent out a reactivation letter to my patients written in her voice. After it went out, patients started coming in to get adjusted that we hadn’t seen in years. And based on what some of them said, I think they wanted to hear more about my daughter than to get adjusted. But either way, they did re-activate and a few stayed on for good this time. If you would like to download this letter for free, click here. (Feel free to change the offer so that it fits your practice.)

This is just one of many marketing letters included as a bonus in my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads.

Speaking of special announcements, I have one to make of my own…

After a long and stressful Sunday night, my 4th child was born into the world. What started out as a home birth — which should have been easy and uncomplicated because our previous 3 were born at home with midwives assistance — became a hospital vacuum extraction. And while the kid is going to need some chiropractic care and cranial work, he’s doing extremely well considering. His name is Sterling Marshall Beck and he was born Monday at 8:41am at 8lbs 9oz and 22 inches long.

Here’s a few pictures of him with brother and sisters.

Just half a day old and ready to learn about marketing!

with new big sister.

with new big sister.

The whole gang

The whole gang

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