Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

In a previous article, I showed you a video of how I sub-niche the chiropractic market.

A niche market is simply a subset of a larger market. It’s harder to say the word niche correctly than it is to understand it. (In the south, we say “nitch” but more sophisticated English speakers will use the French-sounding “nish”!)

The overall market in chiropractic is everyone who could be a patient in your practice. But within that group, you can divide them even further into specific niches — fibromyalgia patients, headaches patients, decompression patients, etc.

Today I want to give you an example of how I’ve done this.

But even within these different chiropractic niches, you can drill down further. For example in patients with neuropathy, you have one group that focuses on numbness and tingling while they’ve not yet heard the term “neuropathy.” Another group will respond to the term neuropathy in an ad since they have been “officially” diagnosed with that condition.

In the case of my Decompression Marketing Elite program I’ve actually ‘sub-niched’ the decompression market to different groups of patients that respond differently to their own language.

Within decompression niche there are many “sub-niches”. These are categories with different symptoms like patients with disc herniations, patients with sciatica, patients with general back pain, and more.

Why is all this important?

Because you can use it in all your marketing and get huge ROI’s!

For example, a patient with numbness and tingling down their legs may have no clue about disc herniations. So marketing to them with an ad focused on disc herniations will be pointless.

But run an ad with specific language showing how spinal decompression is the solution they’ve been looking for and they’ll gladly pay you $4,000 to get rid of the problem.

Your simply doing what any specialist in medicine or dentistry does.

This type of “sub-niching” allows for you to really connect with your potential patients, on a level never-before-seen in decompression marketing.

Here’s an excerpt from a long list of phrases I use to sub-niche the decompression market:

ruptured disc
herniated disc
slipped disc
degenerative disc
degenerative disk
herniated disk
spinal surgery
discectomy
bulging disc
degenerative disc disease
disc protrusion
spine surgery
bulging discs
disc herniation
herniated
herniated disc surgery
bulging disk
bulge disc
disc treatment
herniation disc
disease disc

As you can see, there are many groups of patients out there to tailor your marketing too. And this list doesn’t even touch all the keywords dealing with sciatica!

With all this marketing potential, how can anyone say that “marketing doesn’t work?” This is a major problem I see in our profession. Doctors try some general marketing or advertising, only focusing on the chiropractic aspect and not addressing any of the patients concerns. Then when no one comes in, they definitively state that marketing doesn’t work.

The problem is most potential patients are not sitting around thinking about which chiropractor they might go see. Or which decompression table looks the nicest. Or which doctor is dressed the best on his yellow page ad.

Most of them are suffering from various health problems and are wondering who exactly can help them. Will it be you?

If you aren’t speaking their language, entering the conversation already going in their head, you’re marketing will get thrown aside faster than a Kardashian wedding!

By focusing very specifically on what the patient is suffering from, you show everyone that you are qualified to help with their condition. And your conversions will sky rocket as a result.

If you’d like to work with me directly on your decompression, I do take a limited number of area exclusive clients.  Currently many zip codes are already taken, but some areas in the U.S. are still available. We also keep a waiting list if your area is already taken.

http://www.decompressionmarketingelite.com

Are you sub-niching your marketing prospects?

Watch this segment of a decompression webinar I gave. Whether you do decompression or not, you need to understand what sub-niching is. (If you do have a decompression table, watch the complete webinar here.)

In my last post, we looked at the “5 Biggest Questions About Chiropractic Ads“. But due to length, we only got through 4 questions and answers. So today’s post is the 5th and final question we get asked most from buyers of my ads kit. And it’s probably the most important question to get the answer for.

The question comes in various forms, but it goes something like this, “I ran your ad and want to know why we didn’t get more new patients?”

Now, as you might realize, this is a hard question for me to answer. Mainly because I don’t know how many new patients he did actually get. And how many did he expect to get from the ad?

What’s a good number, 10, 15, 20? I know expectations have been elevated to unrealistic numbers in chiropractic. What else can we expect after years of hyped up marketing strategies that said they would give us 100 new patients every time we ran them, or make us $1 million a month the first month!

Don’t get me wrong, my ads work well to bring in new patients and I don’t think they’re overhyped. We even give a guarantee for those who aren’t happy. But I can say right now it’s unlikely you’ll get 80 new patients every time you run them. Maybe if you’re in a small town with no other chiros, but as for the rest of us we’ll gladly take 10-30 new patients each run.

But what’s strange is when we get an email of a doctor who’s actually doing very well, ‘making a killin’ actually, but he didn’t get “as many as he expected”.

For example, once I was told by a doctor they had received 5 decompression patients from one of my ads. This doctor knows that other doctors are getting 15-25 decompression patients per ad, so his question would have been a good one if he was asking “how do I get as many as those other guys do”. But alas, we rarely get that question asked of us. Instead, this doc was saying that 5 new patients just wasn’t enough. After all, he had paid $1000 to run the ad.

But hold on a second. We’re looking at this scenario completely backwards! Let me explain…

I asked him if all of the 5 started care. He said yes. I asked how much his care plans were priced at. He said $3000. Quick math lead me to determine he got $15,000 back on his investment. What was his investment? Cost of $1000 to run the ad.

That’s a 15-to-1 return on investment! Who wouldn’t like a 15:1 ROI?

There are very few businesses anywhere that get that kind of return. But this doctor was bummed that he only got 5 new patients in for $1000 spent. Do you see where the premises are wrong with this kind of thinking?

You cannot measure an ads success solely by the number of new patients it brought in. And you certainly can’t measure it’s success by how much money you spent. It’s your return on investment that matters. The money spent (ad cost) is only used to figure out the ROI.

Think about it this way…

What if a new patient come into your office with an 11 out of 10 (!) on the pain scale. They got their first treatment, looked at you angrily and said “I’m not happy doctor. I paid you all that money and only got a 60% reduction in my pain today!” After picking your jaw up off the floor, you’d kindly remind the patient of how they are were doing when that crawled into your office on their hands and knees. Therefore, you’re telling them to compare the “before” to the “after”, which is essentially their return on investment. How much they spent doesn’t directly have anything to do with how much better they got.

Are you measuring your ROI?

It’s simple to do really. Take all the new patients who come in from the ad and record their name in a spreadsheet. Then keep track of how much money each one spends in your office. Your patient accounting software should make this number easily accessible.

So your spreadsheet might look something like the one to the left here.

If I hadn’t kept this spreadsheet and tracked every patient, I might try and rely on my memory of how the ad performed. And think, “man, that ad really sucked because Antonio never started care, and Maria she didn’t even come back after the exam. Bah, advertising doesn’t work!”

But the truth is I got a 2061% ROI, or a 20-to-1 return! You can bet I’m running this ad again after seeing how well it really did. (And this ad is actually in the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads.)

So start tracking your ads. Not using “memory” tracking, where you just try and remember how well it did. But actually record the numbers and see what the real story is.

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.

As we finish out 2009, I want to look forward at some possible trends in 2010. Today’s post looks at the first 3 predictions I see for next year. While these are things you should think about, I’m not a prophet and could be proven wrong on some of these. So make sure and get a “multitude of counselors” before completely changing your business. They are simply my best guess at what’s going to happen and I’ll be advising my coaching clients in this direction.

1. More Cash Practices.

The number of cash practices will continue to increase. Having run both a cash-only practice and a more mixed practice, I generally stay away from this argument. It seems in the past, most people making the cash-only choice were doing it for purely philosophical reasons, and not for business reasons. My opinion has been that if insurance is good in your area, why not use it. And based on clients and customers I’ve spoken with, that has worked well.

But things are about to change. As I write this, it appears the U.S. government insists on getting its hands into the insurance game. No matter what some of the articles in chiropractic journals might say, this will not end well for chiropractors (or Americans in general). No matter your political standing, you know this will be true.

Here’s why..

Do you currently like the Medicare payments? Well, under this new legislation a proposed $480 billion dollars in cuts to Medicare will be done over 10 years. Do you think chiropractors will be at the top or bottom of those cuts? How well do you enjoy Medicaid in your state? Now even more of your patients will qualify for Medicaid under the new government “health exchanges”.

Because most Americans will have to buy into these exchanges, or pay a $750 fine, more people will have these plans. This likely will not bode well for your practice. I could go one, but have 4 other predictions to cover. You can read a summary of the proposed bill here.

#2. More Focus on Specific Niches

Because of the drastic effects mentioned above, I predict more chiropractors will have to focus on specific niches. This is good because it will allow you to help more motivated patients and you can charge higher case fees.

Niches are subgroups of the overall patient population. Not only will you need to market specifically to them using language they understand and related to (as in the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads), but you’ll need to set up specific treatment plans for them. Examples include spinal decompression, neuropathy, fibromyalgia, migraine headaches, etc. As you can see, some of these niches will require you to purchase additional equipment. But this need not be overly expensive, especially if you look at what other people are doing.

For example, Dr. Hayes showed us how he put together his neuropathy treatment program in the recent webinar we did (replay at http://www.neuropathychiros.com).

It’s better to make these changes now before you have to because of lower income. A practice focusing on and marketing to a few specific niches is the key to having a high-income, low-stress office.

#3. Additional Products and Services.

Predict chiropractic offices will focus on selling additional products and services to their patients. This includes additional products and services the patients is already getting somewhere else. Different types of nutritional supplements that help in healing and weight loss. Physical therapy or rehab services that increase that speed healing.

For the patient, this will will be a benefit since they can get more in one place, and have the doctors recommendation too. The benefit to you of course is increased income and patient satisfaction. The more satisfied they are, the longer they are likely to stay a patient in your office.

Look for Part 2 next Monday, where I’ll discuss the 4th and 5th predictions for 2010.

Do you have a decompression table in your practice? If not, are you thinking about getting one?

For years there has been quite a bit of hoopla in chiropractic around spinal decompression machines. Trying to get to the bottom of things is sometimes a difficult task.

First, let’s address a few issues some chiropractors have with decompression.

It’s not uncommon for people to say “that’s not chiropractic, therefore I’m not getting one of those.” Well, this person is correct, spinal decompression is not chiropractic. If you’re goal is to have an adjustment only practice without any instrumentation or electronic device, then you should not get a decompression table.

But for doctors who want an excellent way to help their patients, a spinal decompression machine is the #1 therapy device I recommend. Why do I recommend it so much?

Two reasons…

#1.) It helps herniated/bulging/degenerative disc patients get better in ways that no adjustment can. Some people will argue that their technique can do the same thing. I’ve not researched every chiropractic technique available, but I’ve yet to come across one that can pull on the pelvis of a patient with 80lbs of pressure, alternating between relaxing and pulling every 30-45 seconds for a total of 15 minutes.

#2.) The marketing for this is so much easier to do. No, not because it’s a fancy piece of equipment. Not because it’s a gimmick. But because the people who are suffering from disc problems are desperate for a solution. If you’re faced with a lifetime of shots, dangerous pain pills and/or surgical fusion of your spine, how quickly are you going to try something non-invasive like spinal decompression?

Realize, #2 would be insignificant if decompression didn’t work. Ethically it has to work before you can market that it does.

The Bad News

Unfortunately, some hyped up marketing a few years back really altered what chiropractors thought of spinal decompression. Many doctors thought “true spinal decompression” could only be found in spending $100k on a table. If you thought this, then the only 2 choices were to either send a house payment every month for this table or not pursue decompression in your practice because it was out of your price range.

Then, more hyped up marketing (in the form of patient advertising) entered the picture and state boards got involved in banning certain types of marketing. Some states even looked for ways to prevent chiropractors from using spinal decompression, saying it wasn’t in their scope of practice.

I realized that there had to be another way to do this whole decompression thing. One marketing guru couldn’t have cornered the market on spinal decompression in chiropractic.

After a bit of research, I found quite a few manufacturers that make good decompression tables. Of course, then I had to prove to myself that these tables did actually do decompression, since I had been brainwashed as well into thinking only one table was “TRUE DECOMPRESSION.” ( Turns out there all classified by the FDA as traction tables anyway

I won’t go into the details, but most tables that claim decompression actually do decompression. It’s just a matter of how easy it is to use and how nice it looks. Arguments against this are just an old marketing technique (which is sometimes valid, but not here), where you try to get everyone to think your product is the only “real” table that does decompression, and the rest just do traction. You probably heard of this, often times called the unique selling proposition.

The funny thing is, years later, very few people who bought a DRX table will argue that Chattanooga, Saunders, Lordex, (and all the hundreds of other manufacturers) are not doing decompression. Five years ago, ‘them was fightin words’. I even remember threats of lawsuits being thrown around and patenting the words “spinal decompression.”

For $8-10k I could get a table and start helping patients get better. Combined with chiropractic adjustments and other strength building therapies, I saw some amazing results. Not to mention my average case values went up considerably.

Was decompression just a fad, one that has died out?

Well, the $100k tables probably don’t sell like they used to. But spinal decompression is alive and well.

Do you think there will be more or less patients with herniated discs in 2010? How about in 5 years from now? Decompression is not a fad because spinal disc problems are not a fad.

Important: Marketing Is Key

Don’t do like many chiropractors I speak with have done. Don’t spend a ton on a table, and forget to market the thing. You’ve got to market it for what it does, otherwise it’s just an overpriced traction table sitting in your office collecting dust.

This is why I wrote the decompression ads in The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads. It was difficult to find ethical marketing that wasn’t hyped up, so I learned to write my own. And they have done extremely well.

If you don’t have a table yet, don’t wait. Start getting quotes now as the new year is right around the corner. Be ready to hit your decompression marketing strong in January.

If you already have a table, make sure you’re planning the first quarter of 2010 with some strong marketing.

Watch a free webinar where I cover my Area Exclusive decompression marketing program here:

http://www.decompressionmarketingelite.com