struggling practice

Budgeting and Marketing Tips for The Successful Practice

This, the third installment of this budgeting series, looks at some typical mindsets and marketing issues that come up in the successful practice.

In the previous post we looked at how to set up a marketing budget for the struggling practice.

As much as I understood the problems of the struggling practice, I was also blessed to know something about running a successful practice.

Here’s where things can get strange. Just when you think you’ve made it over those hurdles of being a “new practice”, pulled yourself out of the struggling phase and you feel like you’ve got your feet on solid ground, you still have to work within a budget and have a chiropractic marketing strategy.

While the budget might not be the biggest marketing problem for this type of practice, keeping a consistent flow of new patients coming into the practice is an issue.

It’s not hard to get new patients, but for some reason they don’t stay consistent and the practice doesn’t grow.

The “Doing OK” and The Successful Practice
($1500-$5000+/month marketing budget)

When it comes to advertising, if you’re this type of practice, you must stay consistent with running successful ads.

Smart marketing decisions have to be made.

At this point, one successful ad in one newspaper won’t be enough. You need 20 successful ads running in 10 newspapers or other print media if you can swing it.

You might be tempted to cut some expenses to keep the income up, this may come in the form of “cutting back a bit” on advertising or moving the ads to another section of the paper.

Don’t try to cut corners by moving a winning ad into a bad section of the newspaper to save a few hundred dollars. It’s not worth it if you lose thousands of dollars from the lower response of new patients.

Another common mistake is complacency.

The chiropractor with a successful practice might think things are going pretty good and I am getting a lot of referrals.

“I think I’ll just cut back on marketing a bit until…the end of the year, the next holiday, vacation, etc.”

This is a good way to stall your practice out, or ever move it into the “struggling practice” I talked about in the last blog post.

You can’t ever take a month off from your marketing.

Why would you want to?

Do you want to take a month off from getting new patients?

Here’s another misnomer…

“My referrals will keep up the new patient volume.”

“Referral practice” consultants will have you believe that a large majority of your referrals come from new patients. When in reality, it’s new patients who get well in their first few months of care that are most likely to refer your services to friends and family.

Therefore, more new patients equal more referrals.

In the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads package, I’ve laid out an example marketing plan. The goal for this is to show you how you can begin running large ads and continue doing so in a variety of media. From newspapers and magazines, direct mail, emails and even blog articles if you have an online presence.

Importantly, remember to keep measuring your ROI. This helps you see which ads bring in more new patients. This also helps you to know which ads can be used in other media.

In 7-12 months you should be getting a consistent flow of new patients.

Resist the temptation to cut back and you will reach your practice goals in no time.

A Chiropractic Marketing Budget for the Struggling Practice

By drbeck Leave a Comment Feb 20

In the last blog post we looked at how to set up a marketing budget for the new chiropractic practice. Today, I want to discuss how you should make your marketing money stretch if you have a struggling practice.

I know all about marketing a struggling practice, as I had less than $500 a month to market my practice, for many years.

Perhaps you feel like I did, and think that in times of hardship it is just better to conserve money and not market at all.

But a practice will not grow itself without your effort, so you must do some outside marketing to grow.

The truth is that the doctor who ends up struggling is in the worst spot for making good marketing decisions.

4 marketing mistakes of the struggling chiropractor.

1. Because of mistakes in the past, he’s hesitant to even use advertising.

2. He’s so desperate for a solution that he’ll risk large amounts of money to save himself from going out of business. This means spending money with any ad rep that comes by the office.

3. Thinking that advertising costs too much, he’ll just save his money and focus on “internal marketing” and referrals. Unfortunately, this is a downward spiral, as a struggling practice is struggling because of the lack of NEW patients.

4. Not measuring his return on investment and continuing to make stupid marketing decisions based on feelings (or bad coaching advice) instead of looking at the numbers.

You must get over these mistakes and advertise your services in an effective way. Pay special attention to #2 and #3 above. These are deadly to your business.

You can’t afford to waste money on bad advertising. Put your money where it counts, like running effective ads in the newspaper and magazines, which still works great.

The Struggling Practice
(0-$1500/month marketing budget)

If I had only $500 to spend each month on marketing, and had to pick just one form of advertising I would pick newspapers…and work the newspaper rep until I got a good ad placement for one of these ads!

This was one of the big strategies that saved my practice from bankruptcy! Getting high quality new patients and converting them to effective care plans is what I spend 90% of my time helping my clients do.

So a struggling practice’s advertising schedule would look similar to the above one for a new practice, with a slight difference. The struggling doctor is not going to ramp up his monthly marketing budget as quickly. Why? Because he’s got bills to pay. Bills that are already late. (Having been there, I know.) However, realize that if you don’t set aside something to move forward with, you’ll be back in the struggling situation. So a struggling doctors “ramp up” may looks something like this…

Never forget, new patient marketing is what drives the success of your practice. No matter what anyone else tries to cram down your throat, that’s the truth of the matter.

How To Choose The Best Ad Budget for the New Practice

By drbeck Leave a Comment Feb 11

Many doctors grab my advertising system, which is very effective at bringing in quality new patients.

However, if it sits on the bookshelf, never to be used, it’s useless.

I recommend they start the first week at implementing chiropractic marketing strategy and planning your next 3 months to a year.

However, you’re going to have to spend a bit of money to run your ads.

This article will help you to make smart decisions regarding that expense. I will also layout some good marketing plan examples for you to follow.

Each practice has its own unique monthly marketing budget.

Even if you don’t set a specific number for marketing each month, you still may be limited on the amount you can spend in the beginning.

But the amount of new patients you bring in from your advertising, as well as how fast you build your practice, is going to be determined by how much money you spend on marketing.

If you knew every ad would bring you $10 for every $1 you spent, how often would you run that ad?

Every chance you get! But the problem is, you can’t realistically run a winning ad every day in the same paper for very long… unless it’s a huge national paper like USA Today.

So how do you run that ad as much as possible, without wearing it out?

And even more important regarding The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads, how do you weave all of the ads into a marketing plan that get maximum effectiveness?

The answer to this question will depend on where you are at in practice. Most chiropractors divide up into 3 categories: the new practice, the struggling practice, and the successful practice.

#1. The New Practice (0-$500/month budget)

The problem that the new chiropractor in practice suffers is lack of knowledge. Also, a new practice owner is working with a limited budget.

Due to the lack of marketing and business classes taught in school, most chiropractors graduate with weak marketing muscles.

A new chiropractor is unsure of what works and what doesn’t. Which newspaper is the best in town? Which ad should I run? How often should I run an ad?

A new practice owner should follow these steps to develop and ramp up his/her advertising.

#1. Follow the instructions in sections 1 & 2 of my ad package to select the best newspaper to run an ad in.

#2. Determine the best ad based on your practice (or use Carol Smith take out all the guesswork for you by using her ad service). If you still can’t decide, just go with the ad you “feel” will do the best.

#3. Work the ad rep down to a price you can afford. If your max is $500, keep negotiating or lowering the ad size until you get that price (again Carol is better than I am at doing this). If you need to start with the small ads, then do so. But realize your goal is to step up to the larger ads soon. Don’t get comfortable with the new patients from a small ad, thinking you’ll just run those because they are cheaper. The big ads will bring in more new patients and income than the small ads 99% of the time.

#4. Run the ad and measure your ROI. (I would recommend a half page ad in the news section, unless you can run inserts for the same or better price.)

#5. Repeat the process but with the same ad, this time within 2 weeks in a different newspaper. Compare the newspapers.

#6. Measure the second newspapers ROI while continuing to run different small or large ads in the 1st paper. (Make sure to compare different ad’s results in the same newspaper.)

#7. Test inserts against the full or half page ads.

#8. Continue to increase your monthly marketing budget until you are running two different half page ads (or inserts) each in a different paper once a month.

With this type of advertising “ramp up”, you can build your practice really fast and not burn out any of the newspapers.

The above example assumes every ad is a winner in every paper (used for simplicity here), but this is not likely going to be the case. However, by diversifying your marketing plan, you’ll find out rather quickly which places to run your ads long term.

I would recommend testing at least 3 different ads, with good placement, in section A (or using inserts) in the same paper before determining that it’s a bad paper to run in.

One of the biggest mistakes I see doctors making with this plan is…

Not setting aside enough money each month to ramp up the ads.

All the sudden new money is flowing in, the urge to buy that new car or house is very tempting. (I know, I made this mistake too when I started and it set me back at least 1 year’s worth of growth.)

In the next two blogposts, we’ll look at how to budget for the “struggling practice” and the “successful practice”.

How To Outgrow a Struggling Practice

By drbeck Leave a Comment Nov 23

A struggling practice is typically characterized by low income, low number of new patients and small weekly volume.

This may either be a long term practice that has declined, or a brand new practice that fails to really take off.

To a doctor who’s spent years in training and thousands of dollars to obtain a degree, this can be very depressing.

And to top it off, the doctor who ends up struggling is in the worst spot for making good marketing decisions.

There are 4 areas in marketing that a struggling practice must learn to overcome if they are going to outgrow this slump.

1. Because of mistakes in the past, he’s hesitant to even use advertising. Past failures are not necessarily an indication of future failures.

The point of making mistakes is to learn from them. If you eat bad food that makes you sick, you don’t stop eating food. If you’ve used bad advertising in the past, you shouldn’t stop all future advertising either.Marketing your struggling practice is not an option, but a necessity! The key is using effective marketing.

2. He’s so desperate for a solution that he’ll risk large amounts of money to save himself from going out of business.

This means spending money with any ad rep that comes by the office. Don’t loose our good judgment when you’re face-to-face with an ad rep. Get all the information you need. Ask for a good deal. And don’t make quick decisions.

3. Thinking that advertising costs too much, so he’ll just save his money and focus on “internal marketing” and referrals.

Unfortunately, this is a downward spiral, as a struggling practice is struggling because of the lack of NEW patients.Regardless of what some consultants teach, not every patient in your office is going to refer.

That’s just being realistic. So ONLY relying on referrals from a dwindling patient base is just going to frustrate you. Get referrals plus do outside marketing.

4. Not measuring his return on investment and continuing to make stupid marketing decisions based on feelings (or bad coaching advice) instead of looking at the numbers.

This one is not just a trait of the struggling practice. Many well-off practices still make this mistake, preventing even further success.

A good marketing strategy isn’t “successful” because of how it looks, how it makes your wife fee or even how many new patients it brings in. It’s successful when it brings in a good return on investment (ROI). An ad that “just brings in 5 new patients” isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you only paid $500 for the ad and each patients ends up paying you $1500 each!

If you’re in this situation, don’t worry, you’re not alone. I was even there at one point in my practice.

But you have to get over these mistakes and advertise your services in an effective way. You should pay special attention to #2 and #3 above. These are deadly.

You can’t afford to waste money on bad advertising. So if you’re currently doing any marketing that’s not been producing in the last 3 months, then stop.

Put your money where it counts, like with running chiropractic ads in the newspaper.

If I had only $500 to spend each month on marketing, and had to pick just one form of advertising…I would pick newspapers…and work the newspaper rep until I got a good ad
placement for one of these ads!

This was one of the big strategies that saved my practice from bankruptcy!

When people try to keep you down

By drbeck Leave a Comment Jan 23

Have you ever had people try and keep you from being successful? Enduring through trials in business and life is one of the major keys to success.

I’ll never forget going to over 20 banks to get a business loan, each of them telling me no. One Vice President of a community bank even said “Oh, you’re a chiropractor. Chiropractors just don’t do well in business” with a sad look on his face.

When my practice was struggling, many extended family members were pushing me to declare bankruptcy. One of them even said “You should go to medical school and become a real doctor!”

There will always be people and difficulties in your life that try to discourage you from being successful. How many times in the past year did you run up against a trial and think it was going to be a big struggle to overcome?

But many times these “tests” of character are what sharpen us for greater things…

If not for the banker “feeling sorry for me”, I may not have gotten mad and kept trying until I found a bank loan. If not for my family members insisting I declare bankruptcy when my practice was struggling, I may have not been so “stubborn” and resisted any notion of it.

What do you have to endure in practice?

One chiropractor recently spoke with me about his struggling practice. He said that his patients were complaining about paying for care and were even quitting care because their insurance wasn’t paying correctly.

My answer to this doctor…”Focus on getting better quality new patients so you don’t have to deal with these problems.”

This is why I created The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads. I got sick and tired of seeing chiropractors having to meagerly survive on spinal screenings and other outdated marketing strategies.

Whatever you are struggling with now, you can overcome it. Look for solutions and tools that can help you. It’s likely that someone else has gone through it before you, and now has the answers you need. Find those people and get the answers.

I hope you’ll find many of the answers you seek from this blog and my products (especially if it’s a marketing problem because that’s my purpose for this business). But if I don’t have the answers you need, then keep searching until you find it.

Don’t give up. There’s a reason you are a chiropractor.