Chiropractic Ads Need To Tell The Truth

Posted on December 26, 2011 by

When running chiropractic ads, you must be aware that you’re going to be dealing with a lot of cynicism. We run a practice that is dedicated to finding natural solutions to people’s health problems. As a result, we are constantly at loggerheads with large pharmaceutical companies who don’t like the fact that we cause people to think for themselves. These companies would be happy to allow people to continue taking pills for the rest of their lives without ever finding a solution to their problem.

Big Business Interests

The best chiropractic ads don’t promise miracle cures because there aren’t any. What we do promise is a significant improvement in the quality of life of our patients. In the main, we have achieved this goal with millions of people swearing by chiropractic as an effective means of combating various health issues. I find it remarkable that people are so willing to question the veracity of chiropractic ads while allowing the pharmaceutical industry to run riot. It’s an industry that is worth trillions of dollars a year. According to the Fortune 500 rankings in 2010, there were six pharmaceutical companies with an annual revenue exceeding $20 billion! Three of these enjoyed profits of more than $10 billion.

Easy Solutions?

It’s not hard to see why this industry is threatened by our existence and encourages people to poke holes in legitimate chiropractic ads. This is not meant to be a rant against pharmaceutical companies or the medical industry who do a great job in difficult circumstances. However, there is no denying the fact that certain doctors are far too keen to hand out pills for every single ailment. Instead of trying to ascertain what the problem could be, they give some pills and send the patient home.

Even in the event that the pills offer some relief, this is only a temporary solution. The symptoms will return because the underlying cause has not been adequately dealt with. Chiropractic ads should explain that we offer a one-to-one service you won’t get at the physician. We take our time with each patient in a bid to thrash out ways of keeping those pills out of your body.

No Surgery

In using a chiropractor ad, you will notice that avoiding surgery is a huge selling point. No one really WANTS to be operated on. It is expensive and can be a traumatic experience. But physicians are often too quick to condemn a patient to the operating table. Recent research showed that an incredible 56% of Americans have been given either an unnecessary medical procedure or subjected to a hospital visit. Given the profits to be made from healthcare, it seems clear that steering people in the wrong direction is quite deliberate. It now seems as if I am the one being cynical!

For as long as we run chiropractic ads, we will continue to endure the slings and arrows of cynics who would rather believe that a pointless course of medication or operation is more effective than the methods we employ. We’ll continue to find ways to help the general public stay healthy without resorting to drastic action such as surgery unless it‘s absolutely necessary.

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The Dollars And Cents Of Email Marketing

Posted on December 13, 2011 by

In a previous post, we discussed the importance of using email as part of your chiropractic marketing strategy. Today, we are going to take a closer look at the financial side of email marketing by discovering how much a customer is potentially worth to your business.

Every customer you have has a lifetime value. Some will abhor the fact that businesses view customers as walking dollar signs but ultimately, consumer spending is what keeps your business alive and kicking. Of course, you should never lose sight of the fact that each customer should be treated as an individual and not a commodity when chiropractic marketing. After all, chiropractors don’t sell products to random strangers. We offer a personal service so we know how valuable our client’s health and time is.

Lifetime Value

You can calculate the average lifetime value of a customer by finding out how many years he will do business with you, the level of business he offers and the number of referrals he gives you. The percentage of these referrals are multiplied by the other figures. So if your average customer uses your services for 10 years at an average of one session a month (12 a year) and $50 a session with 20% of his 10 referrals becoming customers, the lifetime value is:

10 x 12 x $50 x 10 x 0.20 = $12,000

You then have to subtract the amount spent on this customer in terms of staff, equipment used etc. which can be complicated but as you can see, holding on to a customer in the long-term is very lucrative indeed. This figure is relevant because it enables you to decide your chiropractic marketing budget when it comes to generating new custom.

A Reminder

As you’re probably aware, it’s extremely expensive to acquire new customers. Email enables you to keep the ones you have. Chiropractors often find that their past customers simply forget about them and carry on with their lives despite the fact that their sessions were a success. Life takes over and people get too caught up in things and don’t visit your website or make appointments. When you use email in chiropractic marketing, you are constantly keeping in touch which is conducive to regular custom. Make a chiropractic session a routine and people are less likely to forget. After experiencing benefits in the long-term, your customers will stay with you for life.

Also, chiropractic research has shown that gaining a new customer is at least 500% more costly than keeping an existing one. On top of this, your loyal customers are likely to ask for more sessions than new ones so the revenue they generate can be quite spectacular. In addition, regular customers are less wary of the cost because they are familiar with your service and it’s easy to remind them of special offers.

Using email when chiropractic marketing just makes sense. It is cost-effective, reaches an incredible number of people and leads to more referrals and revenue than just about any other form of chiropractic marketing you can think of.

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Chiropractic Ads: Keep Your Social Media Marketing Campaign Alive By Respecting Your Followers

Posted on December 3, 2011 by

Although the process of using social media marketing to help improve the visibility of chiropractic ads is extremely popular, I am still seeing some stunningly basic errors being made by people running these campaigns. Social media gives you the greatest free marketing opportunity ever yet so many people still mess it up. Continue down this path and your chiropractic ads will vanish into the mists of time where search engines won’t even be able to locate them! Continue reading to learn more about these awful social media blunders.

Hands Off The Keyboard

As a chiropractor, our job is to listen. We need to understand the patient’s concerns and help them to find a way to get healthy. Some chiropractors forget to use this gift when using social media marketing to help gain exposure for their chiropractic ads. It is a cardinal sin to continually broadcast information without allowing others to chime in with their opinions. Can you reasonably expect to get people to use your services if you continually ignore them? Your responsibility to listen doesn’t end once you leave your office. Those who are on your friends or followers list may have some real questions about chiropractic which must be answered. Show them that you care and perhaps they will start listening to you too.

Close The Distance

Although the main goal of chiropractic internet marketing is to get those ads seen and for you to increase your level of business, you have to strike the right balance between being overly corporate and not being professional enough. If you come across as a typical company looking to find business by any means necessary, you won’t get many followers. This means you have to show those on social media sites that you have an engaging personality. Show your human side and interact with those who frequent your account as often as work allows. By doing this, you’ll cause your followers to lower their guard and be less suspicious of you. Speak frankly about your experiences as a chiropractor and always be prepared to offer helpful advice.

Don’t Be Dictatorial

Yet you can’t let social media completely run your life. You have a business to run after all! If there are no chiropractic ads created or if your site has not been updated, you won’t have much to market. Be prepared to encounter people who leave negative comments about you and your chosen vocation. Take these statements with a pinch of salt and whatever you do, don’t react hastily. Everyone can see your reaction so you have to remain professional. Besides, replying to all comments of this nature makes it look as if you’re trying to dictate the terms of the conversation. Free speech has to be encouraged, even when unpleasant elements of society abuse the privilege.

In summation, social media is riddled with companies who haven’t the first idea how to behave once they set up accounts. In order to get your chiropractic ads seen and boost your business, you have to rise above provocation, be friendly with followers and listen carefully to what they have to say.

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Why Testimonials Should Be Part Of Chiropractic Marketing

Posted on November 28, 2011 by

Today is the first of several posts that dips into psychology in a bid to aid your chiropractic marketing efforts. The human mind is a powerful thing so never underestimate it. As you are in the chiropractic field, you should be more aware of this than anyone. It has often been assumed that the medical field uses ‘placebos’ in lieu of actual medication. Certainly, medical experiments which gave patients false medication, told them it was real and found that these patients felt better show that the human mind is capable of anything. Successful chiropractic marketing uses psychology to increase a company’s clientele and there are few better ways to do this than by the use of testimonials.

Social Proof

You are probably not aware of a psychological occurrence known as ‘social proof’. This essentially suggests that people rely on others when they are in a social situation where they don’t know how to act. They look to other people whom they believe are more adept for clues as to how to behave. As a consequence, they eventually behave in a manner that they believe the other person would have in the same situation. It’s a classic ‘What would X do?’ situation.

As you probably ARE aware of, testimonials showcase a company’s ability by offering proof of their skills with evidence from people who have used the company’s products/services. Check out any profitable website and you’ll see several testimonials. Many sites have a dedicated page. As you can imagine, there are few better chiropractic marketing tools than evidence from a customer who is delighted with your service.

Finding Testimonials

So how do you go about gaining these testimonials? Forget about making them up! You will be caught and it will damage your reputation irrevocably. All you need to do is ring up or email your clients and ask them if they were/are happy with your service. When you encounter customers who are delighted, ask for permission to add their comments to your site. You can even ask them face-to-face during your next session, a luxury that other niches don’t have. It is also important to get a signed release which proves that you have the client’s permission.

One chiropractic marketing practice that may be frowned upon but is not illegal is the process of offering ‘sweeteners’ to clients in order to get their testimonial. Perhaps you can offer a discount or even a free session in return for their cooperation. However, this is only something that can be attempted with customers who are actually happy with your service. NEVER try and ‘bribe’ someone who is either unhappy with your chiropractic skills or has never even been to your office. This is underhanded and wrong and flies in the face of the moral code that all chiropractors should adhere to. If you are good at what you do, there will be plenty of legitimate testimonials for you to choose from.

When embarking on your latest chiropractic marketing strategy, remember that people are more likely to use your services if they have seen testimonials from other satisfied customers. As a rule, we trust our fellow consumers far more than any company.

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Save Your Chiropractic Advertising Efforts With Reputation Management: Part II

Posted on November 23, 2011 by

Knowing that even the most carefully crafted advertising plans could blow up in your face because of an unsatisfied customer is disconcerting. You spend years honing your craft and becoming the best chiropractor in your area only to find that a bad day at the office could cause it all to unravel. The power of the internet is such that a recent survey of 1,000 people showed that over 80% of consumers would distance themselves from a company if they saw a bad review relating to that business. Almost 60% of consumers said that they research companies online because of the internet’s ease of use.

Satisfied Customers

To save your chiropractic advertising efforts from failure, you need to combat poor reviews by contacting former and present customers directly to ask them to submit a positive review. Some chiropractors have been known to offer discounts or even free sessions to customers that write them good reviews. This is a practice frowned upon by certain sites with Yelp and others actually banning companies that do this.

And please avoid the temptation to write false reviews of yourself. This will not work because review sites know your location and ban organizations who have reviews submitted from their address. They use IP addresses to catch you. If you’re getting a positive review, it has to be genuine or else it could backfire. Enough positive reviews will soon overturn the bad and are an effective part of chiropractic advertising.

Swallowing Your Pride

What is the first thing you think of when you receive a bad review? I bet you feel extremely angry and disappointed and feel like responding to give the reviewer a piece of your mind. Stay calm and think things through. Any response you give will be seen by all prospective customers and insulting them will cause damage that no amount of marketing can repair. Carefully read the comment and respond to the reviewer by asking them to contact you via private message.

Here, you can have a frank discussion and may even find out about problems that had been hidden from your view. Beneath all the glossy chiropractic advertising, perhaps there were issues with your business all along. If the reviewer makes genuinely good points, thank them for their input and apologize for the inconvenience they suffered.

You may even choose to offer them a free session or a discount to put things right (this is different from asking people to write good reviews for reward). You will be amazed by how this attention can change a customer’s mind. There have been many instances where a customer who wrote a bad review decided to delete it or write a new review where they praise the company they once criticized. Consumers love it when they feel that their needs have been heard. Suddenly, you will go from being the bad guy into a chiropractor that cares and no amount of marketing can produce a better impact than a glowing review from a satisfied customer.

If you don’t make time for online reputation management, all your hard chiropractic work could be ruined. There could be awful reviews of you online and you don’t even know about it. It would certainly be an explanation if things are going badly for you right now.

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Save Your Chiropractic Advertising Efforts With Reputation Management: Part I

Posted on November 21, 2011 by

There is nothing that can jeopardize a good chiropractic advertising campaign quite like negative reviews. No matter how hard you work, all it takes it a single bad review to really give your company a kick in the teeth. According to search engine research, it may take up to 10 good reviews to repair the damage done by a single angry customer. Aside from the obvious ‘make sure your service is excellent’ solution, there are other ways in which you can conduct an online reputation management drive as part of your chiropractic advertising. The next two blog posts will show you ways to keep the damage caused by bad reviews under control.

Take Time Out To Review

You need to stay on top of things every day to ensure that bad reviews and comments don’t sneak under the radar. Dedicate just 15 minutes of your chiropractic advertising time to this and you could save yourself a world of trouble. Concentrate on the likes of Google Places and Yahoo! Local because they have the most visitors. Constantly check for bad reviews so you become aware of any problem almost as soon as possible.

Set up a Google Alert so that you receive updates whenever your business gets mentioned online. If you have social networking accounts like Facebook (and you should), check them daily. You should also get involved in the conversations of patients if they relate to chiropractic treatment. Even answering their questions could see you receive more custom.

Beware Of Fakes

If the worst happens and you get a bad review, stop panicking! There is possibility that this is the work of a rival organization. As you now know, a single bad review can damage you severely. Therefore, why wouldn’t a rival use underhand tactics as a way to get the better of you and undermine your chiropractic marketing efforts? You can’t accuse people of course but rest assured, Google and other major search engines are becoming more adept at catching fake reviews. If a suspicious review is found, it will be wiped from search engine memory.

If you have been unfortunate enough to receive a legitimate bad review, you can’t stand on ceremony. Regardless of whether or not the review or comment is suspicious, you have to do everything you can to get rid of it or else all your hard chiropractic advertising work will be undone.

Use SEO

Clearly, one of the best ways to remove bad reviews is to bury them underneath good SEO content. For this, you may need the services of a specialist reputation management company. Hire them to write articles and blog posts which will hopefully push the negative comments down the search engine rankings. Remember, once the review is gone from page 1 of Google, around 70% of people may never see it. Get it down to page 4 and this percentage becomes 95%.

These are just some initial steps that you can take to salvage your reputation and chiropractic internet efforts. The next post will show you the importance of getting in touch with the person who made the comment. You’ll be surprised by how much can be achieved when you show a customer that you genuinely care.

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How To Create Great Videos With Chiropractic Advertising

Posted on November 17, 2011 by

It’s challenging to come up with new and improved chiropractic advertising methods. Sometimes, we just need to look at existing methods and see how we can improve upon them. Take the medium of video for example. I’ve already spoken about video marketing at length in previous posts but the videos I’ve watched on YouTube seem to suggest that a lot of businesses just don’t ‘get it’.

Getting thousands of views on YouTube is a laudable achievement but it counts for nothing if your videos stink! Chiropractic advertising using video only works if your videos are a cut above those of a competitor. If you happen to be the only chiropractor in your area with videos on YouTube, this is an even better reason to ensure they are eminently watchable. Here are some quick tips that will show you how to achieve this.

Be Interesting
Naturally, the content of the video is the fundamental reason for its success or failure. While a homemade video can be a massive success, your chiropractic advertising drive will flounder if the video is boring, uninformative or just plain bad. You’re probably better off filming in your office where you can show prospective customers how you do things but even a video taken in your bedroom is fine if the content is top notch.

This means no rambling or droning on about topics that aren’t relevant to chiropractic. You should know by now that consumers don’t care about a company’s glorious history or how many years it has been serving the public. What they do want to hear is information on the benefits of chiropractic. Tell them how chiropractic helps heal their body and makes them feel younger and healthier. Explain that surgery is unnecessary and that chiropractic treatment is far cheaper and often more effective. When you’re using chiropractic advertising to market your company, you have a duty to show all chiropractors in a good light. Only then should you sell them your company.

Be Seen AND Heard
One huge error that is made when using video for chiropractic marketing purposes is to ignore the importance of audio. Believe it or not, the majority of YouTube viewers would rather look at a video that is visually mediocre or even bad but has good audio than vice versa. Bad audio is a major turn-off and will see your videos remain unwatched. Always make sure that you have the right decibel levels when recording the video. With modern technology, even a homemade video can sound crisp and professional.

Make Them Blink
If you look at television stations that screen videos, you’ll notice that they use quick cuts. They set up several cameras to shoot a scene and switch between shots rapidly. Although you don’t have several cameras at your disposal, you can create the same effect by cutting frequently between shots to make the viewer believe that the scenes are moving at a greater speed than they actually are. The viewer is forced to blink which leads to a stimulation in their vision and a greater attention span.

If you’re not using videos in your chiropractic advertising strategy correctly, you may as well not use them at all. Bad videos get buried beneath the billions of others very quickly. Follow the above tips to make your videos more watchable and receive an increased number of viewers.

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The Importance Of Chiropractic Marketing Seminars

Posted on November 11, 2011 by

Chiropractic marketing is a pretty exact science at times and you will certainly achieve nothing with a scattergun approach. However, before you take the plunge and invest in the latest chiropractic marketing product that is ‘guaranteed’ to work, why  not spend your money in a different way? After all, the majority of these products come from unknown sources and they could be complete garbage with the ‘secret tips’ turning out to be little more than well-known practices. You could always read reviews of these products but with so many new ones on the market, there is always the danger that you’ll get stung.

 The Seminar Experience

What you need to concentrate on is increasing your knowledge of chiropractic marketing using information gleaned from reputable sources. The simple answer is the attending of seminars. Unlike these mystery products you see online, a seminar is conducted by authorities in the field of chiropractic marketing. The people who organize these gatherings possess years of experience. Many of them are millionaires and are now sharing their findings with a lucky audience.

The difference between a moderately successful businessman and one who makes his fortune is mixing in the right circles. And no, this doesn’t mean elitism and social circles, it means rubbing shoulders with some of the chiropractic industry’s high fliers. Think about it, when you’re in constant contact with success, your likelihood of also being a success increases. Surround yourself with failure and this is what you’ll ultimately become. When you attend seminars, you will not only gain invaluable information on the subject of chiropractic marketing, you also are in a position to start networking and as you know, making these connections is a massive stepping stone towards success.

 Invest In Yourself

A common complaint from less successful entrepreneurs is the fact that these seminars are expensive. Sure, you may pay up to $3,000 for a weekend at a high quality conference but the knowledge you gain will be worth many times that. Simply put, no online program or website can give you the opportunities offered by a seminar. You get to pick the brains of the industry’s most successful proponents of chiropractic marketing and make new contacts. This alone could be worth thousands of dollars to your business.

Then there is the actual information contained within the seminar itself. With the chiropractic marketing tools they provide, you may gain 5-10 new patients a week. The average cost of a chiropractic visit varies according to your practice but, at $50 a session and 5-10 new patients who only visit an average of once a week, you will earn between $250-$500 per week extra. And this is conservative in the extreme. Those who have attended seminars report bringing in dozens of new patients in the course of a couple of months. Their practice is now booming and all thanks to the superior chiropractic marketing methods they learned in the seminar.

Successful chiropractors invest in themselves and are not afraid to splash out for the occasional seminar. You could learn chiropractic marketing tips that will transform your struggling business. Remember, you have to spend a little to earn a lot.

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The Game Rules of Using Chiropractic Ads

Posted on November 6, 2011 by

You’ve heard the term; “it’s a crap shoot”?   Meaning; it’s how the dice roll.  There is really no skill involved; no planning, no strategy.  Where the dice land in pure chance, will they land on the numbers you’ve placed your money on?  Who’s to say, it’s all left up to the odds.  When you think about running a chiropractic ad in the newspaper, you might start to believe the same is true, will reader see the ad, will they pick up the phone to call your office, it’s out of your hands and there is no skill involved.  You might be correct if you didn’t understand that there are rules in the game of advertising.    First rule is that you have to use chiropractic ads that are fresh, crisp and look nice.  Just like a brand new deck of cards.

Using chiropractic ads is like playing a game of poker; looking at it this way, you might be able to understand how to gain the upper hand and walk away from the table with more money and more patients.  But first let me clarify that I don’t consider advertising to be a gamble, to be honest, I think that if you’re not using chiropractic ads to bring in new patients that you are gambling with the life of your practice.

Buying In- In poker you buy into a game.  Same is true with chiropractic ads; you will need to buy some professionally written ads.  You could write your own, but are you a chiropractor or a copywriter?  If I’m your patient I’m going to hope you are a chiropractor 100%, not a great copywriter.  Leave the ad writing to those who are trained to write great chiropractic ads.

Dealers Choice – Now that you’re holding all the cards with your professionally written chiropractic ads, you choose what ads you will run, the ads that you think will bring in the best ROI for your practice.  Not only do you make that choice, you also have choices as to what newspaper you will run your chiropractic ads in, what size of ad you want to run, and how much you will budget for this ad campaign.

Playing the Odds – It won’t take long to know how well a chiropractic ad will work.  Keeping good stats will help you know when to hold them, measuring the stats to see if this ad will remain in your hand, or you might discard back into the deck and look at running another chiropractic ad.  Then of course you need to know when to fold them.  This is where running test ads become your best strategy, watching to see where your chiropractic ads perform best.   If you’re not pulling good numbers from one newspaper, walk away and use the one that brings in the highest response.

Bluffing – Not recommended in this game!  People are already skeptical of advertisements.  Using chiropractic ads that are “no-hype” is the best way to go.  You can’t expect to engage the reader if your ads are hard to read with wording that the reader can’t relate too.  Your chiropractic ads should read as if you’re sitting down and talking with that person who’s reading the ad; one to one, eye to eye, with honesty and empathy.

Ante Up- You can’t play if you don’t ante up.  Expect to spend some money when you running a chiropractic ad in the newspaper.   But only spend what you have budgeted.  Don’t waste your money by running an ad that won’t be seen.  Better to sit out a hand, do some negotiating and spend your money wisely.

All In – Should you consider spending every cent you have to run a chiropractic ad?  Not unless you know for sure you have a winning hand.  But then that would be a risk.  Play it safe and be a smart player, build your bank with affordable and consistent advertising, that way when it’s time to cash in, you walk away with more than you started with.

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I’m A Chiropractor; Why Do I Have To Advertise?

Posted on November 1, 2011 by

You don’t have to, but you should.  How will people find out about you if you don’t advertise?  It’s not enough to set up an office, put up a sign, and think people will stop in or call once you’re open for business.   Even if you’ve been in the same location for years and have established a rapport with the community, it would still be a smart business move to advertise your practice.  Think about it even people who have a garage sale, will advertise so people will know about the sale and come out to buy what they are selling.

Advertising is not unprofessional nor is it unethical, it’s just good business.  No one ever blinked an eye in years past when doctors or other professions, placed ads in a phone book.  The yellow pages were just something every business placed their information in.  For some it was just a general listing, for others there were small advertisements here and there.  That was fine, but rarely did you ever see a television commercial or a newspaper ad for a doctor.  That was just weird.

Today, it’s considered strange if you don’t advertise and not just because a competitor is down the road or across town.  Those are good reasons have a chiropractic advertising plan in place, but the main reason to advertise is to grow your practice.  The only way to do that is to have more patients, to have more patients you have to give them a reason to call you…and that is why you have to advertise.

Still not convinced that chiropractic advertising is necessary?  Then here are a few more reasons;

”You advertise to get noticed…”

You and your practice are just one in a crowd, not just a crowd of chiropractors, but a crowd of businesses.  If you were to take a minute out of your day to step out of your office and look at the surroundings you would see other businesses,  a lot of traffic and people coming and going without ever noticing you or your chiropractic office.  How will people find you if you don’t advertise?

“You advertise to stand out…”

The day will come when people wake up with a pain in their lower back and think to themselves, “I need to see a chiropractor”.  It took awhile for dentistry to get to that point, but it did.   Until the chiropractic profession becomes a check box on a person’s to do list, you will have to advertise your services and how you can help people, by advertising.  Chiropractic advertising is as simple as placing a chiropractic ad in the newspaper that offers help for those who are dealing with conditions such as low back pain, sciatica or numbness and tingling.

“You advertise to grow your practice…”

I’ve not met anyone in business who didn’t want to grow their business or make a profit.  Never have I spoken with a chiropractor who said that they didn’t want new patients.  Chiropractic advertising is merely a means to grow a practice by attracting new patients and giving them a reason to come in and see what you’re all about.

So you’re a chiropractor, where are you advertising?

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