Remington BeggChiropractors face the unique challenge of marketing services to prospective patients that may not understand or trust their industry.
That’s not easy.
Not only do you need local chiropractic consumers to know you exist and choose you as a provider, you have to educate prospective patients who’ve never undergone chiropractic care. In the face of these challenges, a diverse marketing strategy, an education-first approach and best practices for local visibility may help your chiropractic practice to generate the leads you need.
Explore the marketing mediums best suited to drive your message and support your bottom line:
Paid Facebook Advertising
Cost: Variable.
Effort: Social media ads aren’t really a “set it and forget it” option. Even once the initial ad is set up, you’ll need to keep a close eye on its performance and tweak your strategy almost daily.
Pros: The ability to target specific demographics and locations might help you to find the right prospective patients, faster. You can also pay to “boost” your posts, which gives you a lot more flexibility in your content. Instead of spending ad money on an ad containing a line or two, increase the reach of your status updates about discounts, educational blog post promotion and brand awareness content.
Cons: Successful paid advertising can take some experience and time, as well as trial and error.
Getting Started:
Start small and probably with the help of an experienced marketer, or be prepared to do extensive homework. As far as successful format options for chiropractors, consider promoting video testimonial ads that prospective patients will relate to and/or marketing a deal or discount for new patients, a specific service, etc. And be sure to have an active Facebook page as well. Even if your ads don’t direct users to your Facebook page, you don’t want to attract a Facebook audience if your presence there is sub par.
Blogging
Cost: Free
Pros: There’s no marketing more authentically “you” than, well, you. By blogging on behalf of your business, you can directly help to shape your brand’s personality and use your own expertise to build a reputation for credibility and problem solving.
Cons: Blogging has to be consistent to really be effective. It’s not enough to periodically throw together some thoughts and publish them into the ether of the internet, then wait for them to be discovered. You’ll need a deliberate strategy and consistent blogging schedule. Even then, success this way takes time.
For a lot of busy professionals, finding the time to write and edit your thoughts twice a week can be difficult to commit to. You’ll also need at least a base knowledge of SEO best practices and active social media accounts to promote newly published blog posts.
Getting Started: Blogging doesn’t have to be much more difficult than providing a thought-out and comprehensive answer to common patient questions and problems. When they ask Dr. Google about their ailments, make sure you’re providing the best answer so that you’ll be the first result they see.
Start by learning blogging best practices, create a space for a blog on your website, write consistently and don’t forget to cross promote each one on your social media channels.
Video Marketing
Cost: Low for DIY, Variable for Professional Help
Pros: Video is an extremely lucrative marketing medium, can be low cost, is relatively quick to produce and can work for an endless array of purposes. For chiropractors, the transparency of video can help to demystify your services. By explaining what you do and how you can help prospective patients in your own voice and through the testimonials of actual patients, you may be able to streamline building trust and credibility with your audience.
Cons: Videos don’t create themselves. You’ll need to set aside some time to brainstorm content then record, edit and publish them. You’ll also need at least some basic equipment such as a smartphone, phone tripod, microphone and basic editing software. Be mindful that videos with bad lighting or audio may be more of a detriment than an asset.
Getting Started: Start with a crash course in video marketing. Once you know the basics, simply start filming after taking some prep time to write a simple script, get your equipment in order and set up a YouTube account or similar channel to host your videos. Focus on answering consumer questions while visually demystifying what you do. Show your audience what your office looks like, explain equipment, even consider performing some of your services on camera while explaining why they’re so valuable. Even short social media videos providing a quick answer to a common question can be a great asset to your marketing efforts.
Nurture Your Rep
Cost: Free – Variable
Effort: Minimal
Pros: Yelp is becoming the number one way consumers find services including health and wellness care. Establishing and maintaining a presence on this review site is an easy way to keep your brand visible to local prospective patients while collecting ratings and testimonials from real patients.
Cons: Yelp is a site populated by the reviews and ratings of real consumers sharing those good (and bad) experiences with businesses. Not every one of your reviews may be positive and you’ll have to accept that while learning to respond with grace, or suffer the consequences. Too many negative reviews and ratings may have a profound effect on your profits.
Getting Started: Create a Yelp account and search the site to see if your practice already has a listing, since anyone can add a business. Then, create a listing (or claim an existing one) as your business to complete your profile with business details and photos of your chiropractic practice. Once your page is finished, all you’ll need to do is respond to reviews as they come in, both positive and negative. Do yourself a favor and prepare a little by learning the art of review responding. If it’s all just a little too overwhelming for you, reputation management companies are always happy to help, for a fee.
Local SEO and N.A.P. (name, address, phone number) Listings
Cost: Free
Effort: A few hours initially, periodic maintenance
Pros: For the little amount of time it takes to list your business correctly, around the internet, the return can be incredible. Local prospective patients will be able to find and consider your practice when they need chiropractic care in your city. Without that foundation, many of your marketing efforts could be a moot point.
Cons: When online listings have your business information, hours, address, etc. wrong (and they often do), it can be difficult to correct. It may also be a little tricky to find all of the relevant places you should be listed.
Getting Started: Dig into learning local SEO a bit before you begin, with amazing, free online resources written by pros. Local SEO can be a variety of different efforts but one of the easiest to tackle is making sure your business name, address and phone number is listed (and the information is exactly the same) on Google My Business, review websites and any other online places local patients would look for your business. Keep the info exactly consistent as it is on your website to get the most mileage out of your efforts.
Getting More Real Leads for YOUR Chiropractic Practice
There’s probably a million ways to generate leads for your chiropractic business. It’s sort of like a diet. The best choice is the one you’ll stick with. Nearly every option (even hiring pros) will require some commitment of time and possibly money. Understand the resources you’re willing to commit to your marketing before you begin any of the above strategies. Then, start small and let your efforts grow as your knowledge about the specific marketing strategy expands.
There’s a lot of options for getting more leads for your chiropractic practice. And it’s easier than you think. But you’re not a marketer are you? You’re a chiropractor. So let us, the marketers show you a few secrets to netting more leads and ultimately growing your patient list.
So not every lead generation strategy is created equal. From blogs to social media advertising, there’s a lot of pros, cons and varying degrees of effort to consider. In this blog, I explain a wide of range of options for your lead generation, the pros, the cons, the effort required and how to get started. Read on to start growing your patient list with strategy and intention.
