Creating a brochure used to be one of the first things a chiropractor would do to establish a chiropractic practice.  Those handy dandy pieces of folded paper could provide prospective patients with all the information they needed to know about your practice.

Today – there are far fewer chiropractors seeking to create these marketing gems for their practice – but a printed brochure can provide a powerful real world illustration of how your website works as well.

Chiropractic websites often serve as virtual online brochures for your practice.  However, many chiropractors would never dream of treating their printed brochures the same way they treat their online brochure.

Imagine for a moment that you spent the time, effort and money to create a printed brochure.  It’s a thing of beauty – and when the box arrives from the printer – you have several thousand of these “marketing gems” to use to promote your practice.   After you’ve opened the box and inspected the contents, you take a handful out and place them at the front desk.  The rest of the brochures are left in the box and carefully placed in your office – so that when the brochures at the front desk run low you can replenish them.

You might not be surprised to know that adopting this “distribution” technique for your printed brochure probably won’t build your practice.  After all – in order for patients to SEE your brochure they must first walk in the door.

Ideally, your marketing should communicate with people who haven’t walked through the door of your practice.

Unfortunately, this “distribution” technique is very similar to the one used by many chiropractors for their website.  Their website is not search engine friendly and not optimized for terms prospective patients may use to find solutions on the web.  Instead, the chiropractor will list his/her website url on business cards, letter head and other written correspondence.  Just like a brochure that is only distributed once patients walk through the front door – this is not the most effective way to use a website to market your practice.

What is an effective way to use a printed brochure to promote your practice?  You can begin by distributing your printed brochure OUTSIDE of your practice.  Try visiting local health food stores and gyms and asking if you can set up a reciprocal “brochure display” arrangement.  The local health food store and gym agree to place your practice brochures prominently as customers check out – and you agree to distribute their brochures as your patients check in and out of your practice.

This is a great “win/win” situation for all involved.  Of course, to increase the effectiveness of your printed brochure – you should be sure to include the URL of your chiropractic website.  On your website, you can feature patient testimonials and lots of helpful and useful information.  (Learn how to create a successful chiropractic website with the Web Smart Chiropractor.)

Again – the key to creating a powerful brochure – either online or offline – is to get that brochure into the hands of people who need your services.   Creating a website you don’t promote outside of your practice is like storing your printed brochures in the backroom.  Brochures – online or offline – have to get into the hands of prospective patients before they can get to work promoting your practice.

“Advertising is what you do when you can’t go see somebody. That’s all it is.”  Fairfax Cone

What if you had a crystal ball which would automatically find everyone in your area who was currently suffering from back pain?  Without a doubt, it would be the greatest advertising tool ever created.  The only thing that could make our magical crystal ball even better would be if  you could then send a message directly to the back pain sufferer.

What message would you send to the person the crystal ball identified as suffering from back pain?  What would you say to encourage him to schedule an appointment?

Would you offer them a low cost spinal screening? or would you instead choose send them a message about how you’ve helped other patients overcome severe back pain?

Actually – the internet provides the next best thing to our magical marketing crystal ball. While there isn’t currently a tool which will notifying you that someone in your area is searching for back pain relief – if you’ve created your web site with the search engines in mind – those who suffer from back pain in your area WILL find your practice and read the message you carefully composed.

The key is – to create a web site that can be found by the search engines that has content created with prospective patients in mind.

Each month – tens of thousands of people search online for the benefits of chiropractic – they just don’t use the exact words “the benefits of chiropractic”.  Instead, they search for terms like “back injury” [90,500 searches last month],”back pain treatment” [49.500 searches last month], and “right side back pain” [49.500 searches last month].

When people are using those words to search the internet – they’re looking for answers – answers your chiropractic website should be providing.

One of the most important messages your chiropractic website should include are patient testimonials.

For example, if you have successfully treated a patient who had been told by other doctors that their pain couldn’t be helped who now enjoys playing  golf every weekend – your website should be sharing his video testimonial.

The biggest “problem” with most chiropractic websites is two fold.  First, the website coding is not search engine friendly which means the search engines can’t get inside the website to index it effectively.  Secondly, most chiropractic websites are difficult to update which means adding testimonials is so difficult and time consuming that most chiropractors don’t bother with them at all.

This is why we created the Web Smart Chiropractor.  This easy to use 7 week course takes you step by step through creating a website which acts as your practice’s most effective advertising tool.     Not only will you learn the secrets to create an effective website for your practice, but the lessons you learn can be applied to ALL of your marketing materials including your other advertising.

We don’t have a magical marketing crystal ball which alerts you to exactly who in your area is experiencing back pain – but the internet provides the next best thing.  It’s where people go to find answers.  Make sure  when they search for answers – they can find your practice website.

For many chiropractors, marketing is one of the most dreaded parts of running a practice.  While attracting new patients is an essential part of building any practice (and a critical factor in launching a new practice) doing the marketing and advertising necessary to bring those new patients in the door is a common source of frustration.

The problem with most marketing and advertising done by chiropractors is that it isn’t effective.   For example, the most common form of marketing done by chiropractors is to offer a low cost spinal screening.   The low cost screening is offered to provide the chiropractor the ability to meet with a patient and “sell” the chiropractor’s services.

Let me warn you right now – if you as a chiropractor approach the marketing of your chiropractic practice as “selling” your services, it’s time for a reality check.  This will be a welcomed reality check for those chiropractors who absolute HATE the hard sell, focus on closing tactics which were taught to used car salesmen more than two decades ago.   Most used car salesmen today don’t use those hard sell – hard closing sales tactics anymore for a good reason – CONSUMERS HATE THEM.

There’s been a “revolution” in the professional sales arena over the past two decades.  Best documented by Neil Rackham in his groundbreaking book Spin Selling, Rackham (a psychologist – not a traditional “sales professional”) performed extensive research with regards to what qualities were shared by the most successful sales people.  In his research, Rackham divided all sales into two distinct categories – the Minor Sale and the Major Sale.  An example of a Minor Sale would be buying copy paper.   Copy paper is a  low cost items with insignificant consequences if you make the “wrong” decision.

Then there are the sales which fall into the category of Major Sales.  The Major Sale doesn’t necessarily involve a large investment of capital – though many Major Sales share that characteristic.  The one common shared trait of every Major Sale is simply the element of trust.  The Major Sale involves a significant amount of risk – as a matter of fact, one of the criteria specified by Rackham is “The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are high.”

So while our Minor Sale example of buying copy paper has relatively insignificant consequences – Major Sale decisions are defined by the following:

• The buyer’s financial and/or emotional investment is significant
• The purchase warrants significant time and research into alternatives
• There is the potential for a long-term relationship between you and/or your business and the customer
• The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are high

Seeing this list, it should not surprise you that choosing a chiropractor definitely qualifies as a Major Sale.

“But wait – you said marketing for chiropractors was NOT selling.  All you’ve talked about so far is selling!”

Reality check – building your practice is all about bringing in new patients – and that is indeed a form of “sales”.  However, when it comes to making the Major Sale – the absolute WORST approach is to treat it like a “sales call”.

Which is why – the traditional “spinal screening” marketing tactic is rarely successful in building a thriving chiropractic practice.

What marketing techniques are successful?

The key element in creating successful practice building chiropractic marketing campaigns is to recognize that the primary goal is not to “sell” prospective patients on chiropractic – but rather to gain their trust.

When you change the focus of your marketing from “closing sales” to “building trust” you’ll not only find you attract a better “quality” of patient – but the act of marketing and promoting your practice becomes enjoyable.

As we’ve discussed before, even the simplest detail plays a critical role in how well your chiropractic practice’s  “brand” communicates the “who, what and why” of what you do within your practice.

For example, the colors you choose as part of your branding plays an important role in your branding because the use of color has a measurable effect on people.

Color plays a powerful subconscious role – especially when it comet to your web site.  The colors used make the first impression upon your visitor.  The color sets the “tone” for the content of your web site or blog.  Before your visitor has a chance to read a single word – the colors used on your web site or blog are already hard at work, shaping your visitor’s perception of your practice.

There’s more to the “art” of color psychology than might originally meet the eye.  Different cultures interpret colors differently.  For example, in Japan – white is the color of mourning while in the United States, we dress brides in white to symbolize purity.

So where in the world you (or more importantly – your patients) are affects which colors you use to carry your intended message.

For the sake of simplicity,we’re going to use the color red with a United States point of view.

Ah – the color red.  When you hear “red” – what do you think?  Blood?  Fire?  Danger?

Without even seeing the color – the word alone conjures images and emotion.

This is a “pure” clear red…ff0000.

This shade of red is the shade used for stop signs and it’s used for a reason.  This shade of red literally GRABS your visual attention.

If you’re thinking – “Hey!  My branding elements should be pure red then!  I really want to capture people’s attention”  – STOP!  It’s not that easy.

Too much of this clear, strong shade can easily overwhelm a web visitor.  Red is best used as an accent on the web.

Have you ever noticed how FEW products you see that use this strong red color in their branding?  Ever wonder why that it?

While it’s true that red does capture attention – it also carries a message.

Think for a moment of the big brands that you’ve seen which use this shade of red.  This shade of red is used by such corporate giants as McDonalds and Coca Cola.

Clearance sale tags are often this shade of red because one of the messages carried by this shade of red – while subtle – is  “this is inexpensive”.

When it comes to a soft drink – or fast food – inexpensive is a good thing.  However, you have to ask yourself – is this a message you want to send about your chiropractic practice?

However, when it comes to red – you’ve got a lot of options.

Take for example this shade of red.  This shade of red has enough blue mixed in to change the message this red sends.  It doesn’t carry the same meaning as the clear, clean shade of red above.

This “red” is a much better choice for the professional who wants to give the impression of high class and quality.

If the color block above looks brown – it’s probably because of the display settings on your computer monitor.

Yes, another “joy” of using the internet to market your chiropractic practice is that different computers will display content differently.  So if you look at your web site on a computer at the library for example – you might see something much different than you’re used to seeing at home or in your office.

You may see “pink” when you see this red – but this is also another shade of red. It’s obvious that this shade of red obviously carries a completely different message than either of the two reds featured above.

Pink is “girly” and childish.  Pink is probably the BEST example of how color can be used to communicate a lot of marketing message without saying a single word.

As you can see – there’s a lot to consider when choosing the color for your branding.   Which is why it’s essential to think about who your target audience is and what you’re wanting to communicate.

Ah – and in case you hadn’t thought of it before  now – your “branding” should be carried from your marketing and advertising messages and into your signage and even your waiting room.

“Branding” is the visual identity of your practice – and as such it needs to occupy more than just your advertising messages.

For example, if your practice is geared towards families with children – then you may want to choose a primary color palate for your branding.  When joined by similar shades of blue and yellow – the crisp, clear shade of red we talked about earlier can shift it’s meaning from “cheap” to “child friendly”.

One of the biggest challenges in starting a chiropractic practice is developing a “visual identity”. Sometimes known as “branding” – the visual elements you choose to represent your practice are an important part of your practice success.

Part of the “brand” development process is to create visual elements– such as a logo – which help to carry your marketing message. Every detail plays a role in how well the “brand” communicates the“who, what and why” of your practice.

Seemingly inconsequential elements such as the choice of colors and the style of font  used play pivotal roles in the overall message your “branding elements” communicate.

It’s important to note at this point that while visual elements can and do play an important rol in communicating with prospective chiropractic patients – “branding” is not limited to the visual elements you choose to represent your practice.

It wasn’t that long ago that the term “branding” described the act of scarring an animal permanently.  However, over the past few years – more than a few “branding” experts have tried to sell businesses on the notion that branding is something that a business can “buy”.

Branding is not something you choose to do to your practice but rather is something that your PATIENTS will do to your practice.

Just as the unsuspecting calf is branded by searing metal pressed into it’s flesh, your practice is being branded by your patients.

That’s right.  Branding is not an “inside out” process, though it is a process that begins deep within your practice.  Instead, branding is the process through which you imprint what it is your practice is about upon the minds of your prospective and current patients.

Because branding is an ongoing activity, it occurs constantly.  Every interaction between you and your staff with your current and potential patients is – whether you like it or not – building your brand.

With that perspective on branding, it’s easy to see that the task at hand is to control your patient’s perceptions of your practice as much as is possible.  It starts with visual elements such as a logo – but the process of branding goes much much further than being just “skin deep”.

For the chiropractic practice – your “brand” is literally written on the DNA of your practice!

With this perspective, you may suddenly realize that the surely angst ridden teen who answers your phone after school is helping to building your chiropractic practice’s brand – just as your office manager does every time he/she interacts with a patient.

Every time someone you employ has contact with patients and potential patients, they are in fact helping to build your brand.

If this doesn’t frighten you, nothing will.

The “experts” want you to believe that branding is something you can buy.  Can you blame them?  It’s much easier to say, “Run your ads here and be sure to use use the right colors and font faces in those ads,” than to look beyond the ads at the business behind the ads.

Advertisements are simply invitations to strangers asking them to allow you to solve their problems.  Implementing a methodical identity program (a.k.a. branding program) will allow you to determine exactly how you want to portray your company or product to the outside world.  However, what happens once those customers do business with you will, in the end, determine your company’s “brand.”

In the end, your brand is merely the way you are perceived by your customers.  Developing visual branding elements  is merely identifying the image you want to communicate to outsiders.  Your goal should be to make certain that your brand accurately reflects what you do within your practice.

Part of the “brand” development process is to create visual elements – such as a logo – which help to carry your marketing message.  Every detail plays a role in how well the “brand” communicates the “who, what and why” of your business.   Seemingly inconsequential elements such as the choice of colors and the style of font  used play pivotal roles in the overall message your “branding elements” communicate.

Is a website essential to successfully market your chiropractic practice? The answer may surprise you.

A website is NOT essential to successfully market ANY business.  As a matter of fact, if you have a horrible website or a website that can’t be found by the search engines, you may be better off saving your self the hosting fee and investing those marketing dollars elsewhere.

However, a chiropractic website that CAN be found by the search engines can make marketing your chiropractic practice a whole lot easier AND make your marketing messages more effective.  Here’s why.

Chiropractic services are an example of a MAJOR SALE.  Neil Rackham in his book, “Spin Selling” defines the major sale as one where the buyer’s financial and/or emotional investment is significant.  As such, the purchase warrants significant time and research into alternatives.  One of the reason patients need to research this decision is there  is the potential for a long-term relationship between you and your patient.  As a result,  the consequences of making a purchasing mistake are high.

What does this have to do with a website?  A lot it turns out.  See, the best chiropractic websites are designed with the Major Sale in mind is a GREAT tool for converting visitors into patients.  When you recognize that prospective patients need a LOT of information before making a decision – that’s when you realize how important your website is to marketing your chiropractic practice.

See, when you run a print ad in either the newspaper or a weekly flyer – patients can see your name, the address of your practice and possibly your face (if you include a photo) but not much else.  However, if that newspaper ad gives your web address – then interested prospective  patients can visit your website – created with building trust in mind – to learn more about you and what you do.

If your chiropractic website is NOT designed with the Major Sale in mind – well, then chances are that your chiropractic website is not doing much to build your chiropractic practice.

Here’s a question that has come in to this blog: “Should chiropractors advertise in the yellow pages?”

Twenty years ago, this wasn’t an issue.  There was but a single version of the Yellow Pages and being excluded from the sacred book was unthinkable.

Then came multiple VERSIONS of “the” yellow pages.  It seems every other month a new Yellow Page directory is being released.  One even calls itself the “real” Yellow Pages – can you remember which one?

In some marketing, being listed in each and every yellow pages can easily eat up your entire advertising budget.  That wouldn’t be a problem if yellow page advertising were powerful enough to stand alone.

Unfortunately, it’s not.  If you don’t believe me, believe the Yellow Pages themselves.  When the Yellow Page reps come to your town to sell advertising, they buy advertising in other media.  Suddenly, the various media in town are flooded with ads for the Yellow Pages.   Many yellow page directories advertise their resource using every media possible: radio, television, billboards and newspapers just to name a few.

It makes me laugh – it really does!  Once a year, you will be assaulted with a barrage of testimonials from business owners who “tell their story” of how the yellow pages increased business for them – and this message will be delivered in every way EXCEPT via the Yellow Pages.

So I’d LIKE to tell you that chiropractors can SKIP advertising in the Yellow Pages.  I’d LOVE to give you that good news – unfortunately I can’t do that.  Listing your business in the yellow page is ESSENTIAL.

However, the good news is that a display ad in the yellow pages is DEFINITELY optional!  You can definitely pass on the display ads – if you’ve got other forms of marketing in the mix!

One thing every chiropractor should be doing is to list your website URL in your yellow page ad.  Let prospective patients learn more about you on your chiropractic website instead of paying by the inch in the Yellow Pages.

When you launched your chiropractic practice, you launched a business. Every business needs to “get the word out” about the products and services the business offers. Your chiropractic practice is no different. Marketing is merely the act of getting the message out about the products and services your practice offers the surrounding community!  When you start viewing marketing as merely a way of introducing your practice to people, then it begins to take on a whole new meaning.

Chiropractic Marketing Tips: Sports Teams Sponsorships

Picking a target audience to which you wish to educate about your services is essential for marketing your practice. By picking a target marketing audience, you narrow your marketing options considerably.  This reduces the “spray and pray” marketing tendencies to which we ALL fall victim.

For example, let’s say you would like to specialize in treating families with children.  Because you’ve narrowed your target audience, it’s now easier to pick successful marketing activities.

When you’re trying to reach families with children an exceptional marketing tip is to sponsor a local sports team.

Yes, you read that right.  Sponsoring a sports team is a GREAT investment in marketing for your practice if you don’t just write a check and let your relationship with the team end there.  Try to view sponsoring the team is the opportunity to build RELATIONSHIPS with the players (and their parents).

When the coach contacts you to pick up the check for the sponsorship, be sure to have brochures prepared  for the coach to hand out at the beginning of the season.  Ideally, the brochure should cover things young athletes can do to avoid injuries and what to do if injuries occur.  Of course, the brochure should also cover which injuries can best be treated with chiropractic care.

As the team sponsor, be sure to watch at least a few of the games.  Learn the players names.  Cheer.  Then, offer to take the team out for ice cream after the season ends to celebrate the season.  Make it a fun evening out for your staff and the team.  During the party, be sure to take LOTS of pictures of your staff with the team.   Frame and display these later in your office and be sure to offer copies to the families just for stopping by the office.

Most importantly, make this a HABIT instead of a one time event.  Get into the habit of sponsoring THIS SAME TEAM every year and soon you’ll be known THROUGHOUT the entire league as THE team on which every kid wants to play – not because they win championships but because they have such a GREAT end of season party.

Sponsoring a children’s sports team can be an EFFECTIVE way of marketing your practice, but  only if you take it as an opportunity to build relationships with the team members and their families.

I don’t recommend blatantly “marketing” your practice during the party unless it’s passing out balloons filled with helium with your practice name printed on them.  Beyond that, make the end of season party all about connecting with the team and their families.

Oh, and be sure to include team photos on your chiropractic website.   The kids will love seeing their smiling faces featured on the web!

Creating a successful chiropractic marketing strategy is essential in establishing a six figure chiropractic practice.

If you’re a chiropractor who has a love/hate relationship with your marketing and advertising, then you’re in good company. Many chiropractors often find themselves chasing after an array of marketing tactics instead of implementing a cohesive chiropractic marketing strategy.

Unfortunately, marketing tactics which may result in great success for one practice may fail miserably for the next. Yet many chiropractors attend seminars, buy books and subscribe to newsletters that do little more than provide a never ending list of various marketing tactics. They keep gathering these crumbs, hoping to collect enough crumbs and the finding the magical marketing tactic(s) that will turn this collection of crumbs into a slice of toast.

The search for tactics to increase the return on investment dates back to the earliest recorded history. One tactic used by early farmers to improve their farming “return on investment” was to plant discarded fish parts to improve their production of corn. Modern science has shown there are practical scientific principles behind this ancient practice. The decaying fish parts provide the steady supply of nitrogen which corn needs to grow abundantly. It seems the decaying fish parts are a great “lo-tech” method for providing the steady fertilization needs of growing corn plants.

It turns out that in ancient cultures there were two schools of thought about the role of the planting fish with corn. On one hand, there were the cultures that, at some level, seemed to recognize the science behind the practice. Farmers in these cultures believed that the corn was literally feeding upon the decaying fish. So while they used the “tactic” of planting fish parts with corn, they were aware of the overall strategy behind the tactic which was to provide nourishment for the plants so they could produce an abundant crop.

However, there were other cultures that also planted fish parts with their crops but did so without any understanding of the science behind the practice. For these cultures, the fish were thought to have magical properties. They believed that the spirit of the dead fish magically helped the plants to grow. These cultures were using the same tactic; however they were using it without any understanding of the strategy behind the tactic’s success.

From our 21st Century perspective, it’s easy to see that the farmers that viewed the fish as having magical properties were putting themselves at a severe disadvantage. Without being aware of the underlying strategy of feeding the plants, the farmers who subscribed to the fish spirit as magic tactic could not understand how placing too much fish in with each seed could actually lead to undesirable results. (If you are a dog owner and have brown spots in your lawn, then you’ve seen firsthand the results of excessive nitrogen on vegetation.)

Imagine that you were a farmer who subscribed to the fish as magic school of thinking. At some point as you watched your corn fail to grow, you would have to ask yourself: Is there such a thing as too much magic? How can some magic be good but more of the same magic be bad? Only when you adopt the scientific view of using the fish as part of a fertilization strategy can you begin to see where too much of a good tactic can actually lead to undesirable results.

The same is true in modern marketing. For example, offering a limited time discount is a time honored way to improve patient counts initially but when used excessively, consumers become conditioned to wait until the next big discount to buy. Even the biggest players in the market, like GM and Macy’s aren’t immune to the underlying principles at work.

No matter what size your practice, the going gets tough when you learn that there is such a thing as too much marketing magic.

When you understand the underlying principles behind creating a successful marketing strategy and successful marketing message, then you’ll be able to choose the right marketing tactics that will help you to achieve your marketing objectives.

Pick up a copy of the book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results to learn more about developing a marketing strategy for your chiropractic practice.

Marketing can be easy…and maybe even fun

with a simple attitude adjustment.