Marketing 101 for Chiropractors
Digital marketing is evolving faster than ever, and as a chiropractor, you're not just a healthcare provider—you’re also the CEO and marketer of your practice. Without a solid grasp of marketing fundamentals, it's easy to fall for one-size-fits-all strategies that waste time and money.
Join us as we break down proven, cost-effective, and innovative marketing tactics designed specifically for chiropractors. From social media mastery to Google Ads that convert, we’ll equip you with the tools to attract more patients, build lasting relationships, and dominate your local market. Stay ahead, stay profitable, and take control of your practice’s growth!
Marketing 101 for Chiropractors
Strategic Marketing Planning for Thriving Chiropractic Practices
Unlock the secrets to a thriving chiropractic practice with expert insights on strategic marketing planning. Join me, Dr. Enrico D, as we uncover how allocating just 8-10% of your gross revenue can transform your business trajectory, ensuring steady growth and patient acquisition without falling into the reactive pitfalls that many practices face. We'll explore a detailed marketing budget blueprint designed specifically for chiropractors, where authentic and tailored strategies pave the way for long-term success. Learn how to effectively distribute your budget across impactful channels like social media, events, and SEO, while aligning these efforts with your personal and professional values.
Together, we'll navigate the essentials of calculating marketing budgets through lead acquisition costs and conversion rates, showing how platforms like Facebook and Google can become powerful tools in driving new patient appointments. We'll discuss the critical role of referral consistency in patient acquisition, emphasizing the importance of a strong foundation for retention and conversion to avoid the dreaded "hamster wheel" of business growth. Equipped with practical advice and a focus on understanding patient care trends, you’ll leave with a solid marketing plan that not only enhances patient relationships but also supports sustained growth despite economic fluctuations. Tune in for a comprehensive guide to taking your chiropractic practice to new heights.
- Join Marketing 101 for Chiropractors Facebook Group here
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- Book a free discovery call with Enrico to level up your business
Welcome to another episode of Marketing 101 for Chiropractors. I'm Dr Enrico D, and this week we are going through budget actually more so blueprint to marketing, because we need to understand numbers before we start to implement marketing. And as we're marketing, as we're practicing, we have to understand how much to spend and where to allocate funds in order to get productive marketing, and that requires a little bit of a blueprint. So statistics go a long, long way in understanding where and how to spend your marketing dollars. Let's dive in this week about how to spend your money and get effective marketing. We continuously talk about marketing. We talk about Facebook ads, instagram ads, tiktok, google ads, google search, seo Everything that we talk about is advertising. Events planning, workshops, patient appreciation days, direct mail, indirect mail All of these things are considered marketing, even billboards, and we've talked about these over the last two, three years of this podcast. But a blueprint can go a long way. Sometimes, understanding when and how to spend your money is the toughest part, or it's the silent part that we don't put much thought into. We're very reactionary as far as entrepreneurs and business owners, because when things go low, we know we have to market more, and when things are going well, we take it for granted. So having a blueprint puts all of that emotion aside and makes it very factual, based on the statistics that you have. So here are some tips on getting good statistics for your business and then applying them to your marketing budget.
Speaker 1:Let's go through a couple of rules. First, how much should you be spending on marketing? The rule is eight to 10% of gross revenue. So you divide that over the year or a month or a week, whatever it is that you're doing. Take it If you're a million dollar. Let's do a half a million dollar practice. You have a $50,000 marketing budget. You should eight to 10%. 40 to $50,000 a year goes towards marketing. Then you have to subdivide your marketing. Just because you have $40,000 doesn't mean you should throw it all into Facebook ads. What we should do is dictate what marketing that you regularly do. So this could be everything from printing business cards, flyers, posting events, workshops, um, event marketing, events, workshops, event marketing, boosting posts, social media, facebook ads and Google ads and Google SEO, and your website and your website person and the people you delegate marketing to, so that all comes into that number. If you're a million dollar practice, it's $100,000. If it's half a million dollar practice, it's $50,000. So that's how you allocate and reverse engineer this.
Speaker 1:Then the golden rule to proper marketing is knowing your statistics, following trends. If you've had your business for one year or 31 years, it really does not matter. The more data you have, the better it is. But looking at trends and knowing when your business typically takes off and typically dips throughout a 12 month or 365 day cycle, this is the missing piece that I think many of us, as CEOs, don't do. Down and go through this because you know what. We're not business trained. We don't have an MBA prior to becoming chiropractors or doctors or whatever it is, we usually have a general science degree or something general from before. That doesn't give us much of a business edge, so we don't think like a CEO. But you have to because you are a CEO of your business, you're the chief executive officer, everything runs through and by you, so these tools are what makes you better CEOs.
Speaker 1:So statistics, looking at this and you'll find this trend. We just did ours a couple of days ago and we did a seven year trend because we're almost seven years old. So we did over the last six years and we showed like these almost overlapping six lines, all different colors 2018, 2019, 2020, 2020, all a different color and they all had this rollercoaster pattern, both for visits per week and new patients per week or per month. Whichever way you look at it, it was almost identical to these two lulls in the year and these two spikes during the year. So then we know when to apply marketing dollars to avoid the dips and to ride the waves. This is how you keep consistent growth going.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, you, you make some progress and you take a few steps back. And you make some progress and you take a few steps back, and at the end of the year, you wonder why you made about the same as last year, or maybe slightly more, and if you made slightly more, that's great. You're going in the right direction. But you know, five steps forward, four steps back, can become cumbersome and tiring, so we're trying to save you that. So look at your statistics first, know that eight to 10% budget, and now I think you have a formal blueprint that you can customize in your vision to understand what you want to do. You should be marketing the way you want to market. That makes it authentic, it makes it doable and it makes it consistent.
Speaker 1:You're going to stay consistent with things that work and that you want to do. Doing things that you don't like over and over again, without consistency or with poor results, you're going to quit very quickly. It's just a natural emotion that we put behind it. So if you don't like speaking and you try a whole bunch of workshops and they're not turning out, you're going to quit pretty quick. It doesn't mean workshops don't work. It means that you don't like them and that's okay. So really blueprinting the things that you like first and then taking advice on what truly works. So being loud on social media works, sending out lots of emails to your email list and building your email list works. These are fundamental marketing principles that we talk about.
Speaker 1:Go and listen to the podcasts or tune in to Adjusting Success and ask direct questions on how to build these things In the background. What we want to do is ride those waves. So what you do is, once you start to understand, hey, you know what? Every September we have this dip and every, for some reason, whatever it is let's say, june, june in September or May in September we have these two major dips. I don't understand why this has happened three years in a row. And then you come up with the excuses back to school, springtime holiday. Whatever it is that you think is the reason why in your area where you work, you know down here in the south we have something called snowbird season, where we typically know in the winter things get busier, the calls pick up because there's just more volume of people that move here. I didn't want to believe it when I moved here, but it is true. There is a slight tendency upward towards in the winter, and it's starting right about now, right about November, so that's when this stuff plays a role in your business. So if we know that that's happening, maybe in the summer we should be putting in more marketing dollars and being louder online and doing more workshops during the dip season to keep that going Make sense. That's one example, but knowing your statistics plays a crucial role in how you set up your marketing dollars.
Speaker 1:Then, how do you set up your marketing dollars, enrico? How much should I spend on Facebook ads? The $20 a day thing is gone For most areas. It doesn't work anymore. You're competing with more clicks. You're competing with more things. So the $30, $40, $50 a day is going to be a standard budget. I don't think you can get away with under $1,000 a month with Facebook ads. I just don't see it anymore. The trend is a little bit more and it depends what you need. So if you're looking to get five or 10 more new patients a month, facebook could be absolutely fantastic for that, for a cost per dollar acquisition of a new client. So it works really well. You can still get them for under a hundred dollars. Google a little bit more difficult. You want to aim for under a hundred dollars, but it's going to cost you a little bit more.
Speaker 1:So, knowing these numbers and reverse engineering, saying hey, we naturally get 25 new patients a month, we just consistently do that. It's the continuous growth we've had over the last five years. Is this constant 300 new patients a year thing? Let's just say we want to grow and in order to grow we have to improve our conversions. Always, always, work on the people that you have. It's much easier than to acquire a new patient. Work on conversions and then say this year let's shoot for 400. Let's shoot for 25% growth. That's going to mean 25% more new patients per month. So we're going to go from 25 to 30 new patients per month and to get those extra five is much more economical and much easier to add five to 25 for ad budget rather than trying to go from 10 new patients a month to 30 new patients a month Make sense. The cost is much higher. So understanding your statistics and making great recommendations as far as marketing can go a long way.
Speaker 1:So how much should you spend? It all depends on what you need and knowing your cost acquisition. So we know a lead in our office is about $36 to get them. A lead converts at 50%, so we have to get. So if we want to get 10, we say, okay, we got to spend $360 to get 10 leads, but we only get five of them to book an appointment. We have a 50% conversion. Then you got to look at that and be like, okay, I got to spend for 20 leads to get the 10. I hope you're staying on track with me here.
Speaker 1:So if they cost $36 per person to get here and I need $20, I need to spend $720 on marketing to get that through Facebook channels to get 10 new patients. Then I know it cost me $111 on Google to get a client to call, a potential client to call, and convert them over the phone. That conversion rate is 80, 90%, because once they've clicked on the Google and they've called us, they have a condition in mind that they're trying to find answers to, and then all they need to hear is yes, we can help you with those headaches, yes, we can help you with back pain, whatever it is they're like oh great, how do I book an appointment? The conversion rate's much higher. The reason it's not a hundred is because there might be some questions that don't work for them. Where are you located? Oh, that's kind of far. Do you take my insurance? No, they may not convert there, but Google's much higher conversion. So then we're like we need 10 from Google, 10 from Facebook. 700 and I'm losing the numbers, folks, I'm sorry $720 from Facebook is going to cost us to get 10. And I want to get 10 from Google. It's going to cost us to get 10. And I want to get 10 from Google. It's going to cost us $1,100 on Google. There we go.
Speaker 1:$1,820 per month we need to spend to get 20 new patients through the door consistently through digital marketing. Make sense. There you go. Then you know your consistent referral. This is a natural thing. The longer you've been in business you'll know your referral rate is actually quite consistent. We keep track of them with gift of health and actually in our EHR for everyone that refers, because we love celebrating that. But we keep track of referrals and we know we get 200 referrals a year just naturally from our patient base and that equates to about 20 new patients a month. That we get 15 to 20 referrals a month. So we know that, so that's incorporated in there. We get 15 referrals. We want to get 20 more new patients, so that's 35. And then we want to get let's say our goal is 40 and we want to try a different avenue with this. Let's do a workshop every month and try and convert five new patients from that. Or let's do an event every month, or let's do a networking, or let's get out in the community or let's do a screening or whatever it is. That's how you bundle your marketing.
Speaker 1:If you have less time, you spend more marketing dollars. If you have more time, you spend less marketing dollars and have more time to go out and network. These are how you leverage dollars to time. The less time you have, the more money you have to spend and hopefully it's because you have less time, because you're seeing more people and as you see more people, you make more money. So therefore you have more.
Speaker 1:Oh good, that was good. I didn't stutter too much, that was great. Does that make sense? Eight to ten percent rule for marketing dollars, that's, that's it. If you're not spending that, I think it's 50 50 in our profession. 50 of us, 50 of us are like man, I don't spend that much on marketing and I'm doing okay, I'm happy. And the other people like I spend way more than that on marketing and they're like doing some other stuff, going on different type practice of practice, and that's where we're at.
Speaker 1:And the people that are clueless and you bump them up to 8% and they're like, wow, you know, I didn't know I could get new patients by by doing this stuff. And then it completely changes their practice. They go from seeing 40 visits a week to 120 visits a week, changes their life and their practice and their business model. And then they have money to hire people, continue marketing and change the name of the game as far as their business. So these all play a major role in there. Then you get into practice management and coaching yourself, your mindset on how to improve conversions.
Speaker 1:It all comes to you with this, the big net, this pyramid of marketing. The very bottom is retention and it's the biggest part of the pyramid. It's the foundation of the pyramid is retention and conversation, because it's the lifelong bloodline to your practice. So as you funnel these people into your business and they start to experience what you have to offer and they start to get results and they start to leave reviews, at the very bottom is the conversations and the the retention that you have with these patients. It all comes to you, your vision and your mission. It all falls down to this.
Speaker 1:So, and when we have a weak and crumbled foundation, it doesn't matter how much we spend. Spend or you're going to feel like this is just a giant, uh hamster wheel. You start off small when you started a small hamster wheel. You're going at 150 miles an hour spinning that wheel and then it just as you grow, it just turns into this bigger hamster wheel. You feel like it's more doable, but you're still stuck in this hamster wheel of trying to funnel more people into your business because the foundation is cracked. The foundation has leaks, there's holes everywhere and every time you pour your blood, sweat and tears into it, it leaks. So repairing that and fixing that and building it back stronger is the foundation to a great business. So there you go, rethinking marketing.
Speaker 1:It's quarter four. We're in the fourth quarter of 2024. You're either up 47 to 7 like the eagles beat everybody every week or you're down like the um, the cowboys, every week. You know, losing 50 to 3 in the fourth quarter. It depends where your business is and where your goals are, um, but that's where you are. It's the fourth quarter. How are you going to finish off the fourth quarter here and how are you preparing for 2025?
Speaker 1:It's now that time the Cowboys you're already looking forward to next week or maybe even next season, by this point. So what is the plan? Are you just going to sit here and do nothing and end up like the Cowboys and never win a championship? Or are you planning this fourth quarter to get back and win the game this year, hit your goals and plan for next week to go six and two this season and make a playoff spot and compete for the Super Bowl? That is how business works, folks. It's not football, but just a good analogy for you there.
Speaker 1:These things have to be considered. They're part of the playbook. Once you've created the blueprint, the blueprint's there, you don't have to be considered. They're part of the playbook. Once you've created the blueprint, the blueprint's there. You don't have to recreate this. So taking the time to build the marketing blueprint plays a huge role, and it can only be done by you, customized to your practice, because you're the only one that knows the ins and outs of how things work. Do you know everything? No, can you learn more? Yes, can you work on yourself? Yes, can you be better? Yes, but you know this stuff already. So build the blueprint. If you need help, reach out. Super easy to help you guys. But this is the foundation.
Speaker 1:So two things to walk away with from today. Am I spending 8% to 10% of my gross revenue on marketing? If not, why? Answer that truthfully? Why am I not doing that? It's either because you're doing well. You're like I never had to.
Speaker 1:I like all the older docs that have just been super successful, and they're just like I run a referral based practice. I've never done any of this stuff and I'm never going to do any of this stuff. I'm like dude, that is so cool. That is a. That is a great, strong foundation. It's very minimal cracks when somebody comes to them. They it's very minimal cracks. When somebody comes to them, they're happy. And some of these docs are like I have a six pva. I'm like how do you see people six times? I do I, I help them, they leave and they refer. For every person I help, they give me two referrals. I'm like whoa, well, they're that's amazing, that's absolutely. And then others have 190 pva and you're like every time they come in they will never leave because they just want chiropractic for the rest of their lives. I'm like that's amazing. And these are people you can learn from. I'm always learning, always bonding, trying to figure out and how to get into the psychology of peers that are super successful.
Speaker 1:The way I want to be successful Always go to what resonates with you. Don't try and mimic other things because it just won't work. You can't speak like other people. So when they do a great workshop and they've had great success and you're like, oh, I'm going to do that too, and you're not a great speaker, it's not going to work for you. If you're not charismatic with patients, doing the whole referral thing and never marketing may not be your way.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're very analytical and clinical with patients. You're just a clinician. You're just a clinician. You're clinical, which is great. It's just good healthcare for people. You have something to serve and they have that frustration on the back end.
Speaker 1:We're like why don't they just like me? Why don't they just stay? Why don't they just refer? So you're not likable, that's okay. You're a fantastic doctor and there's other ways to do it. You don't have to be lik.
Speaker 1:That's where Facebook comes into play and you run the ads and getting people through your door and even though you're not charismatic, you are very clinical and people want that. They want results. That's all they want. They want to be better now and for as cheap as possible. That's the truth. That's the psychology of our demographic. That's the psychology of your customer base. Is I want it now and for cheap. That's how we do everything.
Speaker 1:Some of them are a little open-minded about spending money on themselves. Some of them are very tight. And the economy there's a lot of things that play into this role, but you got to remember that it's now and you have to just softly tell them we can help you. It's not going to be as fast as you think. It's not going to be right now. Today. You're not going to walk out a hundred percent better, but you should notice some improvement. It may be a little sore but on the next visit I'll see you tomorrow or the day after. We're going to follow up and we're going to go from there and I'm going to build you a plan so that you get to 100%. And then you just build them a story that gets them there over the next 6, 12, 24, 36 visits, whatever it takes to get them there, and you build these solid care plans.
Speaker 1:It's called a plan, s-o-a-p plan. You got to have a plan Foundations 8% to 10%. Build your blueprint, figure out the methods that's there and look at your statistics over the last two, three, four, five, 10 years and find those trends. Those trends are amazing information on when and how to spend money and when to double down. That's what it's called on when and how to spend money and when to double down. That's what it's called Double down on marketing so that you avoid the pains of the slowdowns afterwards. If you have any questions, reach out to me. Info at enricodcom and check out enricodcom for some free marketing material that you can upload and use, starting today, to improve your marketing. Have a great and fantastic week. Keep doing what you do. You guys all rock.
