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
Handshakes Beat Hashtags: Community Strategies for Million-Dollar Practices
Are you obsessing over likes, clicks, and funnels while overlooking what truly builds a thriving chiropractic practice? In this eye-opening conversation, we explore why grassroots marketing strategies remain the most powerful trust-building tools for chiropractors, even in our digital-first world.
The data doesn't lie: 92% of people trust recommendations from people they know over any form of advertising. Face-to-face interactions convert at rates digital marketers can only dream about. While many new practitioners jump straight to Facebook ads and Instagram, they're missing what successful chiropractors have always known - community connection creates the foundation for sustainable practice growth.
We dive deep into the five most effective grassroots strategies that still build million-dollar practices: networking like a boss, hosting workshops, community screenings, strategic partnerships, and educational talks. Each approach costs significantly less than digital marketing campaigns while yielding higher-quality leads and patient relationships. You'll discover practical ways to implement these strategies into your weekly routine, even if you're an introvert who prefers hosting small gatherings over large networking events.
For practitioners feeling the financial squeeze or looking to optimize their marketing budget, these grassroots approaches offer the highest return on investment. The secret lies in consistency, authenticity, and being genuinely valuable to your community. While digital marketing builds awareness, grassroots builds trust - and in healthcare, trust is everything.
Ready to blend old-school relationship building with strategic digital marketing? Discover how to use Meta ads to amplify your in-person events, leverage email nurturing sequences, and create authentic content from your community involvement. Don't wait any longer to reclaim the lost art of face-to-face marketing that built our profession from the ground up.
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Too many chiropractors are obsessing over likes, clicks, leads, funnels and forgetting what really builds a strong business relationships. Digital ads are powerful, but if you're not out in your community shaking hands, teaching workshops and meeting people, you're missing the fastest and most trustworthy way to grow. Today we're talking about low-cost, grassroots strategies that build million-dollar practices before Meta and Google ever existed and still work better when used right. I hate aging myself here. I'm not quite before Google, but I am before Meta when I started my practices and I can tell you grassroots is the way to go All the way back from DD Palmer. How did he do this? How did he create a school and schools and an industry? And how did BJ take it to the next level? I mean, this was through grassroots marketing. This was through word of mouth, newspaper articles and getting out there as much as possible, and it still works in 2025.
Speaker 1:The trust is low when it comes to digital trust. It's declining with people because they haven't met these people in person. It's just a natural, humanistic way that digital ads and digital copy is not really real. There's no trust there. There is a little bit there. We're pushing it more than ever. I'm helping younger and younger chiropractors coming out of school in their 20s and they're jumping straight into digital, which is great. It's the way it's. Everyone's using media right now, but they're relying only on that. And when I tell them, do you do any health screens, do you do any workshops to do any of this stuff? They're like no, I really don't don't do much of that, or maybe some networking. But we're gonna get into some stuff in this podcast today to maybe rekindle your fire and remind you of how you got to where you are today and the things that you've done that have worked the most and, believe it or not, they're the most cost-effective. They're the least expensive things that you do in the office as far as monetary value and trade for marketing. So community connection is where we need to really refocus, not just in 2025, but always. You're not just selling adjustments. You're building credibility and visibility in your community. With your community connection.
Speaker 1:You get higher conversions when you do this. I know it's a long road and slow road to shake a hand and then sit down and have a conversation with someone for five minutes, but the probability of them coming to see you is really high, especially if they say I need to come see you or I know somebody who needs to come see you. You is really high, especially if they say I need to come see you or I know somebody who needs to come see you. They're going to become a patient. It's a high yield conversion rate over 90% that they're going to come in, especially if you follow up. Most of the time I've never had to follow up People will just the next day they will become patients. They say, hey, andy told me to call you. And I'm like yeah, andy told me that you would be calling. Here you go, let's get you in as a new patient. So you get higher conversions when you meet people face-to-face and more likely to book and follow through than cold digital leads ever will. We know this. It's cost effective and, according to Nelson studies, 92% of people trust recommendations from people they know over any other form of advertising. So we know this. Andsen's the highest marketing review literature you can read out there. If you want to know facts about marketing, go to the Nielsen studies and you'll see that. So here are the top five.
Speaker 1:I call them grassroots or rubber meets the road, strategies that still work and not just for startups for everyone Network. Like a boss, that's number one ups for everyone. Network like a boss. That's number one. Join your local chapters, chambers, churches, whatever it is, rotaries, get in there and network like a boss. Make this routine. It can be a weekly lunch meeting, a weekly breakfast meeting, whatever it is. Does it have to be the BNI type teeth pulling meetings? No, they can be anything and you can rotate between different clubs and get out there as much as possible to be there. It should be on your weekly strategy to network each and every week and dictate some time to that. Host your own meetups, coffee meetups, coffee and chiropractic, coffee, cars and chiropractic I've heard a whole bunch of things. Champagne and book clubs, pathway magazine meetups, whatever it is. Have some type of meetup that maybe you coordinate. I find the introverts do better with hosting their own meetups and extroverts just are great getting in the car and driving to different places and talking to people. So work what works with you and things that you're going to stay consistent with and don't rely on the immediate results to dictate whether you continue something or not, because these things build momentum as time goes on.
Speaker 1:When you're the boss networker in your community, people know you. You know who these people are in your community. You can name them. You'd be like, oh yeah, this realtor, he's everywhere. Or this person's everywhere, or this marketing guy's everywhere, or this business owner that owns the deli is everywhere. Everyone knows him or her. It's because they network like a boss.
Speaker 1:Use LinkedIn. I'm surprised so many of you don't use LinkedIn, don't post to it or don't do anything with it To connect with local professionals and invite them to your events or invite them to the groups that you go to Help create momentum and build that spider web of networking. And don't pitch, just show up. You don't have to have an elevator pitch. I remember Demartini always saying that what's your elevator pitch? It's nice to know, it's nice to have one, but that's not something you need to do each and every time. Just show up and offer value every time you network and just be memorable some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:I use a really thick business card. It always gets responses. I give one they card. It always gets responses. I give one and they're playing with it because they think I gave them four or five business cards and I give them one. Or if I give them two or three, it looks like a stack of cards, but it's only three and the reason behind that. It's hard to bend. They're like, oh man, these are expensive or they'll say something about this and they'll keep it and this is heavy in their pocket and they won't throw it away. There's metal business cards.
Speaker 1:There's little things you can do or just be memorable. I know Skip Weiss. I went to school with him. He wears a bow tie everywhere he goes the bow tie guy. So little things that you want to do to just stick out and it can be just being you. That's number one network like a boss.
Speaker 1:Number two in office events and workshops. Do I love these things? No, they take away time from my family. They take the time to set up. Sometimes people show up, sometimes people don't. I'm not trying to make it sound like you should not do this. You absolutely should do this. This is number two on your list.
Speaker 1:Behind networking is in-office events and workshops. They build your community. You are the person who teaches and takes authority in your community by teaching subject matter that people want to listen to. Pain points in your community. What are they? And you can use chat, you can use these things and you can use the web to figure out what are people listening to right now, what's the top podcasts? What are they talking about? In the health and wellness space, weight loss is always number one, autism is at the top, gut issues, indigestion and hormones. Those are always the top four in the last three, four years.
Speaker 1:If you hit pain points on this, you get people to your classes, and this is where marketing, the marketing thing is these high guarantees, and you see this on digital ads, especially as chiropractors. When you scroll through your Facebook newsfeed, you see tons of digital marketers on there Now I do too and it's ridiculous how they get people in. It's the hook. They say hey, we guarantee 15 new patients next month. I'm like what? How? There's no way you're going to get 15 new patients next month. And what does that even mean? We guarantee you're going to make $6 million next month. I'm going to do an ad just to test this and say I will get you to a million dollars in 30 days or less if you follow me, and I'll probably hook a bunch of chiropractors into my digital agency to do ads for that, and I will not be able to deliver on that promise or on that hook. They say hey, man, you said we're going to be on pace for a million. I'm not going to make $85,000 this month. You know they're going to say that very quickly.
Speaker 1:So this is why it's a burn and turn type marketing. You don't want to be like that. But when you pick the pain points that you want to talk to, you're not curing anything. You say come on in for an informative workshop about Hashimoto's, come on in for an informative workshop about ADHD, come on in for an informative workshop about the truth behind weight loss, metabolic disorder, ibs, indigestion, vagus nerve these are the top hits. Stress and figure out what you are knowledgeable about to teach to your community. Then you can use digital ads for a nominal fee to start filling up your workshops. Guests who come to your workshops, your patients. They bring friends. They start to build your community for you. So this is why networking is number one getting people building your email list of patients that then you email, market this for free to them to build your workshops. That's how this builds. Community.
Speaker 1:Screenings is number three Table at a farmer's market or street fairs or wellness expos or parent teacher nights at the schools, if they allow you to do this, having a screening there for stress and nervous system and being there to teach the community about this. Do we love these things? No, I don't know anyone that loves these. I've met a few docs that live for this. They're like I love screenings and they've been doing it their whole lives. But many people don't. But it works, and to do it for 50 bucks or 100 bucks at a market or whatever they charge for tables, is wonderful. Expos might be a little bit more expensive because they're whole weekend events, but once in a while, doing these things and signing up 14, 15 new patients on a weekend builds your whole month. It puts you in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Over there, offer posture checks, spinal scans or wellness raffles at this booth setup. It's the same template that works each and every time. Collect emails, give away something worth giving away that people want to win something great iPads are great. If you don't have that kind of a budget massages or wellness gift baskets that they can win just put your name into there. Now you're capturing people that came to the expo with the name, phone number and email. Always collect this information and then put them in a nurture sequence that follows up with them immediately. So the next Monday when you're at the office, you put them all in, you upload them and then it automatically goes into a nurture sequence where they get a weekly email for the next five weeks, then they get another monthly email for the next 10 months and at one of these emails that they open up, they're going to be like yeah, I need a chiropractor. It's amazing how the followup keeps, keeps it going, keep uh, keep your booth interactive, energetic, no boring banners, just uh, something that gets them to the uh spin wheel.
Speaker 1:A Plinko, uh drop for when uh spines catch people's attention. Um, anatomy, plastic anatomy catches people's attention. Those little things there as well. Um, it's, it's a grind out there. You realize and you humble yourself when you're out there in the community and you have a chiropractic booth.
Speaker 1:If you've never done this, you really need to do this, because sometimes it's just such a beat down of being out there and be like, oh, everyone's just walking by, they don't want to talk to a chiropractor, because 80% of people don't want what we have, they don't know what we have and they're just walking by. Then the other 20% are like yeah, I have a chiropractor or I've seen one. And that's where it becomes a grind, because then you feel like nobody wants what I want and the people who do already have a chiropractor. So I got to steal patients and it's so humbling to sit there and break those limiting beliefs because once you're there you realize no, it's not true. This 80% that are walking by, I just need to grab their attention and that's where you change your communities.
Speaker 1:Those people you think they don't like chiropractic or they don't know what it is or they don't know how to get started. They don't know what they're getting themselves into. So when you're there and you'd be like, hey, did you know the nerves in the body supply, every pain point that you can tell and every sensation in the body, and we have it mapped out right here. They, they come to the tail. You know what? I got pain down my leg and they just start spilling the OPQRST right to you. You get it right there, you get their information and you start moving.
Speaker 1:So find ones in your community. It's a great. You get two birds with one stone. You network, you get your face out there, you get your brand out there and you're directly talking to people. It's worth more than any type of ad, because whatever it costs you for the weekend with your time and the booth, it still doesn't equal the amount that you're going to put into digital ads and get a bunch of leads that you're going to have to sift through anyways.
Speaker 1:Then partner so strategic business partner relationships in your community massage therapist, midwives, acupuncturists, dentists, doulas, pediatricians, medical providers, orthos if you're doing injury and sports injury and auto injury, orthopedic surgeons, dos getting those connections stimulate referrals. Even imaging centers. Uh, a big one is the medical providers that get a lot of auto injury that come in telling them hey, if you get auto injury, bring them straight to us and, uh, we'll do the assessment for you. Get them all started, because they can't even do that. Offer staff adjustment days at local businesses or lunches. Say hey, for your team and for larger companies, we'll come on in and adjust you. For this We'll have an adjustment day. Or your staff is more than welcome to come on into our office on a particular day of each month where they can come on in for a promoted for your team's adjustments. That's a great way, with medium-sized businesses, to offer something that are close by by your office. Create mutual referral programs and cross promote to one another. That's just logical business Talks to build trust.
Speaker 1:Offer free talks at local schools, libraries, churches or businesses. They love getting you in there. There's a lot of other social programs in your community that are looking for speakers, looking for experts, looking for anyone that has anything to talk about to come on out and volunteer their time and teach the community. Focus on topics like how to beat the desk job posture, three ways to boost your energy, naturally, backpack safety for kids lots of different topics, depending on where you're going to go talk and tell them hey, I do health and wellness talks all the time. Here's my list of talks that I can offer. If this is something that interests your business, just give me a call. I need 30 days notice and we can book something on the calendar, and it's amazing how many people actually take you up for that offer. It's pretty awesome. Record these and repurpose them as social content. Take some pictures at the event. Uh, use your. Hey. Did you miss our talk at the local library about this? Here's a pdf uh checklist of what we talked about and for stress or for backpack safety for kids. So that's some strategies for the community.
Speaker 1:Your weekly grassroots game plan should be, you know, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, and if you have a team in your office, you can divide and delegate this. The main doctor doesn't have to do this every single day, but once you divide an external community event between the team your office manager does one day, your associate does two days and you do two days works really well. So on Monday, you know, you DM, digital message five local business owners and offer to connect or collaborate. How many DMS do you get in your social media every day from random businesses that you completely ignore? Why don't you be one of them? Test that fishnet, see what happens. You'll be surprised when people respond back because when you send a profile, you're not Wonka Allah from India. When you click on the profile, you are, you know, josh Johnson from ABC chiropractic down the road. So when they click on Josh Johnson's the owner of ABC chiropractic in this town they're like that's my town, where's these guys? Oh, these guys are up the street. This is legit. He's offering to do a workshop or he's offering to connect. That's how this works. It's just the same way. You do it, you look at it, you judge it. You're like that's not a profile, that's fake, that's, that's spam. You'd be surprised what ends up having works really well.
Speaker 1:On linkedin tuesday, post a short video. Invite to your next workshop, whether it's 30 days out or whatever. Wednesday, go to a networking event. Or or invite someone for coffee a PT, a pharmacist, a dentist, a PA at the front of the medical office that's probably easier to get to than the actual medical doctor. Invite them for coffee. Say, hey, I'm going to bring some coffee over. What's your favorite drink? You bring it over. You've got a couple of cards, you've got your brochure or flyer, but what you're teaching the PA in that moment is enjoy your coffee. And two, hey, if you have this particular case, this one thing, this is the one thing we do great at our office. Refer that great thing to us and we'll send them right back to you for the follow-up.
Speaker 1:Whatever the cooperation is on that Thursday, prep your weekend booth, slash event bag if it's coming up. So Thursday you're all prepped well, well than 24 hours in advance. And Friday, do a patient of the week shout out on social media. This can be a picture in the office, a shout out a recent testimonial that came in on Google that week. You highlight it, you crop it, you put it on your social media. Say thanks, terry, for the great review. You put it on there If you can get.
Speaker 1:If you can get video, that's even better. You put it on there. If you can get video, that's even better. So how do we blend this now? Of course, you knew I was going to come back with digital on this. We're going to end this podcast with digital. How do we blend all this effort that we did? I did this twice with my startup when I was in my 20s in Canada and then when I moved here in my 30s to Florida and I did the startup again. Same thing. I was in the community. I realize this now, as the years go by, I'm like man, I'm not doing that anymore because I don't like it. But we got to get back on that.
Speaker 1:Use meta ads to promote in-person events. So this is how you fill your workshops with extra outside people, with the foundation of people being your client. So what ends up happening is your patients will come in. They'll come in and bring a friend and those will be the five or six that book and are going to show up. They're going to have 100% success rate at showing up. Then your meta ads are going to get you the other 16, 26, 36, 66 leads and then from that you're going to have a very low conversion rate that shows up.
Speaker 1:They just don't know what they're signing up. They just don't know. You say, why do all these people sign up for my ad, or sign up to become a new patient or take my $47 offer? Well, because it's just too easy to sign up. Why do people stop at the drive-thru to grab crappy food? Well, it's just too easy. It's just easy. I'm going to do that rather than go home and cook a meal.
Speaker 1:We know why people do this. Don't act stupid. We know the humanistic nature of just doing the easy stuff. So they click a button, they enter their phone number and email and the phone number is wrong or the email is incorrect and they send you the lead. We run into this all the time. Then you add the QR code if you use Eventbrite or anything, as your ticket sales Collect emails. So now the bonus on this. This is why we do Kids Day, tampa Bay. Each year.
Speaker 1:We get hundreds of emails from our low ad spend that we do a few hundred bucks. Hundreds of emails, and we've narrowed this down to within 10 miles around our office and we just know everyone giving us an email is a potential client that could end up coming at some point in some time. They're added to our nurture sequence and they're added to our monthly newsletter and we just have forever marketing on them. That's passive, free, easy and not a big to do in our office. And then film clips at the workshop. Have one of your teammates stick around and just film some short video and take pictures so that we can use them in retargeting ads on all those emails that everyone got. You upload that into. You say workshop email list, you put it into your meta and then you say that's my audience. It's going to say, well, this is a pretty small audience and you'll be like I know target people like them and you create the ad on the next workshop. And that's how we use digital media properly. Digital marketing builds awareness. Don't stop that. Grassroots builds trust.
Speaker 1:If you had to pick one or another and there was only a fork in the road, you got to go to the grassroots. You got to take the right turn and go down the grassroots. So if you're in a binder right now and you're like man, the practice is tanking. Numbers are low. We're going the wrong way. Things are tough. Maybe stuff has happened. Maybe you've had some health issues. Maybe you lost some key personnel in the office, whatever.
Speaker 1:When we hit the ruts and you're in a fork in the road, you're like man, I got to make cuts. You let go of the part-time person, you did all the hard things and you're like I still got to make cuts. It's now marketing. So payroll's first for overhead and then it's marketing. You can shave some of the little subscriptions you have off, the $20 here, the $100 here. You shave that stuff off saves you a couple hundred bucks. But really, once you shave off the $2,500 Facebook marketing budget and you're like I'm gonna go do some more free. It's gonna cost me some time.
Speaker 1:Grassroots stuff when, when shit hits the fan, we got to make decisions and that's it. And even if you're not in there, you're like I want Well, pumping more money into forcing the hamster wheel in the digital market and ignoring grassroots. Maybe it's time to awaken the grassroots stuff that you used to do at the very beginning. If you're an associate listening to this, get out there, get your name out. The best thing you can do is get your name out there, get your face out there. I have found in the last few years my associates have been doing a better job, getting out there and being known in the community that when, unfortunately, as a business owner, when and if they leave. If they leave, they're off to a good start because they built something somewhere else and got their name out there on social media, on Instagram and on everything as they were building, and it's great to see them move on and do something else if they move on, to see them move on and do something else if they move on, otherwise for you as a business owner, you need to constantly be getting your face out there.
Speaker 1:You don't need to spend thousands of dollars to grow. Just commit to being seen, being present and being valuable. If you want help setting up killer grassroots plan blended with digital ads, that's where you send me an email. Those are easy side gig things that we can do and help you build and scale that stuff where you don't have to commit to the monthly retainer digital agency for Facebook ads. So we do all the little things that we preach about and we've created systems that can help you grow and scale. Get to it, hit the ground. Don't forget about the easy stuff. The easy stuff sometimes is the hard stuff and keep growing, keep scaling and have a great week.
