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
Why Leads Ghost You (And How to Fix It)
Does this sound familiar? You're spending money on ads, generating leads who eagerly share their contact information—and then they completely ghost you. Worse yet, when your team follows up, they get the dreaded "STOP" text. It's frustrating, expensive, and entirely fixable.
The disconnect happens because most practices fundamentally misunderstand the psychology of digital leads. That person who opted in for your $49 special was experiencing a moment of curiosity or desperation—not making a commitment. By the next day, their pain may have subsided, and your automated follow-up sequence feels like just another sales pitch in their inbox.
I break down the exact reasons your leads aren't responding, starting with the most common mistakes: texting too soon, using obvious templates, sounding sales-focused instead of service-oriented, lacking urgency in your messaging, and giving up after minimal follow-up attempts. The marketing landscape has evolved beyond the "text within 5 minutes" rule that worked a few years ago. Today's potential patients need a more thoughtful, human-centered approach.
The solution requires reframing your entire conversion process. Instead of measuring success solely by booked appointments, focus first on starting meaningful conversations. I walk through how to create personalized automation sequences that feel like helpful assistance rather than pushy sales tactics. You'll learn specific messaging techniques, proper follow-up cadence across multiple channels, and how to train your team to handle these leads with the right mindset.
I also dive into improving your landing pages with authentic video content, properly presenting your value proposition, and creating micro-commitments that build momentum toward booking. Whether you're struggling with Facebook leads or Google ads, these strategies will transform your office into a lead conversion machine.
Ready to stop getting ghosted? Email me at info@enricod.com for my top 10 text templates that are proven to get leads responding again. Your potential patients want help—they just need to trust you enough to take the next step.
- Join Marketing 101 for Chiropractors Facebook Group here
- Learn more at EnricoD.com
- Book a free discovery call with Enrico to level up your business
Today we're talking about one of the most frustrating parts of running ads or generating leads online getting ghosted. You paid for the lead, they gave you their number, but now they're ignoring your texts or, worse, texting Stop. In this episode, I'm going to break down why this happens and how to fix it so that your office becomes a lead conversion machine. This is why leads don't respond. Here's the reality behind it and how to fix it so that your office becomes a lead conversion machine. This is why leads don't respond. Here's the reality behind it.
Speaker 1:Getting someone's info is not the same as building trust. They might have opted in for it, but a $49 offer they're unsure about isn't going to generate enough motivation to take the next step. They're curious, but they're not committed. You have to remember this about the leads that are generating from your ads. A moment of desperation was some pain. That has passed now. The next day, they're feeling a little bit better, and an ad that promised the moon but didn't feel real may be a little bit of a deterrent to follow through. It was such a great ad, they gave you their info and then after two minutes, they're like that seems too good to be true. Or your follow-up just felt too automated or pushy. So two years ago, where you listened to this podcast, I was telling you, man, you got to follow up within that five minutes Actually within that two minutes and you guys all jumped on to CRMs and auto texting and did such a great job on that. Now, how's that going? Now you're getting the too automated or too pushy response where they're telling you stop, stop texting me and that's it. I mean, these are the most common mistakes that are happening and by staying ahead of the curve you'll stay ahead of the game.
Speaker 1:You're texting too soon or at weird hours. Some of you just want to text them right away. Setting those parameters is really important. Someone looking at your ad at 11.19 PM, getting a text at 11.20 PM, is kind of odd, isn't it? Having an automated one and being smart about your post hour or after hour responses is really smart. Having that 10, 11, 20 is great. Hey, mike, thanks for signing up for our $49 offer. We've received your information and we'll get back to you during business hours. That's kind of a automated, respectful text that any client would look at and be like okay, that's good. Not a whole bunch of follow-throughs for the five minute rule at midnight. That makes no sense. So you're texting too soon or at weird hours. Your messages feel like a template and, let's be honest, they are. You've automated a template response. It's not a person and that's okay, but could be a little bit of an issue in why our conversions will never be 80, 90, a hundred percent because it is templated.
Speaker 1:You sound like you're selling, not serving this one's important. This is why, when people work with me, I advocate for them to be part of the setup process and not just follow the digital agency's idea. As a client, you want to just hire someone that does it all for you. Don't ask me any questions, enrico. You do what you do. I trust you. I know you're going to get me all the patience. I'm like yeah, I will try my best, but you got, it's got to be in your tone. No, no, no, do what you do. I'm like no, you definitely do not want to sound or look like me in any way. Trust me, this isn't the. You know, this isn't the voice of radio and it's definitely not the face of the silver screen.
Speaker 1:So the point of this is you have to put it in your own tone. In your own tone it has to be. You have to sound like you're serving and not selling, and it's going to come from you because you have a certain demographic. You're in the area, these are your people. You have to make it yours. You're missing urgency. This is big too. You're missing urgency or this is big too. You're missing urgency or emotion in your copy.
Speaker 1:Limited spots act. Now deadline is only 12 spots remain. Get your one of 17 vouchers. Whatever it is creating urgency or emotion. Don't wait. Get relief now. You know, making things feel emotion and urgency helps people give you their information and your team is just slow to respond or inconsistent. Yes, I think we're all guilty of that.
Speaker 1:They might be quick off the get-go, but then the follow-up starts to fall down, and we've talked about this in many podcasts, about when you first get started those first five leads you did a great job. You're like, ah, we only got two of them to convert. I mean that's not bad. But then five leads turns to 50 and 50, where 50 leads turned to 350 leads and 350 leads. If you're anything like me, you're getting 2000 leads a year. Good luck, 12 months down the road to be following up with 12, you know 1,000 leads and going back and saying hey, you know, we didn't hear back from you from January. Are you still interested in becoming a new patient? You give up on them. Your team gives up on them. You're like, well, that's it, we're done. They said stop on text, yeah, but they didn't say stop on email and they definitely didn't say stop over the phone. Now, if they do, and you get a hold of them and they say don't contact me ever again verbally, I mean respect that they're just going to leave a negative review if you do it again. So those are the little things there.
Speaker 1:So we've got to reframe the goal when it comes to this. Your goal is new patients. It always is, we know this, but we have to reframe the goal. The first goal is conversation, not conversion, and what we're doing is we're setting up an ad and going straight to conversion rates and then new patients right, those are the three metrics we look at. But what about the conversation? And I find if you focus on this and structure it really well, your conversion rates will go up. Your mindset should shift from how do I get them to book an appointment to how do I get them to trust me enough to reply. That's the key. This is a relationship funnel, not a push funnel. Switch your marketing to this, switch the template to this, switch the follow-up to this. Your conversion rates will go up better.
Speaker 1:You got to remember this ad was in front of them. Whether you shot a 30 second video, a 60 second video or even a picture, it was just a picture with an offer, with text, and it took them 10 seconds to read the text and look at the picture. Or look at the picture and then be interested enough to look at the text and they're like yeah, fine, quick boom. They go to your landing page or they go to the form and they give you their information, they learn more, they send it to you. You're like see, I did a great job. They must know everything. Now, why are they giving me a hard time and not converting? Well, they don't know anything. They have no trust, no loyalty and they really don't remember anything that they went through on social media last night because they watched two hours of TikTok videos, one hour of Instagram and four hours of YouTube videos on Sunday. They don't remember your 30-second interaction from the ad.
Speaker 1:We have to be realistic here. So speed matters in this. We have to build the relationship, but speed matters. Respond within the five minutes. Use your responders while their interest is hot and automate the first message only to notify, not to close the deal, like I said.
Speaker 1:Hey, mike, thanks for signing up for our $99 new patient special. We've received it. We'll contact you during office hours or will contact you shortly and then use real human language. This can't be chat GPT. Do not do that. You know, hi, enrico, you recently claimed your $49 new patient special. Click this link to schedule now. But what's that's bad? You went straight to the close. What's better is hi, enrico, I saw you grab the $49 patient spot.
Speaker 1:Want me to help you find a time that works? Or can I help you in any other way? Or can I help you answer any questions? Now you're personalizing this. Use the name, symptom, if you captured it, or location. This is great. Hey, sarah, still dealing with neck pain? Want me to check availability for Tuesday slash Thursday?
Speaker 1:So this is your follow-up when you personalize this. So that's the first one. Thanks for signing up, we received it. Then you follow up with maybe you're doing an ad on sciatica, maybe you're doing an ad on headaches? Well, now you can target your automation funnel to be talking about headaches. Hey, sarah, still dealing with those headaches, want me to check? This is how you follow up with them with personalized conversation.
Speaker 1:Make it feel human. End with a question. Most of us end with a question, even when someone on the sales phone gets on the phone with you and they start talking to you like hey, I'm Mike from First Capital Funding and just want to tell you a little bit about this. Do you have any business needs that I can help you with financially? What are your major pain points in your business? What are? You know, and you listen to these guys sell and gals sell. You're like man. This is you know, question and Socratic method. Make it feel human. End with a question.
Speaker 1:Use emojis, if on brand only, and add your name or other team members name to the text or email. This is Kelly at Full Life Chiropractic. Want me to hold a spot for you and you can put a little emoji in there. You know, smiley face and then create micro commitments. Don't push for the big ask. Or you know, booking the appointment Start small. Want mornings or afternoons? Know, booking the appointment start small. Want mornings or afternoons? Do mornings work better for you during the week or afternoons? Have you been to a chiropractor before? Have you had a scan, x-ray or MRI for this?
Speaker 1:Each response builds momentum, so follow up at the right pace. So you know like a cadence, a seven-day follow-up. Many of you don't even do this. You don't have a seven-day follow-up. You got the five-minute follow-up and the two-day phone call thing and then you give up. They're badly, you toss them, so you text them immediately. You follow up at the one-hour mark, the one-day mark, the three-day mark, the five-day mark and the seven-day mark.
Speaker 1:Use different channels as the follow-ups email text, even call if high quality leads so many of your teams are built for this the texts are happening right away in the emails, right away, within the first hour. Your team is calling within the first day I know many of you try and do a good job on this and your team may follow up for about three days. So we got email text text, then we got phone call, phone call and then days five and seven. I would text text email. I would or email text email. I would just get out there and do that for your first seven days and then there's a follow-up with that as well.
Speaker 1:Use real automation that converts, not just automation. Use tools like high level or similar platforms to create a real feeling SMS flow that you tailor to your own tone. Tag leads by response level so unresponsive, engaged, booked, so you got to use tags and then trigger personal alerts to your front desk team to step in manually. So if you go from a unresponsive to an engaged, so many texts they get tagged automatically because they responded, they get tagged. Then your team gets a notification saying Kelly's responded to either an email or a text, so your team's on top of it and then you can make your system feel more like a helpful assistant checking in instead of a bot chasing a sale. Make sense.
Speaker 1:It just takes a little bit of time once you start to build it and that's why I'm getting a lot of Kairos flocking to me for the personalization of this, because agencies are just building how they have success right, when that success can mean different things to different people, and then they're just cookie cuttering that for every office and then they realize it doesn't work for everyone. So I refer Dr Jim to Mike and I refer Dr Harry to Mike and they both hire him. And then Harry calls me back and says Mike sucks. And then Dr Jim's like yeah, he's pretty good. And why do they have two different reactions? Because they're in two different markets and the same cookie cutter response doesn't work both ways, and the same automations don't work both ways. So setting up a platform, a digital foundation, and then going in and making it very custom to your office is the combo win right there. That's how this stuff works. And then fix the front end. We always want to be improving our front end.
Speaker 1:Your ad and landing page matter. They really do. They do matter. So if you've got an ad getting a lot of clicks, spending money, and there's no conversion on your landing page, it's a landing page issue. Completely revamp it, get a new one, try something new. If you're getting very little clicks and some landing page hits, it means you have a good landing page. You're just not attracting the right people to it. They're not interested in whatever the ad offer is. So your ad and landing page matter. Was the offer clear but not over hyped? That's one thing. Very clear offer, but not likehyped that's one thing you know. Very clear offer, but not like, with all the bells and whistles on it sounding too good to be true.
Speaker 1:Was there a video of the doctor. You know a lot of people. I'm going to interfere right there for a second with the joint. They're like well, the joint's doing $29 stuff. Yeah, the joint also does a lot of media advertising as well and it's very clean. It's very easy to just give you info there. It's $29. It's a low barrier offer. People are going in there. But if you read the ads, they're not saying you're getting your first orthopedic exam, your first set of x-rays, your first. I mean, there's nothing to it. So when you compete at $99, don't blame the $29. I can't compete with $29. Yes, you can. You're going to be giving a completely different experience. That's what you highlight the value stack. For 99 bucks, you're getting this, this, this, this and this, and not just a pop and crack and out. So that's how you do. That Was the video of the doctor building trust. So this is on your landing pages.
Speaker 1:I'm a big fan of videos. This is your chance to show yourself, your office and explain the issue in more detail and how you solve it. I love video One, two, three, four minute videos. These are fantastic. They get to meet you, they get to see you and you're in your office. It makes perfect sense and it was the language simple, local and emotional. Remember, going into the science of L5 disc herniation on that video right in the first few seconds, is not going to catch their attention. You got to be speaking to them as if you're understanding where they're coming from with their pain. So if people are coming in with back pain and sciatica and that was your ad for decompression or chiropractic or both or whatever it is the video that you create for that it only takes a couple minutes to put that video on.
Speaker 1:There is talking about, hey, pain coming from L5 can be debilitating and we understand this with hundreds of patients that we've helped this year already is that we go straight to the source of the pain at L4 or L5 or both, maybe even S1. And we utilize two major techniques that really help alleviate pain almost instantly by doing these two things. And in our office it's flexion distraction combination with cold laser, it's spinal decompression therapy with chiropractic adjustments or it's whatever you want to do to make it sound cool and you do that and then you go into it. Then you go into it. By doing this, the spinal decompression is going to pulsate the discs, help hydrate the discs once again, reduce the pain from scar tissue from around the old injuries that have happened to cause this in the first place, and by repeating this process over and over again, we have a 92% success rate, with people getting to 100% of feeling better, and even the 8% still do better or get some type of relief than none. So we have a great track record of helping people, and I encourage you to take this offer. Just sign up below and we'll see you on the other side.
Speaker 1:That's the video. I love that on the landing pages they can sometimes make a good ad too, but that's a pretty immersive ad. Video to show someone right off the bat Could be great, though, so that's the strategy behind that. Turn your office into conversion machines. So you got to train your team, and a lot of you forget to do that. Your team's just good on the phone, booking appointments and good with people right, because you hired the right people, but you never really train them on to know the follow-up scripts match the tone of the lead.
Speaker 1:The person who's calling you know a baffled or bedoozled lead that calls in and says where are you? Guys, I clicked on an ad, you called me, where are you Right? And your team's like what the frick? I don't want to talk to this guy. And matching the tone oh, we're on the corner of Harrison and Main street. Where are you located? Like the tone has to match, use name stories and symptoms in in in that when you're having these conversations. So use the names, use the leads name. Hey, hey, harry, um, tell me what's going on about your sciatic or back pain Cause we know that that's where they came from. The ad right.
Speaker 1:Call when, when needed, not just text. So always assume leads you. Your team does default to text a lot. I watch the follow-throughs. It's just, it's easy, it's quick, it takes a few seconds. Send them a text, hope for the best right. They're not as persistent with phone calls or, if they do, they don't know when to call and we know that 10, around 10 AM in the morning, that 9 to 11 in the morning and that 4 to 6 in the afternoon is the best time. Your team does it on their lunch break, on their lunch break, which is the worst time to do it For many of us urban centers that's probably the worst time to do it and our team always assumes the leads are busy, distracted or skeptical and we have to assume that your team needs to assume that that the leads they're calling in are busy.
Speaker 1:For sure You're calling them and they're busy. They're like who is this now? They're getting tons of spam, right. They're distracted because you did call them randomly and they're skeptical. For sure they are. They're like I don't know, I've been to chiropractors before or I don't know, I've tried stuff before and I don't know if it's going to meet and you got to meet them with empathy. Hey, sally, I know you're super busy.
Speaker 1:Sorry for interrupting your day, but you did put in that Facebook offer. I wanted to make sure you got that opportunity to use that $99 special and you might be skeptical in the meantime. Can I get you booked for a time that we can get you on there? And if you're skeptical about anything more and there's any more questions you have, can I get you on a call with the doctor? Like can I just have the doctor call you? Is that going to work? That type of script works well. They're like yeah, okay, and then they can go into what works better for you.
Speaker 1:Mornings or afternoons, afternoons, great. Thursday's my day off, perfect. I'll look at this Thursday for you help. Like yeah, great, great, it's Monday right now. Can I get the doctor to call you at the end of the day today around six, when he's done with patients, and I'm just going to book you for Thursday. He'll confirm that with you. If you don't like him and he sounds weird, just cancel that appointment. Okay, you just get down to earth with the, with the lead, and it works really well. So your team has. It has to be a team thing. It has to be a team thing. So you know.
Speaker 1:My final tips for this is ghosted leads aren't lost leads, please. If you do use high level or anything like that, I watch you guys and my clients and everyone that has high level accounts, the lost or abandoned. You're throwing people in there. Some offices throw a ton in there, some don't, you know, just because you didn't like the conversation. If they're wackos, get rid of them, don't contact them at all. But most people want help. They just need to feel safe and supported. You got to remember. Your whole team needs to train on this.
Speaker 1:So on your weekly team meetings or maybe one team meeting a month you spend 10 minutes on the lead scripting. I would call it lead scripting, not your new patient scripting. Your new patient scripting when a new patient calls from Google or from a referral. Those are gold leads. There's not much you need to do. All you have to do is nurture them into their appointment. They're going to have an insurance question or a time question or a cost question, but they're gold leads. They're not going to say no. They just want to know how much money do I need to bring, how much do I have to make sure it's clear on my debit card? Is it $200, exam $300? What is it? They're ready to book.
Speaker 1:We can't treat cold leads like that that come from Facebook and Google and all of our marketing. So remember that. So my challenge is rewrite your first three texts on your automations and have someone on your team send them manually. Test. Watch what the difference is when you do this. So I'll create a top 10 text template for you to get leads to respond. All you have to do is just email me at infoenricodcom and I will get you that template. And in case you need some motivation, you could use chat to be on your own if you want. But if you need some motivation, do this and implement a couple of them and see if it changes your response rate. Response rate is different than conversion rate. You should know your response rate. Out of a hundred leads that you get on your Facebook ads that you send out automated texts. What's the response rate on that? We're at about 30%. That means 70% of people don't even respond to the lead.
Speaker 1:It takes hardcore follow-up to get them on the phone call. That's typically what ends up happening. Very few click on a booking link and book an appointment, depending on the offer. Red light and weight loss works a little bit better, but for most of you chiropractors, it's not the best way of doing it. So try that. Get back to me, give me feedback, let me know how this goes. Am I right or am I completely feeding you a bunch of BS? Like I need to know. Like, let me know if this stuff's working. If it's working, I need to know. If it's not working, I need to know needs. You Stick with this stuff. I'm proud of you for doing all this crap, but it does generate new patients, it keeps you busy, it keeps chiropractic moving and helping more people. No-transcript.
