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
Picture Proof: Stand Out Online Now
Patients don’t buy services—they buy proof. That’s why we sat down with director-photographer Stewart Cohen to dig into how chiropractors can use photos and video to earn trust, differentiate locally, and turn one thoughtful shoot into months of strategic content. We explore why websites won’t vanish in an AI world, how discovery will feel more conversational, and why your site still needs case studies, testimonials, and a visual tour that shows you’re the real deal.
Stewart shares a practical framework for building a brand that sticks: start with a sharp niche, define the core idea you want remembered, and craft visual stories that revolve around it. We talk polished versus authentic, and land on the blend that works—clean lighting, honest retouching, and on-location details that signal this was truly captured, not generated. If you’ve ever wondered why your content feels scattered, you’ll get a blueprint for consistency: one interview, multi-camera coverage, targeted B-roll, and a deliverables plan that nets vertical, square, and horizontal cuts for TikTok, Reels, Shorts, and your site.
We also map testimonial storytelling that converts—guiding patients through before, struggle, turning point, and outcome—then pairing it with quick educational clips that teach wellness without killing demand. Teaching builds authority; when pain strikes, people call the teacher they trust. To keep your brand cohesive, we close with a simple mood-board process using Pinterest to lock in color, tone, framing, and retouching rules so every vendor creates in your voice.
If you’re ready to stop blending in and start showing proof, this conversation will help you plan smarter, shoot less often, and publish more consistently—without losing the human touch that makes patients choose you. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review telling us the one message you’ll repeat this quarter.
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- Book a free discovery call with Enrico to level up your business
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Marketing 101 for chiropractors. We got a great guest this week, Stuart Cohen from Stuart Corn Pictures. Thanks for being with us this week. Appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, thank you, Enrico. I'm happy to be here. Dr. D. Now I saw the intro. I didn't know you were Dr. D. I was calling you by your first name.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, that's no, no, it's Enrico. That's all good. That's perfect. And uh, all about, you know, pictures and videos and presenting yourself. I've been talking the last few years about how it's not important. Just use your iPhone, take the pictures. And then we bring in Stuart Cohen and we're like, well, hang on a second. If you're really going to brand yourself and you're really going to present yourself, don't you want that to be the best it can possibly be? And I'm going to tell you this right now, you can't do this yourself by taking selfies. You definitely want to bring in the heavy hitters like Stuart. So, yes, thanks for being here. Let's dive into all that cool stuff about it. How did you even get into it? I always like to ask that, how did you even get into this? How did you end up where you are today?
SPEAKER_00:I well, okay, it's a long story, and I think the world's changed, but we'll cover it all. Basically, I got into it because I loved meeting people and I love traveling. And what I did is I I filmed and took pictures of people from all walks of life, everything from celebrities to to corporate people to real people to factory workers, didn't matter. Everyone has a great story. And I spent my whole career traveling to do this for different brands and companies.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that's awesome. That's that's great. And then you fell in love with it, and and you do some great work too. I mean, your website's fantastic. Um, as you got through this, as the time has gone by, I don't know I know you've only you're only 41 and you've been on doing this for 15 years, but after all this time, with all the changes that are happening, where do you see you know media going with with this? Presenting ourselves, like I I remember websites back in the early 2000s. Like, did you even need one? I remember restaurants not even having websites, and then you slowly had time to get there. Now they're saying websites may be completely obsolete because AI is just gonna talk to you, it's just gonna tell you what you need to hear from the website, so you won't ever have to go to a website to learn it first. I don't know where we're going, man. It's going fast. Well, it is going fast, it is going fast.
SPEAKER_00:I do think I I maybe I'm old, I don't know, but I believe that you'll need a website because people want to see who you are. People want to see, yeah. And like if if somebody wants to come to you to your practice, they want to see what the practice looks like. I mean, is it, you know, they want to see your legit. I mean, I think there's, but you know, there's a lot of shysters that have put up websites that look legit, that are not legit. But I mean, I think you could tell. And I think it's a good place to link articles about you and to link, you know, some case studies. And people love to read that. And I I do feel like websites will have more of a um, I mean, I think they're here to stay. I do think they need to have, you know, some mobile, they need to be mobile friendly, of course.
SPEAKER_01:There, that's where I was going with it. I don't think this, I don't think they're going to disappear, but this is what ties you into it. I think what AI is doing is gonna bring us the visual experience and the auditory experience much better. Where currently you search on the web on on a search engine and you pull up text and pictures and you read it for yourself. It feels like you were in the library doing your own research. I really feel like AI is gonna get rid of that sensation of sitting in the library doing your own research. It's just gonna spew the answers it wants you to hear, right? It thinks you want to hear and see and experience a lot quicker as an experience on your phone. So you're not gonna be scrolling through a webpage. I think you're still gonna get your pictures and your videos and everything from your website, right? But in a different experience, it's gonna show you.
SPEAKER_00:But where is the AI getting the info from?
SPEAKER_01:From the website, from the internet, absolutely, from text still. Yes, you're right. So I don't think it's going away. I think the way people are gonna experience it is gonna be a lot different. So I think long story short, we're moving towards your specialty of the experience, the visual effect is where I think we're gonna be very quickly in the next three years. Is that gonna be the experience?
SPEAKER_00:And also, I think what's gonna become really, really more important is what differentiates you from the rest of the crowd. Because all of a sudden the playing field is flat. I mean, you know, you used to have a sign out and you think and you thought, oh, I'd get noticed because I have a sign out, but now everybody's got a sign out, you know. And and you type in, you know, a Cairo in in Tampa, and you have no idea how many people are going to come up. So how do you stand out from that crowd? And especially if you're really good, you know, and say you're dealing with, you know, whether it's dancers or athletes or whatever. I mean, even in those spaces of highly specialized spaces, how will you stand out to make people want to come to you, even travel to you? And and I think part of that becomes testimonials become very important. I definitely think case studies are very important. Um and also somehow showing that you're kind of a nice person, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. People do want to do want to experience it before they actually show up, right? They want to see it, feel it before they actually show up. That's that's absolutely true. Um, that's great. And what have you been seeing recently in the last you know, five years with your clients? What where's the demand coming from? What are they asking for from you?
SPEAKER_00:Well, they are definitely asking for more and more from us. Um uh everybody needs more, everybody needs more content, you know, now. And um everybody needs content in different aspect ratios because everyone needs content for TikTok, everyone needs content for you know, YouTube shorts, everyone needs content, you know, horizontal, vertical, square. And so you have to start framing things thinking of that. And you know, sometimes it gets to the point that you're just creating volume as opposed to creating an idea. And I think the strength of advertising is not losing sight of the idea. Because we all get caught up in the the deliverables, I think a lot. And I do think you need to have a strong idea, your core value. What is your core value? And everything needs to revolve around that core value. Um, and I think, you know, one thing I think people are more forgiving on, which kind of hurts me to the core because I'm very graphic, you know, clean lines, well-composed content. Like I've always prided myself on that. And I come from, you know, the world before social media where everything was really thought through and crafted well. And today with social media, of course, it doesn't people don't care. And nearly, if it's it feels a little authentic, it nearly gets more buzz, you know, because people feel like it's more authentic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's true, it's true. But but people, I mean, uh, social media has made it really easy to take something quick and simple off your off your phone and polish it too. I mean, the filters are doing work that you used to sit back in Photoshop days and sit there for you know 45 minutes cleaning up, you know, smooth lines and and things. Uh, that can happen instantly with some of these filters. So the aesthetic is still appealing, and a lot of the research is showing that people stop and spend more time on more polished video and pictures than they do with the organic quick posts.
SPEAKER_00:I hope so because that's what we produce.
SPEAKER_01:Well, there was a time 10 years ago where it was drifting the other way. People did not want to see the polished pictures anymore, they didn't want to, and it actually took off with a lot of the organic quick posts that people were doing on their iPhone 11s. Yeah, uh, that was leading there too. Like, people were kind of like, Well, we don't want the polished because the filters were stupid, they were ridiculous. They were giving people like cartoon eyes, and yeah, they knew it was fake. But now with these new filters, super clean, it looks real, it's almost tricking people back into this polished type of of uh media. So we're seeing that again. You can see this with billboards, media, commercials becoming.
SPEAKER_00:But nearly, is it is it is it too polished that we need to make sure people here's the thing from from from where I said too we want people to know that we actually shot it. We want we want people to know that this is real, that it wasn't all created in AI. And I think with photography, at least with still photography, I think we the industry came to a point at one point that everything was so photoshopped that it looked it was too perfect, you know. Which, and everyone said, Oh, that's great, that's great. Well, now if you look at that and it's too perfect, you're gonna think, well, that's done with AI, you know. So maybe there's a little bit more authenticity creeping into it, which would not be a bad thing. Um, you know, it it went so far the other side. Like if you look at that like shelf like right behind me, like I remember they would go, Oh, I want to take out that third frame or something. It's like, guys, just leave it. It's just what it was, it's fine, you know. So um, so I feel like people want to know it's authentic, but they obviously want to look at clean visuals, you know. Yes, what you know, if if you know, depending on again, depending on your concept, depends on who you are, what you are, and what's the story you're trying to tell.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. And by helping a lot of these chiropractors with their media and their advertising, they they too want clean, well-represented uh imagery of their office. And and that whole thing of like 10 years ago just teaching, I'm like, don't worry about it, just just the organic video is good enough. They too are on the other side of like, no, I think it's got to be a little bit more polished. I want to present myself as clean as possible, and it's great. So we're seeing both the demand and the people that are representing themselves both leaning towards that. So, what I'm trying to say is me taking a picture with my iPhone and you taking a picture with your equipment of the same event at the same place with no filters, yours is gonna look way better than mine just because of your ability to take photography, right? Um, that's just the way it is. So I hope so.
SPEAKER_00:I hope so.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, when I was saying cleaning things up, that's right, but I made me living things at a different angle, at a different light. You know where to stand when the damn sun is shining. I don't, uh, those little things that that go a long way with are there. So I that's why I thought this was going to be a great episode for the chiropractors because they are sticklers, most of them are just naturally in order to be a chiropractor, you have to be meticulous. There's just no way around this. You don't see these uh artsy chiropractors, there's no such thing. We're not artsy, we're very meticulous type people because we want to know detail, and that's how we represent our businesses as well. So I that's why I thought this was really important. What can chiropractors do moving into 2026 with their media to, and you said more. I think the answer is more. I I think I already know the answer, but what can they do to make sure that they're consistent with their media?
SPEAKER_00:Well, consistency I think is cool, but let me back up for a sec about about the look and feel of the of the content you're creating. You're chiropractors, you went to school for it, you're specialists, you know. I don't try to crack my neck, I don't try to adjust my neck, you know, just because I read a YouTube video, you know, or I watched a YouTube video. You know, but everybody because of this phone, everyone thinks there's a they're a photographer and a filmmaker. And granted, the tools are democratized, there's no question, you know. Um, and it does make it easier for people to do it. It does, and and the cost of entry for getting into my field has dropped considerably, and I can understand that. But we do bring years and years of experience and creating commercials and creating videos and creating stills that hopefully shortcut any challenges you might have. You know, obviously, with that, there's there's a little bit of a cost. Um you know, I I do back to your thing about consistency. I feel even in our world, is like you need to continually be reminding people of who you are and what you do, and and you need to be consistent about it. And and the the biggest thing, and I feel this, and I'm sure you feel this too. You might say, Well, I've already done that, or I've already said that, or you know, they know that about me. The truth is you're probably wrong. You know, think about think about a TV commercial from whenever. I mean, uh years ago, you know, say it's a Pepsi, a Pepsi commercial. How many times did you see that same Pepsi commercial? You know, like you might have seen it on the Super Bowl, and then you see it like, you know, you might have seen it like 50 times, and it's only on the 51st time that it sinks in. Oh, yeah, Pepsi has less sugar, you know. So even though they might be feeding you that same message ad nauseum, you know, it doesn't sink in until it gets repeated. So so if you're reiterating your skill set and your specialty over and over, and you think I've already said that it's enough enough, you you're probably wrong. You probably need to continue to say that as long as that's something that you live by. So I think consistency of your messaging, consistency of the look and feel of your visuals. Um, I feel like, and we're just as guilty. We get everyone's ADD in our world, and we're like, well, let's change it up this time. But it's like, yeah, but you're just confusing the message.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Like if you're selling your business, don't confuse the message. And and if you have something new and special to tell people, this is the best place to do it, and say it over and over and over again, you know, whether that's a new machine you use or a new technique, whatever, whatever that may be. Um, I think testimonials are probably really good in your world as well. Um, especially if you have people that came in with challenging situations and you've been able to help rectify, that's probably super important. Um sure.
SPEAKER_01:How do we how do we incorporate uh visual with uh picture or video with testimonials? What's the best?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think I think once in a while, even if you you are doing all your advertising yourself, I think once in a while it doesn't hurt to bring in a team, say like what we do, um to help whether it's even create a format for you or just to shoot it. Again, like I said, people that do what I do, that's what we do for a living. And and you know, you should be the subject, you are the the wise person in this situation. So, say you do an interview, say, with this said, you know, um, um, and you bring in a team to video it with multiple cameras, and you have an editor that cuts it together. Well, you'll probably it's gonna cost a little bit, but you're probably gonna get so much more mileage out of it. And especially if you go into it thinking and even saying, I need to get whatever, call it seven pieces of content out of this. Of those seven pieces of content, they need to be vertical, they need to be horizontal, they need to be square. So, right there, that's 21 deliverables, and then you need to figure out how much you're gonna run each one. So, if you think about it, you know, you could take that, and that's a like one quarter of your year you could run on something that's that interesting and intersperse some other things in there. So sometimes it takes a plan. I mean, if you have a digital marketing agency, I think a digital marketing agency will help put together a plan. And and I think it's worthwhile to really dig into them to say, what is the plan? Will this happen regularly? Is this organic or is this paid media, which is important too? Um and you have to be you have to be um committed to the process. I don't think you necessarily have to be the one creating the content, but you need to be committed to the whole messaging and getting it out there.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, those are those are great tips. Like a plan for that. I know when I when I work with a client, that's definitely the the why. We have to start with the why. What's your message, what's your vision, and your practice, and work always sticking to that, um, depending what it is. And you're right, a lot of people want to change things all the time because they feel like either the advertising's not working or anything like that. And I like how you said if you stray away from the message, marketing just doesn't work at the end of the day because you're confusing your prospects. So you got to stick with that, and uh that must make it a lot easier for you to kind of swoop in once that is that architecture is set to come on in and capture that content, right?
SPEAKER_00:For for them and and well, I think, yeah, I think if there's a concept like traditionally, you know, we got projects through ad agencies, and when you were working through an ad agency, you know, or a digital marketing agency, we get served up a brief of this is what the project is, this is what the client is, this is what we're going after, and this is how we'd like to to to show the work. And then it's up to us to make that happen. So it would be up to us to say, you know, say your your patient is a shy person. It would be up for us to make the environment comfortable enough and to help get the information out of them, you know, to help cajole it out of them. And and it would be up to us to make you look like the hero. It would be, you know, and so you know, there's a lot that we do behind the scenes to craft the message, even if just with the visuals, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, it makes sense. That's great. Um, what would be a good strategy for healthcare, for chiropractors, for dentists, for you know, people that what would be a good strategy when it comes to you know laying out what content they should be getting?
SPEAKER_00:Well, that I mean, obviously, you know your like if you're a special, you know, if you specialize in something, that's something you know. I think when you're trying to craft what the message is, you know, lay out your strengths. Like you should write out your strengths and say, this is what I think I could I could rest my hat on, you know. Like, you know, if you're good with fixing people's lower backs who played sports or something, you know, maybe that's what you lean into and you um invite the people who you've really given relief to or given help to, um, and you get them on camera. Or, you know, say they were I'm just throwing this pick, pulling this out of the air, but say it was like lacrosse players that get hurt, you know, that and you just happen to work on their backs. So maybe you you go out and you go to a couple of their games and you get someone to just hold a camera, or you hold your camera and say, you know, you know, I'm standing here on the field and dah dah dah. And these, you know, these are some of the injuries that these players get. And here's some tips to how to avoid getting those injuries. But when you know when that happens, we have to help give them relief. Stuff like that. You know, so you're you're you're getting into your verticals. You know, I think I think if you're a dentist, um, you know, I know dentists, you know, aside from general gum health and tooth health and cavities, they're now offering different services, whether it's, you know, um doing the Invisalign or doing you know, teeth whitening or doing whatever. But how do they get that message out as opposed to when you just walk in their office and there's a little plaque that says, oh, get Invisalign. But maybe, you know, I'm saying this from experience, um, because our dentist, who's great? We've had the same dentist in the family for years, and all of a sudden my wife, you know, who says she's getting Invisalign, and I'm like, why? You know, and it's like, well, because so and so at the dentist, they said, Oh, it would really be good for me. You know, those those little signs have been in the dentist office for the last 10 years, but it took somebody on that staff to kind of talk to each patient. So, you know, and that that's an I guess an upsell for a dentist. Um so again, it's something that they were. I mean, I don't I doubt this ex-dentist was better than the next guy down the street in implementing Invisalign, but they sold it, right? They sold it as their client, and that's as you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the repetition. So I like what you said. The plan is, you know, stick to your vertical. If you work with a lot of children, you have a pediatric office, then it's a lot of kids getting adjusted, getting worked on, getting running around. I mean, it's just that constant messaging of being the pediatric office in your area. If you got that special tool, it's the special tool being always shown in so many different angles, so many different ways, but repetitively over and over and over again, invisalign, decompression, whatever it is, just repeating that message over and over again. But when you have consistent content, you can repeat it and make it feel like it's new, but it's still the same messaging over and over, right? Which is absolutely fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:And actually, on that note, you know, one of the things I just thought about, um, Enrico was like so, say, like, I don't know if you see the same ailments or you know, challenges with patients when they come in all the time, but maybe you do a series of ways to eliminate that, you know, like say people's lower backs are hurt a lot. Um, we all know that if you have a strong core, chances are you're gonna have fewer lower back issues. So maybe you also need to be preaching to the world about core exercises, you know, and people might say, well, that's that's gonna drive business away. It's like, no, you're preaching wellness, and if you have a challenge, if something still hurts, you need to come see us and we'll find a specialized, you know, way for you to approach it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, agreed, agreed, yeah. Um, solving problems for people, right? Sometimes sometimes the solution isn't coming to you and and getting the service, sometimes it's you know taking a vitamin. I mean, you can't you can't sell that. I mean, they can go get that anywhere. So, but you're still helping them, which is which is absolutely great.
SPEAKER_00:But think about that. If you got a following because you're the guy that shows them different ways to take care of their body to not have to come to the chiropractor, like and everybody follows you because you're the guy that knows all these different hacks about how to take care of your body, but you guarantee you the first time they have a problem, they're gonna come see you. You know that. Yeah, and people are still gonna have problems, you know that too.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's one, yeah. Uh, how to solve your tax issues and ever pay taxes again. Yeah, same thing. You're always gonna have to pay them. Uh it's always the same way. No, that's that's really great stuff. Now, my last question for you where do you see everything going? I mean, I know AI is all the rage, I know it's it's part of our lives now. Where do you see not just your industry, but just digital? Where's where do you think this is all going, representing ourselves and our businesses?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think my industry in the production world, I think it's it's a little bit of a trend, it's a huge transitional time. I think I can't say better or worse, it's just different. I think all of us, the way we digest content is changing so rapidly. Um, you know, I brought up last week to somebody about, oh, AI, is that gonna, again, the same question, is it gonna really disrupt what we do? And he's like, look, 10 years ago, people started just understanding, people believed that people could interact with dragons on Game of Thrones. Nobody thought twice of it, but that's AI, you know. I mean, so it's gonna be in our lexicon. I mean, kids, the kids growing up today, they're not gonna know anything different. So I think we're living through a revolution, a technological revolution. And I think we're gonna see a lot of evolution, a lot of iterations come out, and I think we're all just gonna have to keep an open mind, try to think about what is real, what is not real, you know, and and and find our our tribe, so to speak, because I think there's gonna be a lot of different ways that society is gonna change because of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I like that answer. I think that's where everyone's kind of answering now about AI. It's like, hey, it's not gonna replace, it's not gonna make anyone obsolete. It's just gonna be a bunch of tools that you're gonna have to learn. It's like when computers first came out. Yeah, people like, oh, we're not gonna use those demons, and uh now everyone knows how to use a computer. I mean, it's just part of our world, it's just the way it is. And I think that's the same thing. These tools are there, and they they've been there for a while. When you pick up your phone, you say, Hey Siri, that's been around 15 years. That's AI. Siri pops up and is like, Hey, what can I help you with? Yeah, and uh that's you know, that's AI. So we've been using it, it's there, and you can ignore this and say, I'm never gonna say, Hey, Siri, fine, good for you. But you're gonna say, Hey, Alexa, you're gonna say something else, you're gonna do something else, you're gonna need to because everything is just gravitating that way. I mean, you control your your oven and your fridge now from your phone. It's ridiculous. So um, yeah, things are changing. That's good. I like your answer. Thank thanks for being here. Did I miss anything? Did you want to cover anything else?
SPEAKER_00:No, I think I think it's good. I I think um I think looking at other people's content and looking to see what works and what doesn't work, yeah, what you think can work for you is is a good thing. I think, you know, I'm I've I've become a huge, I've always been, but it's it's like it comes and goes. But a a true believer in in Pinterest as idea boards. So if you wanted to come up with a look and feel, like using Pinterest for idea boards, I think is a great idea. It's like, hey, this is the look and feel I want to portray, and and just look at some of the pictures and see what what what's unique, what's similar. Are they clean? Are they cluttered? Are they do they have a blue tint or a warm tint, you know? And come up with a look and feel, like a grand guideline, so to speak, and stick to that and and and commit to it for a couple years. And I think you know that's how people will come to know you.
SPEAKER_01:Agreed. Yes, I like that. Have an idea board, always always present yourself. And I like what you said, follow the social profiles that you end up catching attention of because that's probably something that they're doing right. And you and if you can mimic that or copy that in your own business, it's only a good thing. Just mimic what works out there because there's something going on there. That uh I like that tip too. Yeah, great stuff. Reach out to Stuart Cohen if you need any um any type of digital work, StuartCohen.com. He's a fantastic photographer, a videographer, and he does commercials and all this great stuff. So if you have questions about that, I'm sure he's more than happy to answer your emails. Reach out to him there. Thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, thank you so much, Enrico. Appreciate it. No problem.
