Stop Getting Ghosted

Your leads aren’t dead. They’re just doing homework while your follow-up sounds like everyone else’s. When a prospective patient fills out a Facebook or Instagram lead form and then goes silent, it’s tempting to blame “lead quality” or assume Meta ads stopped working. What we’re seeing in chiropractic marketing is a bigger shift: people are overwhelmed by spam texts, spam calls, and spam email, so they hesitate to respond until they trust you.

We break down what’s happening behind the scenes after the click. Prospects visit your social profiles, binge videos, read Google reviews, compare you to multiple clinics, and even ask AI tools which doctor looks legitimate. That’s why generic messaging and bargain offers like a $49 special often bring tire kickers. The fix is smarter positioning: condition-specific education, clear authority, and a follow-up system that delivers value before you ask for the booking.

You’ll learn a practical video funnel strategy built for chiropractors: create longer YouTube videos on one condition, run short talking-head clips as ads, route traffic to a simple landing page or instant form, then automate text and email follow-up that sends the exact education the lead needs. We also cover a bold pattern interrupt for warmer leads: a quick FaceTime from your CA to break through the noise and create real contact. If you want higher conversion rates and more booked appointments, this is the playbook.

Subscribe for more chiropractic advertising and patient acquisition strategies, share this with a clinic owner who’s getting ghosted, and leave a review so more chiropractors can find the show.

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2. Learn more at EnricoD.com
3. Book a free discovery call with Enrico to level up your business

Transcript

Why Leads Are Ghosting You

SPEAKER_00 0:21

If you're getting leads, but they're not answering, not booking, or ghosting you, this episode's for you. The problem isn't your ads, it's your positioning. Welcome to another episode of Marketing 101 for chiropractors. I'm Dr. Enrico Dolcecori, and I'm here each and every week to help you grow and scale your business. And a lot of this conversation in 2026 has been about lead quality. People are getting a little fed up about lead quality. But I think we are onto something and figuring it out. And if you're listening to this podcast, it's really going to shift how you position yourself with your ads. The winning ads right now seem to be in the chiropractic profession. Uh red light, the red light ads uh targeting 30 plus year old women in a local demographic in an area, 10 mile radius, 12 mile radius around the clinic, and charging them. Prepay. That has been one of the winning ads. The other one is spinal decompression. These are just niche ones. The ones that aren't working so well, Shockwave and all the other modalities that we want. Chiropractic is just a gauntlet for ads, but there's ways to position yourself to do this. And this is what's happening with the lead quality and the ghosting. And they're not picking up the phone and they're not calling you. It's because of marketing psychology that has changed because people are bombarded right now more than ever before. Email is pretty much all spam. Text messages or half of them are spam. Voice calls, 90% of them are spam. People are not responding to contact. I think you guys can agree with me on that. The big shift, patients don't just click on your ads anymore. You may be getting leads. They may fill out the form. Some of them automatically fill out the form. They get to the form, their name populates, they hit the submit button because they're interested. They're just showing a little bit of interest. They're window shopping. But here's what's happening afterwards. Not only are they watching what you did on that ad, it's probably a video ad that got them. Maybe a picture ad, maybe. But mostly a video ad. They're clicking on your profile now. If they saw you on Instagram or Facebook, they're clicking on your profile and they're going to go see what other videos you have. If it's you doing funny TikToks in the office, they're going to bounce away because you're not answering their question. Uh, they might go to your YouTube channel if you have the links readily available. They may go to your website. That's what's happening in the background. They don't want you to call them right away. You may, and you should, but they may not pick up or respond to a text because they just need a little bit more information. So this is where how you can shift things. They watch your videos, they go, they read your reviews, they compare you to three, four, five other clinics. They put things into AI, ChatGPT, Gemini. They look for authority and then they ask questions. You may have hit a pain point in your ad in order to grab their attention. And trust me, if it was the$49 new patient Cairo special and they clicked on it, they're a tire kicker because they saw a bunch of other ones too. They probably filled out their information for those too. So you're competing with that. Doesn't mean you don't have to run those ads. It means we have to follow up a little different. By the time they've opted in, they've already decided if you're worth it or not. They may opt in and have decided you're not worth it, but still opted in. You're like, well, why'd you waste the click? Or why'd you do it? Why are you wasting our time? They're not. They're shopping around. And this is why most chiropractic offers attract low quality leads. We do this in our office too. I run low quality offer, mid-tier, and high tier all the time. They're running all the time, 24-7. Because we know the low tier is just a big net that catches license plates, spare tires, and sometimes a tuna fish. It's great. The mid-tier takes a bigger boat, takes a tighter net, takes a little bit more crew, costs a little bit more per lead, costs a little bit more per acquisition, but they come in and we get a weight loss client. And then the tight fit knit is the ADHD ads that we run or behavior issues. Now, these are pain points for parents, but they have a ton of questions. They're not just signing up for anything, and then they come on in and sign a big program because it's going to take a long time to help their kids. Um, and we work with other providers in the area too, so it's a whole thing. Uh, and that so we we know this and we know and we're doing it. And I and I tell you that because I want you to know I'm walking the walk, talking the talk with you, and I have the same frustrations, but I think we're on to something here that may help you. So this is why we're doing it. Problem number one is the weak offer.$49, come on in, you know, it attracts bargain hunters. And we talked about that. The generic messaging do you have back pain, sciatica, headaches? Sounds like everyone else. Everyone else is saying that. You have no authority there. You're not even using videos, you're not using education, you're not using differentiation. This doesn't really tie into the real world for them at all. So people are looking for advanced services like decompression or solutions to specific things, pots, autoimmune, maybe do some functional medicine stuff, uh, weight loss, um, thyroid, sciatica, specific thing, disc, L4 disc creation, L5 disc creation, L S1 disc, like specifics, C5, C6. As soon as you see that, they're like, oh yeah, my doctor said something about my C5 disc. You're talking about my C5 disc. Tell me more. They click on it, they go to your Facebook profile, and you just did a TikTok about how you forgot to do your notes and you dropped the pen and your team's doing jump, jumping. Nothing about C5 disc creations. So we're missing the boat on that. And um, you know, content is content, which is great, but you should be sending them maybe to your YouTube channel where all you do is talk about health and wellness, and then they can just put in the search bar C5 disc or disc creations, and then boom, you got six videos about disc creations. This is the strategy to move forward. Otherwise, you're aimlessly marketing on Facebook and Instagram, and then you're gonna keep with the frustration. The new game that you need to play is pre-sold patients. The goal's not leads. The goal is pre-sold high-intent patients. How are you gonna do this? Content before conversion. So you create the content, you roadmap the ad that you're gonna create. When you do this, the ad itself doesn't really matter. You don't have to get all fixed on the ad copy, the video that you're gonna post, then the meta ads. It doesn't really matter about that. It's now the follow-up. How do we change that? Education before the offer, authority before price. So you can still run website leads, uh, instant form leads, a combination of both. So people who are curious will go to a landing page. It could be right on your website. You could ask your web developer, be like, hey, listen, let's do six landing pages I want you to create for me over the next few weeks. One on C5 disc herniations, one on L4, L5, and S1. I want five, I want four of these. I want them to funnel to the same thing. It doesn't matter. But I want the the landing, oh, maybe you don't have to do that. Maybe you could just have a disc herniation landing page. That's too much. That's too much. Do a disc herniation page. So it doesn't matter if the ad brought them from C5, C6. You get you getting the drift here? So you're gonna do a spinal decompression ad. Just for example, if you do this in your office and you're gonna run six video ads of you talking about C5, C6, L4, L5, S1. Five videos. These videos are gonna be specific, and you're gonna do the dermatome mapping in your video. You're gonna talk about hey, do you have numbness and tingling specifically in your pinky finger and pain down your arm? This could be C six seven, this creation. Um, and then you're gonna go through this. Um, and you and you're gonna write those videos, those are gonna be your ads. Simple, simple stuff. You got the ads, and now they're all gonna go to a landing page or an instant form. Now, now what you got is instead of just the text, email, and phone call that you're gonna follow up with, you're gonna do test email or text, email, phone calls, and you're gonna have your automation split into responsive and non-responsive. The responsive people who text back are now warm leads that you can now engage with and get on the phone with. Capiche, good. The non-responsive ad people are the ones that you are going to create an automation flow for. First, another text will be like, hey, are you interested in a free consultation with the doctor on the phone? Reply yes to this, and we'll hook you up. No response. The next one that comes, you know, within an hour is a video. The video that you shot on the ad. Now, the ad is only going to be a 60-second video, but you clip the 60-second video from your 15-minute video about C5 disc herniations, and now you're sending it to them. So you're tagging them based on which one they hit, or a general, a general disc herniation video that you shoot and you send it to them, and now they have the YouTube link on their phone in a text message. And it's going to go in email, it's going to do all that. Now they still may not respond to text. They still, but the chances of them watching this video are going to go up, and you'll be able to see it on your YouTube with videos watched. You make it private with only for people that have the link, which you know is all from your social media. And you can track it if you want to track it. I keep everything public because I want anyone to search me at any time and watch my videos and call us and book an appointment. But there's so many different ways. So the trick with this one is video. Video taking it to the next level, not just for your ads, but video that you're going to put into your automations and send it to them. This has worked really well for us with the kids, the kid videos and the pregnancy videos. The pregnancy ads, because once they get this, you can now explain the whole process. And the video is going to be about their exact experience that they're going to get if they do make that phone call. That's what you want. No hidden stuff, nothing in there. When you give us a call, this is what's going to happen on the first visit. We're going to do thermal scans, and then you're going to have an overlay of the pictures in the video. It's going to look great. You're going to have kids getting scanned. You're going to have people getting x-rayed. You're going to have people lying on the table doing the muscle testing, doing the orthopedic exam, whatever it is, just quickly panning through this video. You're going to get this, this, this, this, and this. And this is what you can expect over the next two months, three months, whatever you guys do, uh, through our program. If this interests you, come on in and take advantage of this offer for 99 bucks. Book here. And you have your link in the YouTube video at the bottom. So when they're on YouTube.com and it's in the first comment that's pinned at the top is the link to book an appointment at your office. Guys, this video is this is it. This is what people pay me for on the calls that we're on uh to run their ads. This is it. So you need to be doing this stuff in in your offices as well. So the video ads, we've had so many videos on this that I've done in podcasts about videos, but I think we left it at advertising in the in the meta platform. But we can use video for so much more, text it right to them. We have to be more engaged. Another trick for your team, if you're comfortable with this, the calls. You know how your CAs are working hard to get these leads in, and no one's responding. If you had someone a little bit warmer, maybe they did reply, where are you located on the first text and then never responded again? I would consider that person a little bit more warmer. I'd put them in the warm column. So we have new leads, making contact, warm contact, some type of contact, warm contact. I'll put them in there. Once they're in there, your CA has the green light to go ahead and pick up a cell phone and FaceTime them. FaceTime video. Talk about disrupting the pattern. You get a lot of text message spam, you get a lot of voicemail spam, you get a lot of call spams, you get a lot of email. You know this, right? When was the last time you got a FaceTime video? You want to disrupt the pattern? FaceTime. Audio call. They call, they're like, who the hell's calling me? This is a FaceTime. They click on it and they've got your CA, hopefully a reasonably looking person, looking at them, being like, hey Mark, I hope this is okay. My my phone wasn't hidden. My phone wasn't allowing me to phone. I had to hit this button. I'm sorry for the video call. You signed up for us at uh ABC Chiropractic, and then she just pans really quick at the logo on your wall. I'm at the office. I just wanted to call you. I hope this is okay. I won't take much of your time. You were interested in our$99 promo. Did you want me to help you get you all booked? Or do you want to they'll and then they'll come up with an excuse, or you may actually get them, but now they have contact. Now you know they are responsive. For those of you that are bold, try that. Let me know how that goes. So video ads. Uh, the non-negotiable, talking head, patient stories, condition-specific education. So this is where you give value. The talking head, what does that mean? This, if you're watching this right now or uh on video on YouTube, the head in the middle of the screen, just talking. They're like, okay, that's what this guy looks like. What's he talking about? Okay, he sounds like he knows something. Good. Credibility. Says something about where they're located. We're in Tampa. They're like, oh, that's local. Then the patient stories. We want to use those videos too. Maybe, maybe the next text video that you send them is a testimonial specifically about a disc herniation that got better and condition-specific uh education. This is why C5 disc issues cause this type of symptoms. So niche positioning is what you need to do. That's what you need to focus on. Your ads will blow up if you become the doctor that talks about knee pain specifics, neuropathy clinic, disc injury expert, not just family chiropractor. Okay. Then we can improve funnels. Then we I'll do more videos on this to not eat up this uh podcast time for you. These were some golden nuggets that you got here. Then we can have funnels that claim the offer, that we can have funnels that go into education, trust, conversion. So now you have the funnel page that you create for higher intent. They put in their info on the thank you page, they get the same video that you text them, that informational video about discreations. Then there's a learn more button on the bottom. If they bounce from that screen, it's okay. You got their information as a lead, you keep doing your thing, and then they're in your automation. If they hit the learn more button, they move to the next page, which has another video series about specifics. Why C5, why uh or specifics about C5, C6, C7, L4, L5, S1, the most common ones that are herniated. And you'll have these six videos there where people can just click on being, oh shoot, no, mine's L5, S1. That he's got what is that? What's specific about that? They learn more about that. Or let's say you're doing uh ADHD and all that stuff. Now you've got all your videos on sensory processing disorder, motor delay, speech delay, uh, overwhelm, behavioral issues. Take some time to shoot the videos, but once you have them, they're just YouTube links that go straight onto a landing page and they can learn more. Then when they watch it, they're directed to your YouTube. And in your YouTube, the first comment is your booking link. And you just have to reference throughout the video if this is you, I encourage you to hit the booking link and take advantage of an offer to get started. Okay. Education, trust, then conversion. What we're missing right now because of the overwhelm in marketing for everyone is they need the education and trust before they can convert and pick up the phone and book an appointment. Not like before. This isn't six years ago where they filled out a form, they responded to the text. You could have even sent them a booking link and they booked. That conversion rate has gone way down for everyone. So uh watch this video before you concerning surgery. Three things causing your sciatica. I just gave you a whole bunch of ideas that you can use. Uh, Google uh business profile is still king, but but it's shifting very quickly. Chat GPT reviews, and you need content everywhere. If you're not visible across all platforms, you are invisible. So losing clinics, run ads and hope people hook. They compete on price. That's the first thing they ask me. Do you think, do you think we should go down to$29 a new patient or$25 or$21? I'm like, dude, the$10 is not is not catching people. It's not the difference. They're not trying to save$10. They're hoping to save hundreds of dollars, but not$10. And there's no real brand. So the winning clinics are building authority, educating the patients through these video funnels and blogs and pre-frame value. That's how you attract higher commitment patients. So your simple action plan is to create three educational videos this week. Doesn't matter if they're five minutes, 15 minutes, 35 minutes, you're going to create these videos. You're going to post them to your YouTube. If you don't have a YouTube, you do now. You're going to post them on there. You're going to speak to one condition only, the one that drives your business, the one that you know. You know the one that you get the most. That's the one. Improve your offer positioning, add trust building steps before the booking process, and watch what happens to your conversion rate. Your call to action in your video is to either a booking link, to call, or to respond to the messages that are about to come. You can even warn them in your funnel, tell them, hey, we are going to text you from this number, email you from this email, and call you from this number, respond, and we will be more than happy to get you started ASAP on your journey to wellness or healing. Okay. So if you want better patients, you need a better message, not a bigger ad budget. I think I got everything there. That's a lot. That's a lot. You got some stuff to do. If you want to take it to the next level in 2026, you're going to implement two of those things I said today in this podcast, and you're going to watch things change. Um, the the pain of poor conversion is for everyone. That's the number one pain point I've been dealing with over the last five, six months with all my clients. They call in or even new potential clients, they're calling in saying, Hey, should I work with you or should I not? And I'm just recon confirming with them that this is it. This is the game. This is the game, or this is the marketing game we're playing. Meta is still the best cost conversion uh that you can have in marketing for chiropractic right now. So don't give up on it. I wouldn't throw it away, but we have to optimize it. And that's how you optimize it. If you have any questions, reach out to me. Info at enrico d.com. That's my direct email. You can call me, you can text me, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, you can direct message me. Any questions you have, I'm here to help you out or guide you in the right direction. Stay well, keep doing what you're doing. Your communities need you, and that's why you do this. I know. Keep keep it up, keep it going.