** The views and opinions expressed in this article aren’t necessarily the opinions of Chirohosting – just its marketing director. **

How the heck did chiropractors end up beset by so many sleezebags, con artists, and thieves? I won’t mention names, but there are some slimy chiropractic marketing companies out there.

Why chiropractors? Generally speaking, chiropractors are dedicated, kind, well meaning professionals who spend their lives helping other people. Why not target used car salesmen, loan sharks, or collections agents?

These “experts” charge thousands of dollars for services that I can provide in ten minutes. In fact, I usually provide those services to my clients for free. Why would I charge somebody $200-$1000/month for ten minutes of work??

I guess I could – but I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, regardless of how much cash I had stuffed under my bed.

If you’re a chiropractor, take my advice: don’t spend money on these guys without giving us a call. We’ll point you in the direction of a few decent folks or we’ll teach you how to do the work on your own and we won’t charge you a dime for the advice/help.

Here’s our number (800)295-3346. Heck, you can even ask for me by name.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

Share on Facebook

If you’re not different, you’ve average. If you’re average, you’re unremarkable.

It’s hard to be different.

Chiropractic is a densely populated, heavily competitive business and if you don’t stand out you’ll fall to the wayside.

How do you stand out?

Here are some ideas…

* Stop advertising. Everybody is advertising- in all the same places. It’s boring.

* Start communicating. No one is taking time to communicate valuable information for free. Instead of spending $2000 on advertisements, – spend 20 hours doing community education. Teach your community about chiropractic and you’ll get new patients.

* Spend your entire advertising budget on your existing patients. They’re your evangelists and they’ll make or break your business. Word of mouth is the most valuable form of marketing. Give your patients free movie tickets, free coffee, free dinner, and reward them for referring new patients.

* Fire your “marketing consultant” – 95% of marketing consultants have no idea what they’re doing. Or, even worse, they’re teaching you outdated techniques that’ll waste money and time. (If you really want a consultant, we can recommend several good ones).

* Learn to use social media. Facebook isn’t just games, dating, and narcissism. If you want to learn more about social media – give us a call (800) 295-3346. We’ll give you valuable advice for free.

* Design a website that focuses on what’s important – reinforcing your credibility, offering solutions to their problems, and offering clear “calls to action”. When someone is in pain, they don’t give a damn about spinning spines or 3D gizmos. Patients want to know the following: you’re qualified to help them, you can relieve their pain, they can afford your service, and how to contact you. Nearly every chiropractor in the world has a cluttered website and a 3D spine – be different.

* Use video. A 2 minute informational video will convert more patients than any other marketing tool at your disposal. It costs nothing, it’s easy to do, and it’s unique. Do it.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

Share on Facebook

1. They’re scavengers!
Most consultants are only experts at one thing- being con artists. They convince you that you need a service that you didn’t know existed, promise guaranteed returns, and disappear when you try to hold them accountable. These roving predators move from client to client, feeding off practices until they eventually get run off. Think of them as hyenas.

2. They have no idea what they’re doing.
We run into consultants every day. They frequently tell us “well, I don’t know much about the internet”. That always baffles us- “and you’re a consultant?!”. They’ll happily lead you blindly through the forest and make important business decisions for you. Their worst case scenario is losing a monthly contract. Your worst case scenario is losing your business.

3. They make outrageous promises.
If a consultant “promises” anything- they’re full of it. If they guarantee something, they’re ripping you off.

4. They claim to have “arcane knowledge”.
Frankly, I could teach any reasonably intelligent chiropractor how to successfully market their business online in 3 hours. No special skills or knowledge necessary. It takes very little “technical expertise”. Great marketing requires general intelligence, creativity, and a fundamental understanding of human desires.

5. Last words…
Fire your consultant. If you absolutely need a consultant, choose very carefully. In fact, send us their resume and we’ll give you our opinion (for free!). If you’re looking for someone to manage your web marketing, give us a call. We can either create a solution for you or recommend someone who can.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting chiropractic websites

Share on Facebook

Recently, I’ve been collaborating with Dr Brandon Harshe over at The Atlas of Life, one of the most valuable and active chiropractic blogs on the internet. The quality of his articles and the consistency with which he produces them is amazing. The blog covers everything from inspirational chiropractic stories, to advice for young chiropractors, and even social media culture.

Rod Campbell: Hello, Dr. Harshe. I’ve been following your blog for several months now and really appreciate your work. The content and presentation make it one of the best chiropractic resources on the web. How long have you been a chiropractor?

Dr. Harshe: Thanks Rod, I appreciate the compliment. I’ve actually been a chiropractor less than a year. I walked the stage at graduation from Parker College of Chiropractic last August 15th. My official graduation date was September 9th, 2009. So, I’m coming up on a year of officially being graduated.

Rod Campbell: Why’d you decide to become a chiropractor?

Dr. Harshe: My wife talked me into it. Seriously. She wanted to go to chiropractic school and suggested we go together. My response was “No way! That’s too hard!” Then when she surprised me with the news of being pregnant with our first child several months later, I realized I needed to do something with my life. I started rethinking that whole chiropractic thing.

Rod Campbell: Weirdest or funniest story from gradschool?

Dr Harshe: Well, at one point I quit chiropractic school and never wanted anything to do with it ever again. I wasn’t handling the stress well and didn’t have any direction within chiropractic. So I quit and we moved back to Arizona. I worked in real estate with my wife’s grandparents during that time, which was around the time the economy was taking a dive. Not much fun.

I had a dream on New Year’s Day 2008 that I had gone back to Parker and was getting ready to finish the chiropractic program. It had a profound impact on me, so I decided to bring it up to my wife. Her jaw almost hit the floor when I told her. She thought I would never go back, because I always said I wouldn’t. That was in January.

In April 2008, we sold pretty much everything we owned to move back to Dallas so I could return to chiropractic school in May. Quite a ride indeed.

But I shudder to think how it would have been had I not quit school. With no direction in chiropractic, I might not even be practicing right now.

Rod Campbell: As a chiropractor, what’s your biggest day-to-day challenge?

Dr Harshe: There are 2 things. First, it’s keeping my passion in check. Most people in our society don’t know there is an alternative to drugs, surgeries, and invasive therapies. So if I start spouting off about chiropractic philosophy the first day new patients come in, they might turn around and run out.

Second, it’s trying to learn as much as possible as fast as I can. I will be taking over a practice in a few months, but first I am currently training on how to actually run a successful chiropractic practice. From exams, to x-rays, to communication, to marketing, to finances, it’s a ton. But it’s also a blast. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else right now.

Rod Campbell: The Atlas of Life is becoming a powerful chiropractic resource- where’d the idea come from? Is it challenging to continually produce great content?

Dr Harshe: When I quit school, I started to become interested in blogging/social media/internet marketing. I really enjoyed it a lot. I started reading blogs like problogger.net, doshdosh.com, shoemoney.com, johnchow.com, etc. I learned a lot about what made for a successful blog. I started a blog for my wife that I dreamed would make us a lot of money. I mean, if Darren Rowse of Problogger can make 6 figures a year from blogging, why can’t I? Yeah… that didn’t work out so well.

So after a few trimesters of being back at Parker, my enthusiasm for upper cervical chiropractic was so much that I needed an outlet. My wife will put up with my ranting and raving for only so long. So, at the beginning of Tri 8, I started The Atlas of Life. It was between that and The Atlas of Health. But I wanted to get away from the generic health/wellness model, so I picked The Atlas of Life. It was originally an upper cervical chiropractic blog, but I’ve made it a principled chiropractic blog in general.

Overall, I have a really good time writing and maintaining the blog. I started it out posting 3x a week. Then I upped it to 5x a week. In March, I upped it to 7 days a week for the sake of getting as much info out on the web as I could. I know that the more I put out on the web, the higher The Atlas of Life will rank in the search engine rankings. Considering I want people to know about what chiropractic REALLY is (health and vitality, as opposed to just pain management), I figure I should get out as much information as possible.

Rod Campbell: How do you think social media websites like Facebook and Twitter will affect chiropractors?

Dr Harshe: I know a lot of chiropractors use Twitter and Facebook quite a bit now. Facebook has become a juggernaut. I personally use Facebook to promote The Atlas of Life. Once I start my own practice, I will use it to promote that very heavily.

I don’t use Twitter as often because I have The Atlas of Life set up to automatically “tweet” a new post to Twitter each day.

Most people use the Internet to find their health care provider of choice, so as chiropractors we better use these tools. We will never become mainstream like medicine, so network or cable television and print media are out of the question. But we can utilize the Internet to really promote our profession and what we do effectively. Look at Howard Dean in 2004 and Ron Paul in 2008. No one knew who these guys were. Next thing you knew, these guys are in the conversation about winning the Presidency of United States.

So the moral of the story is that the Internet is vital for spreading the chiropractic message.

Rod Campbell: How about advice for chiropractic professionals who are new to the internet?

Brandon Harshe: Honestly, those chiropractors new to the Internet are probably very busy with their practices, so learning about all the stuff that I do, or that ChiroHosting does, is just too time consuming. Especially when you throw in family life, recreation, outside marketing, etc. Trust me… I know this first hand.

My advice would be to find a good company that can truly help you and guide you on how to effectively market yourself and your practice online. Chirohosting is a great company to do that. I’ve been very impressed with what they offer and how they do it.

Having had a number of interactions with ChiroHosting Marketing Director Rod Campbell lately, I can tell you this guy knows his stuff. Not only that, but he has a real passion to help chiropractors market themselves on the Internet, as opposed to just taking their money and giving them a sub-par product.

I would highly recommend using ChiroHosting to assist chiropractors in their internet marketing endeavors. They know what they’re doing.

Thanks for reading, check out Brandon’s blog (The Atlas of Life) and check back here for more interviews with modern chiropractic professionals!

Roderick Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

Share on Facebook

Chiropractic Facebook Service

Press Release for about our chiropractic Facebook services

Share on Facebook

For some reason, chiropractors seem to be bombarded with snake oil selling “marketing experts” who claim to know a mysterious secret that will boost your website to the top of Google rankings. If you’re not running for the hills, you should be. These internet outlaws prey on folks who are relatively new to the web. They make promises of first page Google ranks, huge website traffic, hordes of new patients, and just about anything else you may want.

The truth is, there aren’t any marketing shortcuts or SEO secrets. The only way to make it to the top of Google (without eventually getting banned) is to create high quality material, optimize your keywords, and create inbound links- all of which you’re capable of doing on your own and for free!

These are some common scams to beware of:

“You can cheat Google by joining our website. We’ll create fake reviews for your practice and cheat on Google Maps. This will put you on the top of Google overnight!”

Frankly, this is terrible advice. Because 1- it doesn’t work and 2- when Google finds out you’re cheating, they will stick you on the bottom of results or ban you permanently.

“We’ll optimize your website keywords by inserting keyword rich content.”

This is usually a nice way of saying, we’ll cram your website with hidden keywords and temporarily boost your website’s search rankings- at least long enough to make off with your hard earned cash. Of course, they’re long gone by the time you start getting de-ranked or banned by Google.

“We’ll automate your patient newsletters and bring in new patients by targeting people in your community.”

Always be careful with newsletter services. You need to be 100% certain the newsletter service is legitimate, legal, and conforms to the CAN SPAM laws. If the newsletter service sends emails to people without their explicit permission, you can be held liable for violating the law. Additionally, I’ve spoken to several DC’s who have paid $75-$150 per month for automated newsletter services, only to discover that newsletters were never being sent. Take time to verify that newsletters are being sent and are high quality!

“We can set-up an optimized Facebook profile for you with 500 friends for only $250.”

First off, Facebook profiles are free and incredibly easy to set-up. Second, the 500 friends you receive will be largely fake accounts, which provide no real benefit. Third, these scam artists often charge a monthly fee to maintain the profile. Getting a professional to maintain and contribute to your profile isn’t a bad idea, but you can’t do it on the cheap without getting ripped-off. A qualified Facebook specialist will typically run $200-$300/month, this kind of person creates content specially for your Facebook profile and targets only potential patients- so don’t expect to see explosive results and overnight sales increases.

Here’s my advice: if you run across a service and aren’t 100% sure if they’re legitimate, give us a call or send us an email and we’ll try to help you out. We’re full of chiropractic marketing ideas and provide professionally written articles, search engine optimization advice, how-to videos, and social media tools for free. You might as well take advantage of them!

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

Share on Facebook

It haunts us. It torments us. We can’t escape it!

Spam.

Not the canned food substitute – the unsolicited advertising. Every day, millions of innocent web users innocently open their emails, only to be swarmed by scams, viagra, and Nigerian bankers. Promises of wealth, cures, and inappropriate personal ads have become as common on the internet as sand on a beach. Fortunately, email providers like Gmail have gotten pretty darn good at filtering out the daily assaults of junk mail.

Unfortunately, however, spammers are now following us to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter! Our chimpanzee lab is working on a prototype “spam-a-ray”. For the time being, it looks like a stick. In lieu of a magical spam-away weapon, I suggest ignoring the junk and minimizing our own contributions to global spamming.

It’s all too easy to jump on a site like Facebook and begin barraging the masses with “special offers” and “excellent services”. Please don’t. Social media websites are communities, not billboards. You’ll do yourself and everyone else a favor if you stick to providing valuable information and creating personal connections. Personally, I recommend starting a chiropractic blog and posting witty, fun, and informative articles frequently, then sharing them with your friends one on Facebook and Twitter. This strategy works especially well if you host the blog on your website because it’ll draw a steady stream of traffic.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

Share on Facebook

Remember those 1950′s and 60′s science fiction comics? The intrepid adventurer, the unlucky lady, and the robotic androids from planet 9? Back then, the ray guns and rocket ships were pretty hi-tech gadgetry. There were even computers capable of speaking 13,000 languages, communicating across the planet, and serving hot coffee. Here at Chirohosting, we do everything except the coffee – but we’re working on that.

Don’t get ripped off by gimmicky spinning graphics or flashy gizmos. Real-life technology should blend into a website seamlessly, in fact, it should feel simple, functional, and efficient. Here at our labs, we have an assortment of highly qualified chimps in lab-coats who work tirelessly to invent micro cold fusion processors. The technology is…in progress.

In the mean time- we focus on making dynamically customizable websites with loads of interactive features and eye-pleasing designs. We’ve also learned that it’s important to go above and beyond for our customers. In fact, we typically get to know each customer by name and even our owner takes customer service calls. We may not be Captain Future but we’re pretty darn cool.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

Share on Facebook

If you’re wondering how to set up a Facebook account, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve created a handy video that explains how to get started with Facebook.

If you have any questions about how to use Facebook or other social media sites to market your practice, give us a call at (800) 295-3346 and we’ll be happy to help you.

Share on Facebook

Fact: people watch 2 billion Youtube videos per day.

Fact: people want free education.

Solution:

Pick up an inexpensive ($120-$200) camera that records video and start producing mini educational videos on the benefits of chiropractic. Then do a little video tour of your clinic and a brief interview, introducing yourself. These days, people need a sense of personal connection on the internet – it isn’t just a big phone book full of advertisements.

When you’ve got 2-3 little videos put together, upload them to Youtube and embed the video on your website. Even know people won’t read 2 paragraphs, they’ll sit and watch a 6 minute video (if it’s interesting!). Don’t have the technical skills to record the video and upload it to the web? There are a dozens of tech-savvy middle schoolers who’d jump at the opportunity to make $20.

Trust me, it’ll be the best 2 hours and $150 you’ve ever spent on marketing.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

Share on Facebook