In the last two years, [...]]]> This article is dedicated to the many doctors I’ve spoken with who struggle with their marketing. This is an attempt to help shed light on the most often missed, and arguably most important, aspect of any marketing campaign — the “Evangelists”. Who are they and how do you get them?

In the last two years, I’ve worked with somewhere between 200 and 300 doctors and most of them want to know how they can improve their marketing strategies. They’re either dissatisfied with the number of referrals they receive and want to amp up their game or they’re disenfranchised because they’ve been conned by a shady “marketing expert.”  The most common question I get is “how do I improve my search engine rank and get more traffic?” The answer isn’t always what the doctor wants to hear…

It doesn’t matter how many people are coming to your website. You could be getting 3,000 visitors per month and it won’t make any difference if you’re not converting any of them into patients. Likewise, collecting patient emails and building Facebook fans is worthless if only a fraction of them result in tangible income.

Let’s face it, chiropractic is a boring subject to people who aren’t actively in pain. Why would the average stranger ever want to read articles about sciatica, read newsletters about clinic events, or pay money for what they perceive to be a glorified back cracking? Under normal circumstances, people are only going to come into your clinic if they’re suffering and think you can help them. There are three broad strategies for pulling people into your clinic:

Option A: Broadcast Marketing

This strategy includes: paid advertising, search engine optimization, event marketing, public speaking engagements, website development, leaflets, billboards, and television ads. If you’re providing exceptional service, broadcast marketing should comprise less than 30% of your total new patients. The patients you get from broadcast marketing will run the gamut from Jane Smith who didn’t realize chiropractic was an option until she researched it online, to Maggie Jones who is convinced that chiropractic can cure her of the aliens who inhabit her spine. Generally speaking, you’re going to get a lower quality patient from broadcast marketing and it’s going to cost you a moderate amount of money to get them into your clinic.

Option B: Word-of-Mouth Marketing

There are ways to improve your broadcast marketing — focusing on education, using innovative platforms, and writing targeted copy are all useful techniques. I don’t recommend neglecting broadcast marketing, but I do think it gets an inordinate amount of attention considering it rarely brings in more than 30% of your patients. The bigger question is “where do the other 70% come from?”

This is the oldest and most powerful kind of marketing. John Doe finds an excellent chiropractor who helps him recover from whiplash and he tells Don James that the doctor might be able to fix his lower back pain. It’s the best kind of marketing for the following reasons: it’s trustworthy, it’s memorable, and one evangelist can generate lots of new patients without costing you a dime. One important distinction we should make is between a Direct Referral and a Word-of-Mouth Referral. The Direct Referral is a person who is given your business card by a friend, told to see you, comes in almost immediately, and mentions their friend’s name. Conversely, a Word-of-Mouth Referral is a patient who comes in because a friend mentioned that chiropractic might be an effective treatment for their condition and they recognized your name because you had helped someone else they knew.  In brief – Direct Referral patients come from evangelists who are passionate about your service. Word-of-Mouth Referrals are people who have heard about you because you’ve done a good job educating the community and you’ve been providing exceptional care for years.

Word-of-mouth marketing is the most efficient, powerful, and sometimes elusive form of outreach. The ultimate goal is to turn your patients into either Active Evangelists who generate Direct Referrals or Passive Evangelists who educate the community about chiropractic and expand your name recognition. Evangelists will only ever comprise a minority of your patients, but there are ways you can maximize your chances of creating an Evangelist:

1. Provide exceptional care with tangible results.
2. Create a remarkable and memorable office environment.
3. Train your staff in First Class Best Practices.
4. Emphasize education in your clinic and the broader community.

Option C: Hybrid Marketing

This emerging field of marketing is usually called “social media marketing”, but it’s just a combination of  Word-of-Mouth and Broadcast Marketing. Websites like Facebook and Twitter allow patients to rapidly evangelize products and services that they’re passionate about. In the olden days (pre-2004), a person would experience an outstanding service and would slowly tell their friends about it as the subject came up in conversation. It could take several months for a person to tell their story to fewer than 10 people. Today, thanks for social media platforms like Facebook, an Evangelist can spread their message to several hundred people within seconds — IN ADDITION to the traditional verbal method. It’s important to note that social media isn’t replacing traditional forms of communication, it’s just amplifying them.

So why are so few chiropractors successful on social media websites? Simple: they treat it like a Broadcast Marketing platform and forget about the importance of Word-of-Mouth. For more information, you can read my Facebook Marketing Guide or give me a call.

Specific Strategies

Here’s where things get tricky. How do I give you specific strategies when the overall goal is to be unique and remarkable? Ideally you’d just give me a call and pick my brain over the phone, then I could give you specific ideas for your practice, but in lieu of that I’m going to paint with broad brush strokes and provide general suggestions:

• Provide more than high-quality chiropractic care. Keep the patient’s experience in mind and surprise them with a higher quality of service than they’re expecting.

• Hire only intelligent, enthusiastic, and friendly staff members and educate them about chiropractic. They’re the face of your clinic and must be exceptional.

• Invest in a warm and welcoming environment. Create a space that patients want to spend time in. Sterile medical offices make people unhappy and nervous.

• Provide delicious drinks and food. Hospitality sticks in peoples’ minds and gives them something to rave about. Stale coffee doesn’t count.

• Try to find an urban space for your clinic with lots of foot traffic. Downtown locations, especially street front, have built-in marketing. Word-of-mouth is strongest in urban areas.

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Many of the clients I coach share a common problem — they’re receiving plenty of website traffic but aren’t converting anyone into patients. High-conversion rates are the holy grail of online marketing and I’m going to share with you a simple strategy that can double the number of people who convert into patients. But [...]]]>

Many of the clients I coach share a common problem — they’re receiving plenty of website traffic but aren’t converting anyone into patients. High-conversion rates are the holy grail of online marketing and I’m going to share with you a simple strategy that can double the number of people who convert into patients. But before I start, I want to provide you with some basic statistics:

• Zappos reported up to a 30% increase in sales by following this strategy…
• Ice.com increased their conversion rates by 400%…
• Shoeline.com saw a 44% increase in online sales…
• According to ComScore, this strategy consistently increases conversions by 64%…
• Visual Web Optimizer reports a 46% increase in conversions using this technique…

93% of communication is physical

- Dr Albert Mehrabian, UCLA

How to create your own video:

Making your own video doesn’t have to be a daunting process. You’re never going to have the fancy production values of a professional video team, but that’s okay! You can start creating your own high quality videos for under $500 with little or no experience. Follow these steps:

1. Purchase an inexpensive camcorder (here’s a good one).
2. Download Movie Maker (PC) or iMovie (Mac). Try Final Cut X if you’re feeling bold.
3. Buy an entry-level light kit, like this one.
4. Watch a tutorial on 3-point lighting.
5. Shoot, edit, and upload your first video!

How to work with professionals:

Okay, so you think this article is a great idea but you don’t have the time or energy to learn to produce your own videos. There are plenty of professional videographers and studios who can do the work for you. The quality of these professionals varies dramatically from downright sloppy and overpriced to meticulous and professional. Generally speaking, I recommend that you avoid any video production studios because they’re going to pass on the cost of their overhead and they often crank out sub-par videos. My advice is to seek out an aspiring film director or college student. They’re going to work twice as hard and for half the price. Just make sure you give them very clear direction about how you want the final product to look and who your target audience is.

On the flip side, you can always hire our video crew! We’d be more than happy to take the weekend off, shoot your videos on location, and provided personalized coaching and direction. Pricing is dependent on time of year and how close your office is to the tropics. Hawaiian shoots can be done for cost plus margaritas.

Good luck and be sure to share your videos with us!

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When [...]]]> Achilles, the star of the Trojan war, was handsome, intelligent, vicious, and nearly invincible. His father was Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons who helped Heracles steal the Golden Fleece, and his mother was the silver-footed nymph Thetis — one of the oldest deities in Greek mythology. In other words, he had killer genetics.

When Achilles was born, his mother carried him to the banks of the river Styx, lifted him by his heel, and dipped him in the water of immortality. This made every part of his body invulnerable to death, except his heel, which would eventually lead to his death during the Trojan war.

He was a fearless hero whose intense passion, loyalty, and sheer volatility continues to inspire the world. Regardless of whether or not he ever existed, Achilles has profoundly influenced the world we live in. Leaders like Alexander the Great and Mark Antony revered Achilles and modeled their lives in his image.

Why is Achilles so influential? What sparks of inspiration can we find in his legend to light our own fires today?

1. Achilles was Decisive

This isn’t to say he always made the correct decisions, but he often threw caution to the wind and charged into seemingly impossible situations. He wasn’t the strongest Greek warrior, but it was the strength of his conviction and his sheer ferocity that carried Achilles through most obstacles. Other heroes often faltered, deliberated, or needed to resort to trickery in order to succeed against impossible odds — Achilles won because he made clear decisions, charged into battle, and fought like an animal. His victories were pure and noble because he never resorted to tricks.

2. Achilles was Honest

In fact, he was so honest that he regularly turned friends into enemies and fought without supporters. A famous example was his relationship with king Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army during the Trojan war. During the war, Achilles publicly disregarded king Agamemnon’s authority and even temporarily withdrew his army from battle in protest, which nearly led to the destruction of Agamemnon’s army. Achilles was unwilling to play political games, kiss asses, or lie — which distinguished him from nearly every other Greek hero of the age.

Achilles’ honesty was deeply rooted and sometimes debilitating, but it had significant advantages. His friends and warriors were intensely loyal to Achilles because they revered his honesty and integrity. One of the reasons Achilles emerged victorious in so many impossible battles was because his friends would willingly follow him past the gates of hell — they had his back because they knew, without any doubt, that Achilles would have theirs. Honesty is a double-edged sword that can make your life difficult at times, but it’s ultimately one of the greatest strengths.

3. Achilles was Passionate

In order to fully appreciate Achilles, it’s important that we compare him to another famous Greek hero — Odysseus, the king of Ithaca. By contrast, Odysseus was a thoughtful and competent man who strategically calculated every move. He often buried his own ego, made careful sacrifices, and manipulated situations with superhuman political savvy in order to emerge victorious. Odysseus was a man who could put aside his own feelings in order to think logically. Achilles, on the other hand, was equally intelligent but was motivated entirely by his passions. The two most decisive moments in the Trojan war were a direct result of Achilles’ passion. First, he withdrew from battle because Agamemnon stole a slave girl who he had fallen in love with; then he rejoined the battle after Patroclus, his friend and lover, was killed. These two moments defined the entire war and they were both motivated entirely by passion.

Achilles’ passion was also a double-edged sword because, although it often caused trouble, it was also the fire that made Achilles invincible in battle. There were much stronger warriors in the Greek army (like Ajax) but none of them could match the sheer intensity of Achilles. He worked harder, fought harder, and endured longer than any other man. Unless you’re an exceptional genius, you’ll never win significant battles without intense passion.

4. Achilles was Intelligent

The last three traits might have given you the impression that Achilles wasn’t very bright, but nothing is further from the truth. Achilles was extremely intelligent and usually comprehended even the most complex situations. When he made foolish decisions, he was often aware of his own folly but unwilling to compromise. It was this intelligence that makes Achilles an ironic and tragic character. Even before the start of the Trojan war Achilles knew he would ultimately die, but he chose that destiny in exchange for immortal fame. To a lesser man this decision might have seemed foolish and emotional, but time has ultimately proven Achilles right.

Intelligence is the trait that pulls everything else together. Without intelligence, passion and honesty are ultimately foolishness. Likewise, intelligence is crippled without passion, honesty, and decisiveness.

You may not be fighting in the Trojan war, but there are moments in all of our lives that feel like we’re wrestling against fate. By continually pursuing self improvement and modeling ourselves after historical titans, we prepare ourselves for our own battles — regardless of whether they’re against river gods, business obstacles, or unruly children. The magnitude of these battles can feel identical to Trojan onslaughts and by cultivating ourselves in the image of these mythical heroes, we can improve our odds of succeeding — even against the impossible.

Roderick Campbell is the Marketing Director at ChiroHosting and a history buff. He makes no claims about the veracity of these analogies, they’re just an easy way to explore complex ideas. If you have any questions, responses, or addendums, you’re more than welcome to leave a comment! 

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1. The Audience Is Vast

No matter what an individual or business specializes in, signing up with Facebook can greatly help in reaching a potential customers. Since millions of people visit Facebook [...]]]> With millions of users visiting the site each day, Facebook has easily become one of the most important destinations on the Internet.

1. The Audience Is Vast

No matter what an individual or business specializes in, signing up with Facebook can greatly help in reaching a potential customers. Since millions of people visit Facebook daily, it is likely that thousands of people interested in finding a chiropractor will be accessing Facebook every day. Potential patients in your area can easily find information about your chiropractic practice through this accessible format.

2. It Shows the Ability to Adjust

Some doctors do not believe that they need to change with the times in order to maintain a place in the public eye. To them, a physical location is enough, and nothing else is necessary. However, to take on such a view can be dangerous and cause a loss of patients. People like to know that the doctors they deal with are willing to adjust to modern expectations. Creating a blog, maintaining a website, and utilizing social networks are excellent ways to demonstrate your ability to keep up with technology.

3. There Is a Real Human Connection

Facebook is not just about posting interesting images or commenting on how the day was spent. For a number of users, it is also a way to stay connected with their loved ones and coworkers. Although they may not be in the same room or state, they can still communicate in their own way. It can also be a way for them to find out about medical services in their area. Should a chiropractor set up a Facebook account, they will be able to talk to patients directly. Should somebody have a question they can have it answered right away. There is less room for confusion and dissatisfaction for all involved. Patients appreciate these personalized, human connections when they’re looking for a doctor.

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