Today we are talking about No-shows and how to handle them.
Tag: Marketing Tactics
Anything that relates to improving tactics in general marketing for a practice.
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Big Marketing Mistake That Could Cost You Money
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make is Changing Ads Out of Boredom
Marketer Boredom Syndrome. It’s real and it could be happening to you.
It looks like this: You are paying someone to do your marketing for you, or perhaps you are doing your own marketing. You find a campaign that works, you seem to be hitting the right audience, new patients are showing up at the practice and your schedule is filling up! You are feeling confident and optimistic and you think to yourself, “what should I try next?”
The answer is…. NOTHING.
As the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. And this is especially true in marketing.
Maybe you had 38 new neuropathy patients last month! You might be inclined to say “let’s see if that same strategy works for decompression!” I know, I know, doing nothing is boring. Just trust me on this one. Don’t fall into the trap.
Perhaps doing the same thing is boring for you or your marketer. But if the message is working, that means that it’s not boring to your audience.
If you simply cannot resist the urge to do something new, here’s what you can do: Keep running the campaign that is working, without changing a single comma in it. Then, in addition to the working campaign, run a second campaign with which you can experiment and tinker.Here’s a good rule to follow: ONLY MAKE CHANGES BASED ON DATA, NOT FEELINGS.
Don’t follow hunches. If you’re running a good campaign, leave it running and experiment on the side with the additional money it’s making for you. Don’t abandon a working campaign. Ever. -
How Techno-Babble Can Hurt Your Marketing
Alright, so you bought a new laser or a new decompression machine for your practice that is going to revolutionize the way you see patients, speeding up their care and allowing you to help more people. You were told that the Decomp-O-Matic 5000 is far superior to the 4000 model and it’s true! This may very well be the greatest thing since sliced bread to you doc.
The company you bought it from even gives you a marketing packet for your new machine, pamphlets to hand out to your patients, ads you can run, coffee mugs with their logo on them, schematics, charts, case studies… You are ready to get new patients in!
But a month after running those ads and handing out those pamphlets, you have no new patients in the door that asked about it. Not one person has come to see the glorious new Decomp-O-Matic 5000. Why?
Your colleagues like it. The case studies are sound. You even treated Mrs. Smith, your most loyal patient on it and it helped her walk again.
Your problem is not that the treatment doesn’t work or that people don’t believe it. Your problem is that you’re not speaking in terms your new patients can understand in your marketing. You are suffering from techno-babble.
Techno-babble, is the explaining of something filled with unfamiliar terms and complex vocabulary, and it can confuse and alienate your potential new patients. All the technical terms, the charts, the graphs, the pamphlets, even the ads they give you to run all talk about the machine.
When all people are looking for is, “will it help my low back pain?”
So How Do I Attract New Patients For The Treatment?
We have isolated the exact reasons why so many doctors use this, why this is detrimental to your practice’s success, and what to do instead. In the video below, John Nesbit and Merle Stepler discuss the technobabble syndrome seen in marketing and more importantly what patients will respond to in your marketing.
P.S. If you want to know the marketing methods million dollar practices use, watch my new webinar “How I Added $100K+ Per Month To A Practice’s Revenue Using Simple Social Media Ads” Click Here
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What Big Practice Owners Do That Small Owners Don’t
I just reviewed some research we conducted on dozens of practice owners. The surprising result was in the difference between the big practices and the small ones. It has nothing to do with marketing, location, or staffing. It has everything to do with what the owner says drives them.
P.S. If you want to know the marketing methods million dollar practices use, watch my new webinar “The Social Media Strategy that Attracts Qualified New Patients Who Show, Pay, And Stay” Click Here
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Check Your Practice Website Text For This Disappointing Tactic
Your website should be consistently generating new patients for your practice.
If you can’t say without a doubt, how your practice website has contributed to your practice growth month after month, take two seconds to check for this built-in flaw.I found it is very common and could be an indicator of why a website does not perform well.
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Successful vs. Struggling Practices: What’s the Difference and Who Can You Trust?
On a beautiful sunny afternoon 19 years ago, two young men graduated from the same chiropractic college.
Both had been above-average students. Both were personable. By all accounts, both seemed equally likely to be successful. They shared the same ambitions of opening their own practices and start changing people’s lives.
Recently, these two former classmates met up again at a convention.
They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both had indeed gone on to open their practices in similar-type suburban areas offering many of the same treatment modalities.
But there was a difference. One was struggling financially due to not seeing enough new patients. He was worried constantly about the gaping holes in his schedule and an inability to predict his income. He had been “burned” by a series of advertising agencies who had over-promised and under-delivered, leaving him somewhat jaded.
Conversely, the other practice owner had just celebrated his second location reaching the million-dollar yearly revenue level with an eye toward opening a third office across town. He had just returned from a month-long vacation with his family.
What Made The Difference?
Have you ever wondered, as have I, what causes this kind of vast difference in people’s lives? Given similar potential and opportunity, why does one practice owner succeed where another struggles?
A dispassionate view reveals that the difference is not in technical skill or luck, but rather in being able to create a consistent flow of qualified new patients into the practice.
That’s where fortunes are made.
While the successful practice owner had experienced his own marketing failures initially, the marketing partner he finally kept had been recommended by his successful mentor. Over the previous four years, they had been a godsend. They were consistently delivering more than enough qualified new patients to keep his associates busy and ensure his offices prosper.
The struggling practice owner never connected with a reliable marketing partner that could supply him with the new patients he needed – and that deficiency grew over time and ultimately made all the difference.
How Do You Know Who to Trust?
Just like with chiropractic, marketing and advertising work when applied expertly by skilled practitioners. However, because there is no licensing or regulation of marketing agencies, there is a wide range of skills and integrity in the vendors that knock at your door. It is nearly impossible to judge the posers from the producers from what they say about themselves. Reviews from strangers are suspect as the full context is rarely given. They may have completely different practices and philosophies, or it may be the agency owner’s uncle.
So how does a savvy practitioner choose a winning marketing agency?
Simple. It’s direct recommendations from other successful practice owners.
As they say “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” – and that is the only criteria you should judge. Did they work for someone else you know? If the agency did great for three other offices then they will likely do well for you.
If an agency just churns through their clients – or worse – they demand you sign a lock-in contract, then run. Lock-in contracts are the biggest admission that the agency can’t keep their clients.
To summarize, the best way to guarantee practice prosperity is to have a marketing partner that delivers a consistent flow of qualified new patients month after month. The best way to find that marketing partner is through recommendations from practice owners you know and respect.
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How To Get More Clicks On Your New Patient Ads
If no one’s clicking on your ads you have zero chance of getting them as a new patient and your time and money have been wasted.
[I’m going to assume you are targeting the right audience and that your campaign is not being penalized by Facebook as those can also lead to a low number of clicks and a high cost.]
In order for an ad to stop someone from scrolling it has to get their attention and then move them to take action (click).
1. Choose the right image.
The first thing people see is the image. The image needs to show someone who looks like the Target audience in terms of age and demographic. The ad should show them doing well, being active, and succeeding in life. Showing people who are having pain or difficulty also works however too much of that is against Facebook advertising rules.
2. Write a headline that grabs them.
Your headline should be short and get right to the point. The keywords should be near the beginning of the sentence as often on mobile devices you only see the first three or four words of the headline. So rather than write “We have a program that helps people with knee pain” you’d be better to put it the other way and say, “Get knee pain relief with our new program.”
3. Use their language, not yours.
Use the words and phrases they commonly use to describe their problems. Don’t use technical terms like “subluxations” in your ads. Instead, use more relatable terms like “back pain.”
4. Describe back to them the experiences they’re having.
Listen to how your patients describe their issues. If they frequently mention “throbbing, pulsing back pain” that feels like “squeezing and pinching,” incorporate those phrases into your ads.
Of course, there are many more things to know in order to create a consistent flow of qualified new patients for your practice.
To save time, many practitioners choose to partner with my agency, The Customer Factory.
To find out if our marketing program is a good fit for your practice visit our website and book a 15-minute Discovery call.
Find out more at:
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How To Convert Up To 82% Of Your Marketing Leads Into New Patients
Recently a client disclosed that he was converting more than 82% of his new patient marketing leads into paying new patients.
Speaking to another practice owner with some more numbers I found they had similar approaches to how they convert leads into new patients.
Here’s what I found:These practice owners approach every lead with the idea that someone has asked for help and will remain a prospect until they are under care. All leads are followed up with until the person either “cries, buys, or dies.”
They never allow any valid lead to be dropped from the list of prospective new patients and have people and systems that continue to follow up indefinitely.
Next, to make sure that no leads ever fall through the cracks they have sophisticated customer relationship management systems (CRM) where every lead is visible and trackable.
They track the percentage of prospective patient leads that are contacted, scheduled, and shown up on a daily basis. If the numbers start to dip they look to find out what has changed.
Finally, these practice owners incentivize their new patient schedulers to get new people into the office.
As a result their schedulers never complain that the leads are bad or give excuses. They are too busy scooping up bonuses for getting in highest-ever numbers of new patients in for care.Of course, there are many more things to know in order to create a consistent flow of qualified new patients for your practice.
To save time, many practitioners choose to partner with my agency, The Customer Factory.
To find out if our marketing program is a good fit for your practice visit our website and book a 15-minute Discovery call. You could have new patients coming in as soon as this time next week.
Find out more at:
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Attract Wealthy Patients With These Paid Advertising Tips
One key to profiting from paid new patient advertising is knowing how to reach and attract those wealthier prospective new patients who can most easily afford care.
Even though you serve all income brackets, having patients with more discretionary income can help support your practice so you can deliver better care to everyone.Here are several tips that will help you reach and influence this special group of prospective new patients:
1. Use Facebook/Instagram income targeting.
Facebook has brought back the ability to target people by their general wealth level. While it’s not perfect, this is a very good place to start when running your paid ads.
2. Target those connected with luxury brands and upscale shopping.
For example, Whole Foods shoppers are people willing to drive past three less expensive grocery stores in order to pay more because it’s healthier. Macy’s shoppers generally have more discretionary income than Walmart shoppers. There are many examples.
3. Target hobbies that indicate discretionary income.
Golfing, boating, art collection, and travel are all interests and activities that you can use to target people on Facebook. They all indicate not only that a person has more income, but they’re also active and more likely to be motivated to regain their ability to participate in their hobby.
4. Offer a reasonable discount, but don’t look “cheap”.
Wealthier people love a deal too, but they also know that there is no free lunch. When putting together an offer for your ad make it just good enough that it works as an excuse for them to take action now but is not some bone-deep discount. They are used to purchasing quality.
Of course, there are many more things to know in order to create a consistent flow of qualified new patients for your practice.
To save time, many practitioners choose to partner with my agency, The Customer Factory.
To find out if our marketing program is a good fit for your practice visit our website and book a 15-minute Discovery call. You could have new patients coming in as soon as this time next week.
Find out more at:
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How Mucha Should You Spend On New Patient Facebook Ads
You can easily overspend on Facebook ads if you’re not careful, but conversely, if you don’t run enough budget you never give their incredible system what it needs to make your ads work.
Here’s how you determine your ideal budget for new patient ads on Facebook.The first thing to understand is the reason why Facebook is so good at generating new patients in the first place.
When you start an ad for new patients Facebook evaluates more than 450 variables and data points in order to match your ads up with their ideal potential prospect.This is that famous algorithm you’ve heard of.
Some people have a timid approach to ad budgets, spending just $10-$25 a day. This cautious strategy can sabotage marketing campaigns since Facebook has to spread that meager budget across all these variables.
It’s like spreading one jar of peanut butter across an entire tennis court. The algorithm does its best with the given budget but may not generate the desired results due to limited opportunities.Therefore, if your Facebook ads aren’t generating the desired results at a lower budget, consider RAISING the budget for a few days.
For example, one of our practice owner clients was running $30/day and it was costing them $116 per new patient inquiry, which was far too much.
By adjusting his budget upwards he began seeing better results. Now he is spending $250 daily and is getting 30 new patient inquiries per week at about $42 each in ad spend, roughly a third of the original cost.To achieve better results, don’t be too timid with your ad budget. An under-spender’s approach is like going to a gold mine, taking a few shovels of dirt, and giving up when no gold is found immediately.
Of course, there are many more things to know in order to create a consistent flow of qualified new patients for your practice.
To save time, many practitioners choose to partner with my agency, The Customer Factory.
Find out more at: