If you’re a Chiropractor who likes to take the practice by the reins and ensure you steer it down the right road, then you’ve likely established your practice’s main purpose, mission & goals. But have you actually sat down and laid down the “how” when it comes to achieving your goals? Because the fact remains that setting goals without a practice marketing plan is just a wish.
So, that means it is about time you outline, design and create your remarkable marketing machine.
But before we discuss how, let’s go over some truths:
- As a chiropractor, you are more than likely not a marketing expert.
- It also likely that the main reason your entire community does not come to see you is that they simply don’t know why they should. [You can change this!]
- Unfortunately, your [lack of] results probably speak for themselves.
Now, don’t waste time getting down about it. It is truly unthinkable for a Chiropractor to be a talented practitioner and simultaneously an expert at building out your practice without support and training.
Let’s break it down for you…
There are essentially 5 steps to building a marketing machine.
I will briefly touch upon all of them here, but to get full support & resources, come learn about The Remarkable Practice DC Academy.
Step 1: Identify Your 4 Pillars
Your pillars can be thought of as “channels” for new patient acquisition. For example, internal marketing, spinal screenings or outside talks. To simplify, these are the places you will spend most of your resources doing: energy and money.
These need to be identified as a first step in building your marketing machine.
Step 2: Equip Yourself
You will need to identify exactly what you will need in each pillar to be successful. Think about what processes or systems, the technology, the people and your budget.
Step 3: Build Your Team
Don’t panic, we know many of you are a one-man band and baulk at the idea of hiring employees. We get it. We have all been there too!
But don’t let these thoughts paralyze you or your practice. If you do, I guarantee you will be stuck there forever.
Even if you implement a fraction of what we are suggesting, you can break out of your reality.
Many of you will fulfill multiple roles and jobs for your practice, until you generate the momentum to justify an additional team member.
To understand the justification process, consider the lifetime value of a patient. Do you know the value of a new patient lead? If you can’t quickly ramble off these numbers, how would you calculate your practice Return on Investment?
If you want to be taught how to calculate these things, learn more here.
In an ideal world you’d have a person to fulfill each of the roles below. But, ultimately it is most important to recognize these are distinctly different and important jobs in their own way. Each needs to each be addressed in order to close the cycle on your marketing:
- Marketing Director – Someone with real training and experience in marketing strategy. Ideally, a chiropractic patient who appreciates your premise and can take your whole marketing picture to the next level.
- Passive Marketing Expert – Highly trained SEO/Website expert [Not your Uncle who tinkers with websites or CA who ‘likes’ to spend time on Facebook.]
- Screening Team – Sales professionals will go out into your community on your behalf. They will utilize an effective lead generation system that will create enormous results.
Step 4: Create Your Marketing Plan
Your practice marketing plan is a vital part of your new patient generation. This plan will migrate into Step 5 – the Marketing Calendar. This plan is first broken down by your new patient pillars and then be broken down by the type of marketing tactics associated with each.
For instance, I suggest you begin with an internal marketing plan with monthly internal workshops as the pillar. Next you’d create a process for marketing each workshop starting with e-mails, flyers and direct mail in your community with a timeline for the campaign.
Step 5: Move Everything Into a Marketing Calendar
Last and definitely not least is the Marketing Calendar, which we will dive further into in the coming weeks as we continue our attraction blog series.
Your practice marketing calendar allows you to put your marketing machine into motion. Once you’ve determined your pillars or initiatives [where you’ll spend your energy and money] as well as the way in which you will make them happen – you schedule them.
You schedule each step and you [and your team] follow that calendar week by week – month by month – and hopefully year by year – as it will pay off big dividends.
As an added tip, one way to keep this organized and your team accountable is to use a Google calendar app. You can color code your calendar and set up reminders and share the calendar among team members.
The calendar includes social marketing, e-mail reminders and promotions as well as in office print marketing at a minimum.
Remind yourself: Don’t be afraid to promote what you do, because promoting Chiropractic is an act of kindness.
Just reconnect with why you got into chiropractic in the first place and then share this information with your community.
