[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right="" type="legacy"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="true" min_height="" hover_type="none" link="" border_sizes_top="" border_sizes_bottom="" border_sizes_left="" border_sizes_right="" first="true"][fusion_text]The world has been thrust into a very difficult place. Now more than ever, so many people are in need of hope and healing. These people are sick and suffering with conditions like vertigo, migraines, hormonal issues and more. And they have no idea that you exist...or that you can help! Helping sick and suffering people find hope and healing is what we do all day. every day and we've learned the most effective ways. So, here are the BEST ways to reach the right people who need you:
You can have the most wonderful website and online content, but if no one sees these things, they're useless. You're a health and wellness expert who positively changes lives, but do the people who need you even know you exist? Search Engine Optimization helps your website and your info get seen by the people searching for specific help. First, it's important to identify the most impactful keywords that will help you get on the map (literally).
The next step is to work on your on-site and off-site SEO so your site is seen by search engines as having authority in these areas. This way, there is a "bridge" that connects people who are sick and suffering to you and your practice. The end result is more traffic to your website and more new patients coming into your office.
Most of the time, people will check your online reputation before they even set foot in your office. They're looking for social proof: "Can I trust them? Are people like me getting the help they need?" When they get a resounding answer of "YES" to these questions, they are far more likely to take action and make an appointment. Conversely, if you have weak or poor reviews, this can actually push potential patients away.
By the way, your online reputation isn't just impacting your organic reach, but also your referral conversion too! It very well could be that you don't have MORE referrals because your social proof is a disconnect for the potential patient when they look you up online. Online reputation has been consistently one of the best ways to reach the right people who need you.
Another way to capture and provide social proof to prospective patients is through video testimonials. I know, it can be a pain to get patients to commit to recording one and take the time to set up and record. However, there is great power in the story of a changed life! Think about it...let's say there's someone struggling with hormone imbalance or migraines and you see a video of someone explaining how your expert service helped. This will resonate 5 times better than you merely explaining your process or technique.
Also, video testimonials can be shared to your social media platforms or inserted into email campaigns. Quite the useful tool. Even if you could record 1-2 video testimonials a month, within just a few months you'll have a video library of changed lives!
When it comes to the best ways to reach the right people who need you, your website is basically the hub for everything online. A custom health and wellness website that clearly shows who you are, what you do, and how to get help is a major step to convert website traffic into new patients. You have the freedom to pick and choose the message and content so people that find you online can connect with your message and take action.
The last thing you want is for a cheap looking or unsecured website turn potential patients away. Trust me, it happens all the time. People don't like feeling confused or feeling like your services are cheap because of how your website is (or isn't) set up.
Facebook ads continue to be one of the best ways to reach the right people who need you. With Facebook ads, you're able to get your content to be in front of your target market with a call-to-action that leads them to connect with you and your office. A good Facebook strategy with produce dozens of leads a month, giving you a system that produces consistent new patients and clients. Powerful. Another related point is that with your ads you can start capturing names and emails so you can follow up with the leads with email campaigns and direct contact.
There are people in your area who need your help, but have no idea that you exist. You have the solutions to their problems but they don't know you can help! Building bridges that connect these people to you is crucial when you truly want to reach your community with the life-changing services you offer. If you'd like help in doing this, find out how. Give us a call or click here to book a time to chat.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
If you are a health and wellness practice such as a naturopath, acupuncturist, massage therapist, functional medicine doctor, chiropractor, homeopath, or another health professional you must have a marketing plan to be successful. The most successful health and wellness practices will combine 3 types of marketing in their plan:
These 3 types of marketing, when done effectively, will feed into each other and will give you a steady stream of high-quality new patients coming into your office throughout the year.
Overall, this type of marketing strategy will also help you retain the patients you have and reactivate inactive patients.
Online marketing when done effectively is both an internal marketing approach and an external marketing approach.
Implementing a comprehensive (and integrated) online marketing program can be very complicated and very time-consuming for you or your staff. For the cost of a part-time team member, we can help you implement a comprehensive and integrated online marketing program. To have a quick chat about your practice give us a call at 800-217-0584.
Once you have your online marketing figured out, next you'll want to brainstorm 2 internal events and 2 external events that you will be doing each month. Don't worry, they don't have to be these huge things that create a burden. Now let’s start with some internal events.
Internal marketing should all be focused on patient education and internal events in some way, shape, or form.
Patient education is the number one way that health professionals have been effectively generating new patients internally according to our practice surveys.
Regardless of your specialty, you'll want to make sure that you have an ongoing patient education process for your practice. Along with patient education, internal events are very important. One of our favorite internal events is a quarterly contest.
The first step is to make up your mind to do it and discuss it with your team in order to get them excited about how much fun it’s going to be.
The energy that you and your team bring to this contest will determine whether or not it is successful.
You want to have several weeks to brainstorm and plan for the launch of the contest.
Some of the specific aspects of the contest to brainstorm with your team include:
One of the really fun parts of doing a quarterly contest is having a grand prize or a grand prize and several other smaller prizes for the winners of the contest. If your contest has a theme you can try to unite your prizes with your theme or you can just give away some big-ticket items that you believe your patients would be excited to win.
Here are some ideas:
Whether you choose just one grand prize or a grand prize with a few smaller prizes the key is choosing prizes that your patients would be excited about and you and your team will know that better than anyone else.
Along with raffle prizes you may also want to have some giveaways along the way during the contest. These can help keep people engaged for the full three months you are running the contest. This could be a weekly giveaway for a free massage or free adjustments or a bottle of supplements or whatever. The key again is to give something that is exciting to your patients and fun. You would frequently give this to the patient who accumulated the most raffle tickets that week.
A raffle is usually the best format for this type of quarterly contest. In order to do the raffle you just need some raffle tickets and a large glass container to keep the raffle tickets in at your front desk in order to continue to remind people about the quarterly contest. You also will want to display your prizes in a prominent location in your office to keep the buzz going. You should assign a different amount of raffle tickets to different activities that patients would do during the quarter.
For instance:
To promote this event internally you will want to create some key pieces of promotional material including:
You want to make sure that everyone in your practice knows that this contest is happening. So you and your team should be talking consistently about the contest with every patient on every visit.
You should also have posters, counter and table signs and flyers around the practice talking about the contest and the ways to accumulate raffle tickets. You can also send out a mailing to your patients with a postcard describing the contest.
Although this is primarily an internal promotional event you can certainly promote it externally as well including putting up posters on local bulletin boards or talking about this during community events you are doing including talks, screenings, etc.
Digital promotion can be very effective for a quarterly contest. You can send out a series of email blasts about once every other week for the first six weeks and then once a week for the second five weeks and then three email blasts in the last week to get as many raffle tickets as possible and during that last week before the big grand prize is given away. You would want to do a similar type of posting schedule to Facebook utilizing a flyer type picture that you can consistently post promoting the event on Facebook and other social networks such as Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
If you do a consistent monthly email newsletter as we recommend you would also want to promote the contest within your newsletter every month during the quarter.
Some doctors like to have a theme for each quarter and have their contest correspond with their theme.
For instance, some themes that I know doctors have done successfully include:
If you choose to do a theme then you can have all of your giveaways and prizes focused around that particular theme and you can also have events that are scheduled throughout the quarter related to that theme. This can include in-office classes, walks, or other events related to specific conditions such as having your team and patients participate in a Memory Walk for Alzheimer’s, etc.
The last and most important aspect of doing a fantastic quarterly contest is to have different members of your team take ownership of different aspects of the contest. Once you have brainstormed and laid out a plan for the contest each member of your team should have different responsibilities in order to execute the plan.
Some offices will do quarterly contests every quarter. Others will only do this once a year. But if you have never done a quarterly contest I highly recommend you plan and execute one to see how your practice responds as it may be a game-changer for you and your practice when it comes to increasing your referrals and social proof which will have an impact on your practice for years to come.
Next, you'll want to decide what 2 external marketing outreach initiatives you will be implementing. One of the best external marketing outreaches I’ve seen over the past several years is what’s called the Ladies Night of Indulgence.
This outreach program is very effective at attracting more women into your practice. Women are the primary health care decision-makers for their families and it’s very important that you attract women into your practice consistently.
To learn how this program can work and see all the personalized items included, grab our Ladies Night of Indulgence execution plan.
If you decide to implement this external marketing outreach make sure you are thoroughly promoting this through your online marketing and email and social media formats along with your internal promotion. Failure to promote effectively could result in lesser results.
Another great external marketing outreach initiative to start is generating professional referrals from other health practitioners.
First, you should know we have a ton of great information about generating professional referrals on our upper cervical chiropractic blog and podcast.
Here are a couple of key resources:
Combining digital marketing, internal events and education, and external outreach is a powerful way to build a practice that can sustain challenges and thrive!
There's nothing worse than feeling like your spinning your wheels to get new patients to come through your doors. You're not alone. The #1 need of health and wellness practices is attracting qualified new patients. Don't quit on your marketing...there are LOTS of people who still need your help; they just don't know you exist!
Maybe it's time to work smarter, not harder. One of the things you can do right away is to make sure you know the 5 mistakes to avoid in health & wellness marketing.
For short term results that don't last...drop your price. Some people will respond to a gimmicky low-price ad, but show up. And those that DO show up for the 1st appointment, are typically just looking for a quick-fix. They'll be tough to get to commit or will drop out of care after a few visits. In short, for the most part, they won't be the RIGHT kind of new patient. In the long run, it's not a good move.
If you don't have a system to find out who's checking out your website, services, or content...how can you follow up? This will make your marketing untargeted and weak. If you haven't already done so, use call-to-action (CTA) buttons on your website, blog posts, Facebook ads, and more. This way, people who want to opt in to your content will at least leave their name and email. Bing! Now you have a new patient lead to follow up with!
Websites are an important part of your marketing since they are basically the hub of the system. If you aren't sure if your website is helping or hurting you, be sure to read this article.
How many times do you think it takes for the typical person to see or hear about your practice before scheduling an appointment? Our research shows that it takes a new patient 7 times to hear or see your message before making their first appointment. Can you see how important it is to consider their journey leading up to that point?
Bottom line, many people aren't ready to become new patients right off the bat. They need to trust you and you need to build credibility. We recommend using an email follow-up campaign that can consistently send helpful and trust-building content to your new patient leads. This will help cultivate a relationship so that when the time is right, the potential patient knows where to go for help.
If you office team isn't equipped to interact with your potential new patients, there is going to be a HUGE disconnect when a someone calls or emails you. Your marketing can be dialed in, but if the message falls flat because of their first direct interaction with a team member...say goodbye for now.
Prep your team by making sure they're all on the same page. Do they know the new patient journey? Is there a clear system for how to field calls and emails from new potential patients? Also be sure to have a system for when they first come into the office for an appointment. Preparing your team is a key step in your marketing system so that what a person sees is what they get.
I bet you have files and notes on each of your patients and clients. If I were to read these notes, I would see you keeping track of where they were on each appointment, how they are responding to your care, and what changes were made. Marketing is no different!
You should know how many people open your emails, click on your Facebook ads, call in to the office, etc. This way you can make corrections along the way or implement new strategies to refine your health and wellness marketing. A good first step is to use Google analytics (free) to find out data on your website and website traffic.
While there is more to implementing an online marketing strategy, these are 5 common mistakes that health and wellness practitioners make when it comes to marketing. We know that it can get a bit overwhelming when it comes to tackling this, so we're here to help! You can give us a call at (800) 217-0584 to pick our brain or find out more.
Go team!
Finding new patients remains the #1 need for health and wellness practitioners. Equally important is getting more of the RIGHT people to come and see you. These are typically people with chronic conditions who value your unique care and are motivated. So, it is very important that you use marketing that works well to achieve this main goal. We're going to walk you through how to find the best health and wellness marketing plan for YOU.
Knowing how you, your team and your community is unique is the foundation for a targeted, successful marketing plan.
Once you find what makes you unique, you can incorporate this into everything you do, like a marketing plan.
Now that you know what makes you unique...it's time identify key tasks and any needs you have in your practice. Knowing the essential roles, strengths and weaknesses for you and your team will help you respond and equip yourself properly with the health and wellness marketing plan that's right for you.
Based on the key performance indicators and unique skills of you and your team, you can identify who can best handle any internal, external, or online marketing needs. Work this into your marketing plan in the next step.
Since you've identified your uniqueness and analyzed your practice, now it's time to create a marketing plan that fits you.
Marketing plans are not a "1 size fits all" solution. Moreover, what works today for you, may not be what you need 6 months or a year from now. But, the good news is, there is always a plan that will work for you.
Having trouble on any of these steps? We can help! You can contact us here, or schedule a time to talk here, or give a call at (800) 217-0584.
Frequently, when I talk to health and wellness practices, they do not have a marketing budget or marketing plan in place.
We frequently hear things like this:
Most natural health practices don’t have a health and wellness marketing director. So the marketing of the practice falls to the clinic director. Some practitioners are very skilled at marketing, but most struggle in this area, especially generating patients from external sources.
Word-of-mouth referrals and internal marketing promotions are excellent ways to maintain the size of your practice. But if you have the goal to increase the size of your natural practice you must be doing some external health and wellness marketing.
So whether you are a:
You need to have a marketing plan and a marketing budget.
The 1st step in determining what a proper budget would be for your natural practice when it comes to marketing is to sit down and create SMART goals:
The goal must be specific. You and your team must clearly know what you’re shooting for. The target must be well defined.
Along with being specific, a good goal must be measurable. You can’t just say “I want to grow my practice” but instead say “I want to grow my practice by 20%”. You must attach a metric to any good goal in order to know that you have hit it.
A goal must be somewhat realistic. It should stretch you and your team but it has to be something that is possible. If you’re currently collecting $5000 a month and your goal is to be collecting $200,000 a month by the end of the year, that is not attainable.
A good goal should also be focused on results that are important to your overall mission. Achieving a goal should move you closer to where you want to be personally and professionally.
Lastly, a good goal should be time-dependent. Using our example from earlier “I want to grow my practice by 20%”, when? In three months? By the end of the year? Every goal should have a time attached to it.
I would recommend having goals for patient visits, new patients, and collections, at least.
Next develop a month by month, week by week, and day by day marketing plan focused on achieving your goals.
Once you layout the marketing activities that you will be participating in both internally and externally, you can then begin to develop a budget to fund those activities.
A good rule of thumb, based on several sources is to spend 5% of your gross revenue on marketing activities if you want to maintain the size of your practice. So for instance, if you collect $30,000 per month you should be spending $1500 per month on marketing just to keep your practice at $30,000 per month.
If you’re looking to grow your practice, I would recommend spending between 7% and 15% of your gross revenues on marketing depending on your goals and how aggressively you want to pursue them.
So again for a $30,000 a month practice to grow your practice you should be spending at least $2100 per month. The more you spend on good marketing the faster your practice will grow. If you spend $4500 per month on marketing for a $30,000 a month practice and you are getting a solid return on investment that should help your practice grow quickly.
The most successful companies in the world are spending about 20% of their revenue on marketing. For a billion-dollar company, this can be hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing every year.
So the truth is if you want to grow your practice you need to spend some money on marketing.
What you want to look for is a good return on investment.
If your case fee is $2000 and you spend $1500 a month on a new marketing program and that gets you on average 5, well-educated prequalified patients per month, who all start care, then your $1500 investment just created $10,000 in additional revenue for your practice. That would be an excellent return on investment!
The important thing is to understand the steps necessary to achieve your goals.
For instance, let’s say you want to see 60 additional new patients this year. To see 60 additional new patients you will need to see five more new patients per month on average.
If you know that 3 out of every 4 new patients who come into your office start care with you. Then in order to see 60 additional new patients this year, you will need to attract 80 additional new patients into the practice.
So you will need to develop an external marketing plan to attract 6 to 7 additional new patients per month.
You believe you can attract a new patient in your practice for about $300. So you set your budget at $2000 per month to attract the additional 6 to 7 new patients that you want to see this year.
You can do this with any goal.
Figure out what it would be for the year then break it down into a month, a week, day, etc.
Marketing is a basic part of your business.
Establishing a marketing plan and a marketing budget is essential for any natural practice.
