In the ever-expanding world of marketing, it’s very easy to get swept away by the latest trend, strategy, or application. This is a classic case of ‘shiny object syndrome’ and is something we all must be aware of to effectively manage our time and marketing budget.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a ‘’one answer fits all’’ when it comes to this question. Every clinic is slightly different and factors such as location, turn over, size, number of practitioners and average lifetime value will all have an impact on how much you should be spending and where you should be spending your advertising budget. However, there are some points that everyone can take note of.
Analyse you budget:
Marketing budgets are a strange thing. Providing a positive ROI (Return On Investment), some will argue there should be a ‘limitless marketing budget’. As a marketer this is my dream, however due to cashflow and VOR (Velocity Of Return), this very rarely ends up being the case. As a general rule, businesses tend to allocate 5% of revenue to marketing. However, this varies hugely depending on industry, with some companies spending as much as 20% – 50% on marketing. For you, it is a case of working out how much you are able to spend on marketing. Remember, ‘’whoever is willing and able to spend the most to acquire a new customer always wins’’, so look at your turnover, your margins, your VOR and your current ROI for the marketing campaigns you have run. By having a handle on these numbers, you will be able to better understand how much you can allocate for marketing. Most chiropractors work with fantastic margins and can therefore afford to allocate a high percentage to marketing if needed.
Focus on where your customers are and don’t over complicate it:
Regarding paid media, there is still no better place to advertise your clinic than on Facebook. 2.85 billion people use Facebook monthly, 38.7% of which are over the age of 35! That means, your ideal customers are using Facebook and therefore you should be using Facebook to get in front of them. Instagram is another great platform. As with all social media, they build their audience on youth, but steadily this filters through to older adults. This happened with Facebook, and it is happening with Instagram with 30.3% of users now over the age of 35.
Google ads is another service that will put you directly in front of your potential customers. Here you can target key search phrases, allowing you to only pay when someone is searching for things you can help with. In the UK 87.7% of all online searches are currently made through google. If you have a website that converts well, then you should definitely consider using google ads to drive extra traffic.
Traditional marketing is also not to be overlooked! Although much harder to track ROI than digital marketing, traditional marketing could still hold huge value for your practice. Although not as ‘sexy’, and in some cases, requires more physical action, some of our traditional marketing campaigns have brought us our biggest returns. Print is still relevant and many people in your target demographic will still read the local newspaper each week, so having a sponsored segment, or being featured as a guest columnist is usually a great idea. Flyering is another ‘old school’ strategy that can see returns. Especially if you are a new practice, there are few better ways to get the word out rather than a well organised flyer campaign. Just be wary about using external companies for these campaigns as they are notoriously poor at delivering your flyers correctly!
Field screenings are another banker and often come at a very reasonable price. This strategy is the foundation on which Ryan’s Chiropractic business was built on and continues to be very lucrative to this day. Again, it is not as attractive as sitting at home watching new patient leads come in, and it does require on the ground legwork. But it will consistently lead to good quality new patients and is yet another tributary to your new patient river.
Focus on where you see the best results:
You should have previously or should currently be testing several different marketing strategies. Every clinic and every team will have strategies that they enjoy and that work well for them. Once you narrow down these strategies, you can start to focus on what really works (sometimes less is more). Through years of overseeing Ryan’s Chiropractic business and our done for you clinics marketing, I have seen this first-hand. Some clinics love lead generation adverts and see great conversions because they have robust follow up systems in place, others prefer in clinic events (screenings and talks) and thrive on an in-person sale. There is no right or wrong answer here, it is all about figuring out what works for you and doubling down on those strategies.
As a word of warning, do not focus too much attention on just one strategy. The worst thing you can do is find a strategy that works for you and put all your marketing eggs in that basket. If something were to happen to this new patient stream, your clinic would be in trouble. Try and filter down to the 3-5 best strategies that work for you as opposed to just focusing your attention on one.
Block out the noise – The best of the rest:
This is potentially the hardest part to stick to. Whenever there is a new strategy or application, there is a huge amount of noise, both from the community, and from the provider. Roughly every 6 months something new comes around that promises to be ‘the best thing ever’. Most of the time this is not the case! For most of you, marketing is not your full-time gig, therefore you must be pragmatic in the ways you spend your time and marketing budget. For the most part, it is not a good use of your time to try and sus out a new strategy that is not tried and tested and has no guarantee of results. Most of the time this will end in poor results and a lot of wasted time. The best thing you can do is wait it out and let us make the mistakes on your behalf. This is one of the beautiful benefits of being part of the Inner Circle and ‘Done For You’ service, we make mistakes, filter out the fluff and deliver the useful information directly back to you.
That doesn’t mean there is absolutely no space to introduce a new or different strategy to your clinic, however, I would urge you to just check yourself beforehand, so you know you’re investing time and money for the correct reasons and not just because the old strategies ‘’got a little boring’’.
One of the most recent shiny objects that keeps cropping up in conversation is TikTok. TikTok is wildly popular and is growing hugely. However, like most social media platforms, it is going through its early adopters’ stage which always starts with the youth. Although I predict this will start to shift to an older demographic sooner rather than later. Right now, more of your target audience is on Facebook and Instagram rather than TikTok.
Does that mean that you can’t generate new patients from TikTok? Absolutely not, there are ways to get new patients from TikTok.
But ask yourself the question, can I generate MORE new patients through TikTok than I can through Facebook? Right now, based on our testing, the answer to that is likely no.
The final question you can then ask yourself is … am I spending the maximum amount I can on Facebook Advertising whilst maintaining my cost per lead? If the answer is no, then there is no need to throw another marketing channel into the mix, focus your time and budget on what is working for you now instead of adding extra complexity and stress. If the answer is yes, then it may be time to branch out into another strategy as you have exhausted that specific resource.
This is just one example, but you can use these questions to sense-check any marketing strategy to decide whether it’s a good idea to dive deeper, or to refocus your time and energy on what’s already working. I want to make it clear that luckily for us, there are many ways to generate new patients. What you need to become a master of is understanding what sources are going to give you the most ‘bang for your buck’ whilst managing your time effectively.
Other examples of strategies that can bring in new patients but may not always be the absolute best use of your time or budget are LinkedIn, Youtube, content (high production), Waze, twitter and more.
If you found this article useful, why not read the following article: The Sweet Science of Knowing Your Numbers!
Book your FREE Discovery Call
Catch you on the next one!
Love and Light,
Ry
