What does it take to bring new patients through the door? As a chiropractor, you've probably tried everything under the sun. You've had promotional offers. You've given away free consultations and free adjustments. You've been a guest speaker, done commercials on the radio, even built floats for the local parade.
Every step of the way you have to chase new clients and it can feel like you have to literally drag them through the door to get them the help they need.
Who Are You Chasing?
It's ridiculous. The clients you chase after aren't believers in your services. You have to fight their mind set every step of the way to get them to take you seriously and follow your advice. You know chiropractic works to help people, but you're waging a war to pull in exactly the wrong type of people.
As a result, patient turnover rates are high, payment rates are low, and your business just isn't where you want it to be. This isn't to say that you don't have good patients. It's just that those patients likely came to you in a very different way. You didn't have to chase them – they came to you wanting your help and valuing your services as a professional caregiver and healer. The problem is that these good patients are the 20 percent you love, while you spend most of your time and resources trying to convert the doubtful 80 percent into new patients. No wonder so many chiropractors struggle and get burnt out!
Imagine a better way ...
Try and picture a more ideal situation. Stop for a moment and visualize your practice transformed by:
- Patients that come to you actively seeking your expertise.
- Patients who want what your practice has to offer them in terms of pain relief, improved health, and enhanced overall well-being.
- Patients willing to pay you cash up front because they believe in the value of chiropractic care.
- Patients who keep marching in the door one after another, letting you be a full-time doctor instead of a full-time marketer.
Sounds like a dream, right? But it doesn't have to be. Even though you're imagining it now, this could be the reality in your practice faster than you think if you're willing to change the way you approach your market.
New World of Mobile Marketing
This ideal situation is within reach thanks to the power of mobile marketing for local businesses like chiropractic clinics and offices.
Mobile marketing combines the existing systems for getting your practice's message out into the market with the booming mobile space. After all, some 2.6 billion people made local Internet searches last year, and there's no reason more of those searches can't lead straight to your practice. There are 51 million smart phone users in the world, and many of them rely on those devices to give them information that includes local businesses they can visit now. What makes these users different from any other potential patient pool is that they are actively seeking things they want right now and they fully expect instant gratification.
Particularly for Gen X and Gen Y clients, you just aren't going to reach them if you're using traditional marketing practices. They don't open their e-mail, much less their snail mail. They consider the whole thing passe. What they want is something that shows up on their phone when they're looking for answers – something optimized for the mobile world where they thrive and something that primes them to take action. That's mobile marketing in a nutshell, the wave of the future nestled in the palm of a hand.
Mobile marketing includes leveraging the tools you hear about as the "next big thing" in the media. It means getting yourself situated in Google Local, setting up Facebook Pages, creating QR codes and mobile coupons, building your FourSquare profile, and syncing your mobile efforts with any existing web sites or mailing lists your practice uses to reach out to patients. In short, it's all the things you've been meaning to learn about or do for your business executed to perfection.
[pb]Real Bottom-Line Benefits
Adding the extra kick of mobile power to your business puts you out there where potential clients are looking for chiropractic services, giving you business that you don't have to chase down. You know how that difference feels psychologically. When a someone walks through the door looking for you as their doctor of choice, it's a dramatically different feeling than when you've fought to get someone to even give chiropractic a chance. However, in addition to the psychological difference, you can also see the difference in your bottom line. Some 74% of searchers now expect to find local results in their search results. If you're not there, they don't see your business. Worse, if they know you're there physically but don't see you online, they think you're not sophisticated or savvy enough to be a player in their lives. You know that doesn't have any relation to the quality of care you provide, but perception is half the battle.
By winning at the perception game – getting yourself out there, being at the top of Google, Bing, and Yahoo – you win over patients before they even get in the door. The billable hours you regularly waste trying to convert prospects to clients can be spent servicing new clients who showed up ready to sign up for care. The potential exists for you to convert the basic structure of your week to more billable and profitable hours, stripping out marginally profitable and mentally draining hunt-and-chase marketing methods.
Imagine a world where new patients regularly come to you. How much would it move your bottom line to spend 10 percent more of your time with patients instead of chasing prospective? How about a 20 or even 50 percent change? That's the power of mobile – putting your business front and center whenever anyone in your area is looking for chiropractic care. Suddenly, you're the answer to their needs and they come looking for you week in and week out.
Extra Perks
Another layer of mobile marketing that will add to your business and your prestige over time is the way that mobile connects back with social review systems. Testimonials, feedback, and reviews of your business will pop up right along with your address and contact information when you've got your mobile marketing done right. Every one of these data points builds a case for seeing you as the chiropractor of choice, and you don't have to spend extra money to get them.
It's a form of word-of-mouth marketing that is exploding online. When Google first rolled out its "Places" and "Local" applications, analysts wondered if the public would really use the review features. Have they ever! People have shown no shyness in sharing their experiences, and studies have shown that prospects give these kinds of reviews increasing weight as they try to make their decisions about which businesses to patronize.
That unsolicited advertising for your business is there for you day and night. Its not like radio spots or newspaper advertising that really only works during regular business hours. When your prospective clients are laying awake at night with back or neck pain, they're much more likely to be on their phones. Your well-developed mobile profile, backed by online social media commentary, is there for them when they need it. Midnight recognition isn't the only perk. Your prestige also increases with the development of a good mobile marketing presence. You look more like a "real doctor" in the eyes of the doubting public. Each mention, each profile, and each campaign cements your status as a true professional in the eyes of your potential patients, no matter what nonsense the local medical community is spouting about chiropractic at the moment. You get to use your mobile marketing to rise above all that and get patients coming to you who already believe you have the legitimate tools to help them get better.
Expert help is available
Of course, there would be no point to all this imagining and promotion of a better business model if the tools weren't out there to help you get it done. Let's face it – you trained to be a doctor, not an online expert! The systems already exist to put mobile marketing to work for you. All you need to do is reach out and sign yourself up to see your business marketing model be transformed by people who really know what they're doing when it comes to growing new patient lists for chiropractors. Once you've signed up, your main daily task will be caring for the new clients you're going to have and enjoying the benefits of an enhanced reputation in your community.
You've spent enough time trying to grow your business on your own. What it takes to drive new patient acquisition for chiropractors in the modern age fits in the palm of your hand. With a good partner, you can leverage the power of mobile marketing to drive more of the 51 million smart phone owners to your door, into your practice, and onto the adjusting table regularly. These patients will seek you out ready and willing to pay for your expertise. You'll be able to grow your business, spend less time chasing clients, and get more time doing what you do best – helping patients and providing outstanding chiropractic care.
