As a chiropractor and small business owner, you often do not have the time or resources to devote to marketing. What you need are effective and efficient methods to market your practice in just a few hours or less week. A successful chiropractic marketing strategy can easily be started in just one month by breaking up the plan into small chunks of time.
In addition to getting results, a successful marketing plan should be streamlined for efficiency. A strong online marketing strategy for a chiropractic practice is well balanced and covers the foundational elements. These elements include a professional website that is user-friendly, an engaging social media presence and video. These foundational pieces should all be connected to maximize benefits and to provide patients with a great user experience. Here is a week-by-week guide to help you execute a strong strategy.
Website Overhaul: Week 1
Estimated time: 1.5 hours
While a website overhaul may sound like an intensive undertaking, it can be completed in less than two hours. There are three audiences you need consider before you revamp your website: current patients, future patients and search engines. Many people aren't aware that there are simple things you can do to help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and make the site more user-friendly. You only need to set aside 1.5 hours to complete these simple tasks.
To begin, look through your website and verify that your business name, address and phone number (NAP) are correct. If they are listed in multiple spots on the website, be sure that they all match exactly. While verifying that your NAP is consistent, check and make sure it is also highly visible. This makes it easy for site visitors to call your practice.
Next, add clear and professional photos of you, your staff and your office. Only use clear pictures that can be easily viewed. Potential clients will want to see you, your office and your staff. Non-stock photos personalize the experience for the user and build trust with a patient before they visit your practice.
Check all the hyperlinks on your website to be sure they all work. You will be penalized by search engines for broken links and it leaves users with a bad impression. Remove any links that do not work. Best Practice Tip: have the hyperlinks that take users to another website open in a new browser window so that users are not taken away from your site.
Lastly, write a short biography of yourself and ask your staff members to do the same. Share your credentials, experience and something interesting about yourself. Things like how many kids you have or special hobbies are always great ideas. Add these bios to your website next to any photos. The basic website overhaul is complete.
Get Social: Week 2
Estimated time: 1.5 hours
Social media has become not just a place for socializing with friends, but a place where users choose to interact with businesses. In fact, 80% of people prefer to connect with brands through Facebook (Business2Community, 2012). Your patients want to connect with you and social media is the perfect way to that. There is something in it for businesses as well: increased reach. Due to the nature of social media, anything that a chiropractor posts can be seen by non-followers when followers engage with it. This means the practice is reaching a broad audience, rather than just its own patients.
Set aside about 1.5 hours to get your social media up and running. Select which social media sites you would like to concentrate on because having a business page on every social network is impractical. The most popular networks (with the most users) are Facebook, Twitter and Google+. However, if you share a lot of products, recipes or exercises, Pinterest may be the network for your practice. If you are posting daily motivational photos, Instagram may be the best fit. If your time is extremely limited, focusing on Facebook is your best bet.
Each social network, except Twitter, requires a personal profile before you can set up a business page. So start by setting up a personal profile if you don't already have one. Then set up your business page for your practice. Best Practice Tip: Always set up a business page that reflects the name of your practice for SEO and tracking purposes.
When setting up social media, have your website up in another browser window. Use the same elements, logos, photos and colors that you use on your website to keep your branding consistent. If you still have some time left after setting up your social media, go ahead and start using it. Start posting, adding followers, following others and exploring.
[pb]Lights, Camera, Action: Week 3
Estimated time: Between 2-3 hours
Shooting video will be the biggest time commitment of the month, but will also provide a big impact. If you own an iPhone, Android phone or even a digital camera with video capabilities, shooting video will be a snap. Video is important for local businesses because it reaches a broad audience, builds trust in the viewer, communicates a lot of information, increases conversions and improves overall SEO.
Start with a video of you explaining your services. Potential patients want to see who the doctor is and what he or she has to offer. Best Practice Tip: Keep the video less than two minutes long for maximum views and retention. Next, shoot video of different services you provide. A great idea is to show you with a patient. Lastly, shoot video of your patients giving testimonials. Ask patients to focus on their experience and success. Don't worry about uploading the videos at this time since you will handle that in Week 4.
Connect the Dots: Week 4
Estimated time: 1-2 hours
In the final week of your month long implementation strategy, you will tie all of your efforts together to craft a cohesive online presence. Connecting all these elements first and foremost, provides for a great user experience and second, positively affects your SEO.
Start off by linking your social media sites to your website and vice versa. Each social media site will have a clear spot for your website address. Once you have completed that, add links from your website to your social media sites. This allows current patients to easily connect with you on social media and allows potential patients to learn more about your practice from your social media business page.
Next, upload your video and testimonials to your website. An easy way to do this is to upload the videos to a video sharing site like YouTube, Vimeo or MetaCafé and then embed the videos on your website. While you can add all of your patient video testimonials to one page, spread out any other videos across different pages on the website.
Once the video is up on your website, get the word out to get more views. Share the video on your social media sites so your followers can watch the videos. Ask them to "Watch our new video" or "Check out Dr. Kevin providing an adjustment." And that's it, you have completed your one month marketing push. The last thing you need to do is keep up the great work. Set aside a short amount of time each week to check in on your social media, look over your website and shoot any video.
When implementing a marketing plan, it improves efficiency and efficacy to have a clear strategy and goals. Building a strong online presence enables chiropractors to connect with existing patients (retention) and reach new patients (marketing). Once you have created your marketing strategy, stick to the schedule and goals. Be realistic about the strategy and slowly grow it as your time and resources allow.
Continuing to impress the advertising and marketing world, The Foundation for Chiropractic Progress (F4CP) has again been recognized by industry organizations for its excellence in educating consumers on the benefits of chiropractic, this time through social media, newsletters, and demonstrating thought leadership by promoting holistic well-being.
Dr. Louis Sportelli received the Lee-Homewood Chiropractic Heritage Award during the annual conference of the Association for the History of Chiropractic (AHC). During his nearly 60-year career, Dr. Sportelli has embodied the spirit of the award, given to “living individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the chiropractic profession.”
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