180 Chiropractors your marketing strategy may be incomplete

Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast.  

This week’s topic:  Chiropractors Your Marketing Strategy May Be Incomplete

The KC CHIROpulse Podcast is designed for Chiropractic professionals ready to elevate their practice to new heights and is hosted by Kats Consultants CEO, Dr. Michael Perusich.  Perusich is a seasoned expert in Chiropractic care and business development.  This podcast provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies to help you create a flourishing and sustainable Chiropractic business.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why your marketing strategy may not be enough to get patients to accept care
• Why proper patient communication on day one and day two is so important
• How to convert the right patients from prospects to lifetime patients
• How doctors negatively impact their success by avoiding one important business tactic
• …and so much more…

In each episode of KC CHIROpulse, we delve into crucial aspects of building a successful Chiropractic practice, covering topics such as establishing a strong foundation, adopting a patient-centric approach, mastering marketing techniques, achieving financial fitness, fostering effective team building and leadership, integrating technology and innovation, and navigating common challenges in the field.

Whether you're a seasoned chiropractor or just starting your practice, the KC CHIROpulse Podcast offers a wealth of knowledge and practical advice to help you navigate the intricate world of Chiropractic business. Join us on this journey as we explore proven strategies, share success stories, and connect with industry experts to empower you in your pursuit of building a thriving Chiropractic practice.

Don't miss out on the latest insights and expert guidance. Subscribe now and unlock the secrets to taking your Chiropractic practice to the next level. Your success is our priority at Kats Chiropractic Business Advisors.

DISCLAIMER:  The information presented in this broadcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to offer legal, investment, accounting, or medical advice.  Seek the consultation of a professional for advice in those areas. And remember…your results using this information may be different than described.

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Transcript

Dr. Michael Perusich: 0:00

Doctors, how is your marketing strategy? Hi, everybody. Welcome to the KC Chiro Pulse podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants and Chiro Health USA. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Perusich. And as you can see, I'm alone in the studio today. So we're going to have a deep dive talk about marketing strategy. I know everybody's out there always trying to look for new ways to market and effective ways to market and ways to bring new patients in the door. But I want to talk about this from. A little bit different perspective. I want to talk about aligning your marketing strategy a little bit more synergistically in your practice. So what am I talking about? If we just put our entrepreneur hats on for a minute, and I know I'm going to get hate mail for this, but just go with me here. If we put our entrepreneur hats on for just a minute, marketing is only a small piece of what we need to be doing to attract patients, to build profitability in our practices and create lifetime patients who stay, pay, refer, and believe in what we do. That's really the goal. The goal is not. To just bring new patients in the door. It's to bring new patients in that will stay paper for and believe in what we do. That makes sense. I know you guys agree with that process, but here's what I see happening all the time. I see doctors out there falling prey and I'm not saying that these programs are bad. So don't send your hate mail that I said, marketing programs are bad. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that at all. They may be very good at getting new patients to your door, But your strategy doesn't stop there. That's like the patient who comes in and they have nine out of 10 back pain. And what do they want? They want you to adjust them one time and they're going to be all better. Okay. It doesn't work that way. And neither does your marketing strategy. It doesn't stop it getting new patients to the front door. So I want to break this down just a little bit and give you at least my thoughts and maybe they're just random thoughts, but I can tell you it's valid because we see this in practices and the ones that really build that great marketing strategy, you're shooting the lights out. So here's the thing, actually, I'm going to hold that thought for just a second. We're going to break here for just a second, take a word from one of our sponsors and we'll be right back. So what we're doing is we're talking about marketing strategy and how to connect the dots. So we'll be right back. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the KC carapults podcast. I'm Dr. Michael Paroosh, and we're talking about connecting the dots on our marketing strategy. So what I was talking about before the break was the fact that marketing doesn't end with getting the new patient to the front door. So I want to talk about the different types of new patients. Now, I don't mean you're going to have new patients that some have neck pain, some have back pain, some have shoulder pain. I'm talking about rigid, cold, new patients versus. Warm to hot new patients. Okay. And there's a. Huge difference between the two. So what do I mean by that? So the ones that are driven to your practice by a lot of the marketing companies they're frigid, cold, new patients, because those people don't know you, they don't have a relationship with you. They probably don't even know anybody that has a relationship with you. So they're just coming to you blind and cold because they've been attracted by a marketing message that resonated with them. They felt like they wanted to see if you could help them with some health need. Okay. So it makes sense. But because they're so cold, they have no expectation of what your practice is about, what your vision is, what your why is, why are you in practice? Why do you do what you do? They have no connection with your staff. They don't, they have No idea what to expect when they come to your practice. So they walk in the door with these preconceived ideas of what it should be like. And what do our, a lot of our, what are not our, but what do a lot of. Potential new patients here, what do they do before they come in and they ask people, have you been to a chiropractor before? Oh yeah, I go once a month. I go every six weeks. I go four times a year. That's what they're hearing. So most people, when they talk about chiropractic care, who have been to chiropractors and had success with chiropractic care, they have forgotten that it's If you come in the door in pain, you may be on a fairly extensive treatment plan for a while before you get to that point where you're once a quarter, those should never happen, but that's another podcast. But you know what I'm saying? They forget about that part. So they're telling their friends, their buddies, Oh yeah, chiropractic is great. I'd go once a month. So that cold new patient comes in your door expecting, Oh I'm just going to have to come once a month. But you uncovered that nine out of 10 back pain. They've got a grade three spondylolisthesis. They've got a right posterior ileum. They've got sciatic down the left leg. They've got this. Treatment or condition syndrome that needs extensive treatment. And so you're left trying to unwind that expectation of, Oh, I'm only going to have to go in once a month. And that's only if that's what their expectation is. Okay. And again, that's a whole nother podcast, that topic right there, just in and of itself. So you've got these coldly patients coming in the front door. What is your strategy to get them to become full fledged agreed upon treatment plan patients who go all the way through care and come out the back end and stay for maintenance or wellness care, whatever you call it. What are you doing to make that happen? Okay. So now let's talk about the warmly patient. All right. So what happens with the warmly? The warmly patient is totally different. They already have an expectation of what your practice is about. They know people that go to your practice. They may know you personally or somebody on your staff. They already have a bit of a relationship with you. Their family may come to you and they're the last one. Mohican, if you will, coming in to be part of that practice experience. So there, when they get to the front door that they're staying, whatever you recommend they're doing. So how do you handle that patient and get them to agree upon a treatment plan and all the way through treatment and into maintenance or wellness care? It's a totally different process, but we oftentimes are applying the same strategy to both that frigid, cold, and hot. New patient, and we have to change that process. So we're going to take another quick little break here and hear from one of our sponsors. And I want to come back and I want to talk about what that difference is. And this is where you're going to want to send me hate mail probably because. You're not, you, some of you aren't going to like what I'm going to say, but it's the reality of owning a business. And I don't care what businesses it is. It's not just chiropractic care. You have to do this one thing. So we'll be right back.

7:07

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Dr. Michael Perusich: 8:06

Okay, everybody, we are back and we are talking about marketing and we're talking about the difference between your marketing strategy for a new, a cold lead, new patient and a hot lead, new patient. Okay. And I've already explained what the difference is there. So here's the difference. And it's not a four letter word, but it's five letter word. And it's a word that a lot of doctors don't like to hear marketing is what brings people to the door. Okay. If that's all you do, and that's what these marketing companies out there do. They get the patient to the door, but what's your strategy? What are your tactics to get the patient to stay and accept your treatment plan? Okay. And think about it. Maybe you did a promotion. If you're working with a marketing company, a lot of them recommend a promotional rate. Let's just pick something 49. Okay. So your regular fee maybe is 99. So it's 50 off. They're getting their first day services for 49 or their first day exam for 49. But then what happens after the exam, you have formulated a diagnosis. And along with that diagnosis goes An appropriate treatment plan, which might be six visits, 12 visits, 18, 24, whatever the patient needs. Okay. And so they came in for 49. That was their expectation was the 49. They don't know anything else beyond that point. And then all of a sudden we lay out this beautiful, wonderful treatment plan. That's going to help them and get them out of pain and back to function. And we're going to talk about maintenance care at some point and blah, blah, blah. And they're going, Whoa, wait a minute. We all of a sudden went from 49 to 2, 500. How did that happen? And we shocked them and it almost feels a little bait and switchy to the patient. Sometimes, okay, what we have to do is we have to implore, okay, here comes the word we have to implore sales techniques. I know Dr. Parish just said sales. I didn't become a doctor just to have to sell. No. You became an entrepreneur, which means you're willing to do whatever it takes to create profitability in your practice and to have the lifestyle that you want in the story. So don't forget that part. If you don't own the practice that you're in a different position, but if you own the practice, that's what you signed up for. You signed up to do whatever it takes to not only get patients well, but to build a business that supports you and your family and the lifestyle you want. So we have to make the strategy synergistic. So marketing brings them to the door, but. But it's sales tells people why they need to stay. It's the sales strategy, the sales tactics that help people understand the benefits that you're going to offer them. Now it's not twisting their arm and doing something they don't need to do. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about, selling them something they don't need. But if we don't bring that sales component into the picture. Our marketing doesn't work. And so I want you to think about your marketing differently. I want you to think about your marketing from a standpoint of a, of the cost per new patient. Okay. How much does your marketing cost per patient? Excuse me, per patient. So let's say, for example, you spend 2, 500. Okay, and you bring in 10 new patients. I'm just making up numbers. Okay, we'll just make it easy here. You bring in 10 new patients because that's about the average of what a a marketing plan will bring in a cold lead marketing plan will bring in about 10 patients that we'll get to the exam. Okay. So those 10 came in and they paid 49. All right. So you netted a gross net of 490, right? 10 patients paying 49 is 490. You paid 2500 to get that 490. Okay. So think of it as an investment. What's my return? I paid 2500, but I only got back 20 percent of it. Okay. Now, what if all 10 of those patients drop out? Now your marketing expense is over 2, 000 right out the door. You lost to 2, 000 a little over. Okay. So we have to think about it in those terms. So we need. That sales component to make our marketing dollars work. Otherwise they're just coming to the door, falling out, coming into the door, falling out, coming to the door, falling out. We don't want that to happen. So how do we keep them to engage in care? It's simple sales techniques. It's doing a proper report of findings. And if you're a client, you know how to do a proper report of findings. It's. Ethically and honestly explaining care to the patient, and it's preparing them from the first phone call. So where's your staff in the process? That's part of the synergy. They need to be involved in the process because they are part of that marketing sales process. process to get the patient to agree to care. So they need to be qualifying patients up front. You need to be using your no surprises that good faith estimates to show patients the value of care, which in my opinion, that GFE was the greatest thing since sliced cheese for the chiropractic practice because it brings transparency to the table. So beautifully. But if you're not imploring all these things, then your marketing isn't gonna work. And we see this time and time again. I see doctors spending money on marketing that they hope is gonna work and it does work. It brings the patient to the door. But if they all drop out, it's not effective. It's costing you money. So That was the point of what I wanted to talk about today. That if your marketing's costing you money, if patients are coming to the door, but dropping out, or they're maybe never actually getting to the door, they've called and made an appointment, but they never show up. That happens too. You need to change your tactics and part of sales. Most of sales really is, it's just communication. It's just learning how to communicate properly. With today's patients and today's patients are different than patients were five years ago. And it's not just a pandemic that changed that. So consumer buying habits, if you will change over time, we have to change with that. So it used to be that we would have to do these big dog and pony shows, spinal care classes, those kind of things and teach patients about chiropractic care. It's not the case anymore. So we're going to change our communication strategies. In a way different manner. So I didn't mean to knock you off knock you off the road today with that sales concept. But I just want you guys to understand that you're doing a good job, probably marketing, getting the word out about you, but you've got to have the sales component built into it. So patients understand why they need you. And that's really the end of the story. So if you're struggling with these kinds of concepts, go to Kats, consultants. com, check out some of the things that we're doing for clients to really help them bridge these gaps, create that synergy, build the tactics that really bring profitability to your practice. And help you build that wonderful lifestyle that chiropractic can do for the chiropractic entrepreneur. So go check us out at Kats consultants. com. Be sure to subscribe, share the podcast. You guys, our podcast is growing like crazy and it's all because of you guys out there. So we really appreciate you. And if you ever want to just jump on a call and talk about your practice, we do that for free. We look, we're doctors. We love talking to doctors. We're just here to help. That's our, why is to help you build a successful and profitable practice. Okay. Enough about us. So thanks everybody for tuning in today to the KC Chiropulse podcast, brought to you by Kats consultants and Chiro health USA. We will see you next time.

16:20

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