MODERN CHIROPRACTIC MARKETING ROAD MAP: Part 4 “The Destination”

As the saying goes, “failing to have a plan is planning to fail.”

A common mistake that many Chiropractors and business owners make is always being reactive in their marketing and not proactive. They notice a lull in their schedule and then rush to implement a marketing tactic or campaign to get new patients in the door. Potentially they get busy enough again and then slack off on the marketing until it happens again. This yo-yo effect in practice is frustrating and hinders optimal growth.

You need to be proactive in your marketing, and it doesn’t have to be difficult. It should be painless and easy to implement.

Here is the key process in being proactive instead of reactive in your marketing:

 Marketing Planning Order

  • Yearly

  • Quarterly

  • Monthly Editorial Calendar

 Developing Your Marketing Plan

Throughout the year, you will sit down at certain times to design your clinic’s, or if you are an associate, your marketing plan.

  • At the end of the year, you will plan out your next year’s marketing.

  • At the end of each Quarter, you will plan out the upcoming Quarter’s marketing plan.

  • At the end of each month, you will fill out the upcoming month’s editorial calendar.

This will keep you proactive and not reactive. You need to sit down with your internal team members and external marketing providers for each of the above planning sessions.

Once the plan is in place, you need to reference it often to make sure you are staying ahead of your content creation, distribution, and campaigns.

Before we dive into the planning details, I want to leave you with this tip. I know you are a doctor. I know you are extremely busy, and being a marketer perhaps isn’t high on your list. I don’t want you to beat yourself up if you miss a FB post, or a Video, or miss one month of writing a blog. Just recognize it and get the next one accomplished. Secondly, my goal is for you at some point soon is to have other people do this for you. You may not be able to afford it or don’t have the staff capabilities yet, but if you stick with the marketing road map, you will in no time.

Monthly Editorial Calendar

The editorial calendar is where you gain clarity on the content topics you will create, the type of content such as video, blogs, email, etc. You will then choose the audience that you are targeting and key planning aspects such as who is to create the content, by when, who will edit it, etc. This is your dashboard for your monthly content marketing creation.

 The Indicator Scorecard

The Indicator Scorecard is a quarterly tracker of stats for your business. As the saying goes, “What gets measured gets done,” I believe tracking certain key performance indicators is vital for your business growth.

I like the break down the key performance indicators into Leading and Trailing Indicators

  • Trailing or Lagging indicators are confirming a pattern that is in progress.

  • Leading indicators are considered to point toward future events.

 Examples of Trailing Indicators for your practice consist of, but are not limited to:

  • New Patients per week, month, etc.

  • Office visits per day, week, month, etc.

  • Patient Reactivation’s

  • Monthly Revenue

  • Monthly Profit

  • Google Reviews

  • Office Visit Average

  • Patient Visit Average

  • New patient value

  • YouTube Subscribers

  • Facebook Business Page Likes

  • Instagram Followers

Examples of Leading Indicators for your practice consist of, but are not limited to:

  • Number of Blogs written per month

  • Videos recorded per month

  • MD marketing/networking per quarter

  • Attorney meetings/networking per quarter

  • FB ads run per month

  • Instagram posts per week

  • FB business page posts per week

  • Networking/Events

The Marketing Budget

In traditional marketing circles, there is a common thought of spending 10% of your monthly revenue on marketing. If your practice generates 30k per month in top-line revenue, then you would spend $3,000 on all marketing related aspects.

I think this is lazy thinking and doesn’t tell the entire story for businesses and Chiropractors. For instance, I have seen Chiropractors who have invested more in amazing team members, associate Chiropractors, their practice systems, and the overall patient experience than most other Chiropractors are willing to do. I have also seen Chiropractors who do invest 3-6k per month in marketing but have a dysfunctional patient experience and/or team around them. That high ad spend scenario is a reaction to always having to have more and more new patients because they don’t keep enough loyal patients and don’t generate enough patient referrals.

So, who is right? The Chiropractor who invests 10% towards marketing but doesn’t invest enough in their practice team and patient experience? Or the Chiropractor who spends 3% on marketing but heavily invests in the team and patient experience?

 Planning Your Marketing Budget

When planning your monthly and/or quarterly marketing budget, you need to take into consideration all expenses related to marketing, not just ad spend. A common mistake I see is a chiropractor hiring a marketing agency for $1500/month and not realizing that they will also need to spend $500-1000 per month on Facebook and Google Ad spend.

Here is a short list of typical marketing expenses for a Chiropractic office.

  • Google Ads

  • Facebook Ads

  • Website expenses

  • Fiverr Work

  • Email Platform

  • Marketing agencies

  • Direct Mail Campaigns

  • Graphic Design

  • Print

 If you follow the Road map, you will get more bang for your buck. We want you to be very intentional with your marketing and ad spend.  Don’t flippantly spend money on marketing just so you can say you are spending a certain percentage of your monthly revenue on your marketing.         

Kevin ChristieComment