How Much Should My Ad Budget Be?
Let’s start by managing your expectations right now. Because the most common ad budgeting mistake is… Expecting to spend $200 and get 20 new patients. What that’s also saying is “I want to spend $200 on ads and make $20,000 in new patient revenue.” Well who doesn’t want to do that? It’s just not realistic. I know you’ve seen this type of “claim” on your newsfeed. We packed this chiropractors office with 67 “new patient opportunities” on only $67 in ad spend. Do you really believe it? It’s certainly easy to get sucked into the hype of it. And maybe it happened once for someone… but come on… you know better. So how much should you budget to get the result you want? And this math is strictly for the chiropractic profession. We have a HUGE advantage with our case fees and “pain” niche. You should be willing to spend $200 in ad spend to get ONE new patient. And some chiropractors will cringe when they see that number. But are you willing to spend $200 to get a patient that is worth $2,000 (not counting any referrals they send you)? I’ll spend that all day. We are extremely spoiled in our profession. And when you follow the chiropractic marketing “funnels” that I’ve laid out in previous posts you’ll see that over time your ad spend will go even further. But you have to be ready to start at the lower end of ROI. So why do so many chiropractors spend $200 or more on ad spend and NOT GET NEW PATIENTS? I could go on for days answering this question. But I’ll give you the short answers and bullet points. You don’t understand your prospect and what they really want. Spend time asking your current patients what is causing them to lay awake at night. They will tell you EXACTLY what to put in your ads, landing pages, seminars, workshops etc. You don’t test ads and your conversion process long enough. I see people running an ad and spending $12 without getting a new patient and they ask what’s wrong with the ad. Nothing may be wrong with the ad. Your prospects have to go through a buying sequence of their own. If the ad is new and they’ve never seen you before or chiropractic for kids or headaches is new to them… they need more info and more time to process that info before they call your office. You don’t retarget the people that have engaged with your ad and keep showing them the “front end” ad. When someone engages your ad you want to start showing them a different set of ads that are kinda like a follow up to the first ad. This is your opportunity to walk them down a path of what they can expect if they come into your office. You get shiny object syndrome and start running ads like your competitor just because you see them running ads. That doesn’t mean they are having any better success than you are. Different parts of your entire conversion process may be jacked. The process may go something like this. Click ad (is it clear you want them too?)…Read article or watch video (do you have a clear call to action of what you want them to do now? Call your office? Schedule online? Tell them what to do.)Answer phone and actually schedule new patient. You really should listen to your staff answer the phone. I’ve seen and heard so many receptionists do a great job of answering questions on the phone only to NEVER ask them to schedule an appointment. Their entire job is to schedule appointments. Make it clear to them. Okay… so that’s the long version of how much you should be budgeting to get new patients from the internet. But you need to understand the entire process so you can manage your expectations. Once you do that you will have much greater success and see a nice ROI. If you’re not willing to do it all yourself please find someone and outsource it so you can continue to grow your practice. The inter webs isn’t going away anytime soon.
Part 2: Why Your Facebook Ads Aren’t Working
Why Your Ads Aren’t Converting – Part 2 I recently wrote a post about why your Facebook and other online ads aren’t “converting” from clicks into customers. And as I go back thru the set up of my own ads I realize there’s something more that goes into the conversion process that the vast majority never even address. So this probably should be part 1… but here we are. Read the rest of this post… then go back and read part 1 and you’ll be all set. So outside of everything from the previous post… Why aren’t your ads converting? You don’t understand your customer. The vast majority of chiropractors understand the body and how it works. They understand how they address different pain issues in their office. They understand how to find subluxations and how to adjust (most really need more skills in this area but that’s for another day) You even understand how to adapt your protocols when someone isn’t responding like you want. But you don’t really understand the patient when they are still a prospect and what they really want. So you need to dig really deep into who your patient is… and what they really want. And how do you do that? LISTEN! Listen to what they are saying to you. When it comes to pain we all know they want to get out of pain. That’s the no brainer. But dig deeper into why they want to get out of pain. One of my friends does a fantastic job with knee pain. And when I watch the video testimonials he produces I listen to what the patients say it starts to give you clues about what you can use in your marketing to really draw them in to see your message. “I want to be able to dance again.” “I want to be able to climb stairs without pain.” “I want to be able to walk my dog around the block again.” One women wanted to go on a cruise with her husband but he didn’t want to go unless she could walk around with him on the cruise and excursions. So she wanted out of pain so that she could walk normally and climb stairs. Now take that and use that in your marketing. Ask your prospects what they really want and the talk about the things that they really want in your entire marketing message from ad to landing page to retargeting. After you have your message dialed in to what they want… you need to focus on WHO wants it. Most chiropractors (and their “marketers”) try to market their message to everyone. And keep in mind that when it comes to paid ads… Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter, Instagram, and every other platform shows your message to who you tell them to show it to. That’s their only job. It’s your job to tell them the right people and then of course it’s your job to convert them into appointments and paying patients. So make sure you know EXACTLY who you want to talk to. Going back to the knee pain doc friend of mine. We only show his message to people that are over 40 years old. Sure there’s people under 40 that have knee pain… but after testing the audience we know that that HIGH percentage of people that schedule appointments and pay cash are over 40. So take some time and put together a real good new patient avatar for EVERY niche that you market for. Don’t think that each one is the same. Start with one and test and get it converting. Now scale it and move on to another niche. Drop a comment if you have questions.
Why Your Facebook Ads Aren’t Working
Chiropractors are spending 1,000’s and 1,000’s of dollars on Facebook ads and marketing. Yet the vast majority of conversations in chiropractic Facebook groups is “how can I get this ad to convert”. So my question is… Is it really the ad? Or are you not following the rules of what it really takes to get a new patient to call and come into your office? I’m going to say it’s the latter. In a previous post I shared “The Perfect Chiropractic Ad Strategy”. And if you follow it you will have great success. But too many chiropractors think the ad strategy is a snapshot in time. You must take into account the entire buying/deciding process that your prospective patient goes through before making the decision to call you. So here’s the process so you can see where you’re dropping the ball… because it’s not the prospect… and it’s certainly not “bad leads” which I’ve heard way to many times. And keep in mind this is only a linear process and there’s no way I can paint the entire picture for you… but you’ll get the point and your process will improve. I’ll start with the process that someone may go through for something like back pain. Most people realize that chiropractic can help with back pain. Prospect sees your back pain ad. If they have back pain it may catch their attention. If you’re doing a “$27 Coupon” they may even click on the ad. If you’re driving them to a piece of content “3 Ways To Overcome Back Pain Without Medications or Surgery” (which I recommend here)… they may click over to the content. But maybe they have back pain that comes and goes and the day they see your ad their back pain is only a 2 out of 10 pain level. They’re not really motivated to click a link or take an offer. So you have to continue showing your ad to that person until they are at a higher pain level that drives them to take action. More pain… typically more action. If someone is a 7 out of 10 pain level they are much more likely to click a link or take an offer. So let’s say they’ve seen the ad… they’re motivated enough to click the link… they’ve read the content that explains the problem and solution… now what? They may believe what you’ve written (or said in a video)… but they’re skeptical. Because you’re not the first person that has promised them back pain relief. Everyday the mainstream media shows them pain relief in the form of a lotion, potion or pill. Their medical doctor is prescribing something even stronger by pill or injection. And then there’s the recommendation for surgery to cut out their “problem.” So why in the hell would they believe your nicely written article about chiropractic and back pain? What would make them see it and believe that you’re going to be different than all the other commercials and doctors that have lied to them to this point? Now they research. Not so much the chiropractic part… but more the CHIROPRACTOR part. They go online and start looking at your reviews across multiple platforms. They look at Facebook, Google, Yelp (like them or not), they ask their friends. They research you to see what other people are saying. They want something to prove you are a douche so that they don’t have to call you. So you must build your reputation with great online reviews… and then you must market your reputation. If you’re not getting several new reviews online EVERY WEEK… you’re hurting yourself. Prospects want to see recent and relevant reviews. So they clicked the ad… they read your article… they got skeptical… they researched YOU… now what? Relationship and Social Proof! If you really want to get in the game of Facebook ads and other paid advertising you have to think longer term. To many chiropractors quit way too early. We know the pain may go away temporarily but unless they correct the problem it will keep returning. So you need to keep showing up with your marketing until they take action. You need to continue with online reviews and you need to keep showing up with the ongoing content that I mention in “The Perfect Chiropractic Ad Strategy”. You have to build your relationship with them over time and you have to show up when the say enough is enough. And everyone hits that point at a different time. Simply employ this strategy with each niche you want to go after and you will never have a problem with new patients. And better yet… these new patients convert at a much higher level that coupon grabbers. They already know, like and trust you because of your marketing. They have seen you in action and they’re ready to commit.
The Perfect Chiropractic Ad Campaign Strategy
That’s a pretty dang loaded title right there. Is there really such a thing as the perfect ad campaign strategy? Well nothing is perfect… but this is REALLY close. And I know you’re curious about what it is because I get emails and Facebook messages all the time about with this very question. So let’s dig in. And remember the one key word I’m really talking about right here… STRATEGY! The strategy is more important than the ad campaign or the ad network. And I’ll make mention of this right now so it’s out of the way. If you are ONLY running Facebook ads and putting all your eggs in one basket… you’re making a giant mistake. Facebook can be a fantastic network to run ads on for your chiropractic office. But they are a changin’. Facebook is putting more attention back into their user experience. They want their users to enjoy being on the platform again without being inundated with ads. And because of this they’ve met their max ad load. That means they don’t want to cram more ads into your newsfeed/timeline because Facebook users are getting pissed. So ad prices will go up and ad guidelines are getting more strict. ESPECIALLY in the healthcare field. You can’t say some of the things you used to say… they are censoring us. So diversify. Look into Google Display Network (GDN) and YouTube. Drop a comment or shoot me an email if you want to know where to learn these ad networks from the pros that spend millions a month on them. Sooo… back to this perfect strategy that works on any network you choose. It starts with the first click or interaction with cold traffic. It can be a click on a Facebook ad, GDN ad, YouTube Ad etc. It can also be a like, comment, video view etc on a post. Right now my favorite is getting the click over to the website (primarily for GDN). Once I get the click I send them to a well written piece of content that explains EVERYTHING about what they came for. For example… the ad might be “3 Foods That Trigger Migraines and Make Them Last Longer”. Then in that blog post I will explain exactly that… AND… I will go on and talk about how a subluxation can cause migraines and well and it may be the root cause. Then of course you offer your call to action to get them to call your office for an appointment. And here’s one of the most common mistakes I see right now. People using the “squeeze page” to try and capture an email address in trade for the “3 secrets” ebook/report. It used be a lot greater value to have that email so you can follow up with your new prospect to try and get them to take action. The cash is in the follow up right? Yes… and when I got started with direct response marketing I did it thru good old fashioned USPS mail. And it would still work today better than I see some people LOL. But today you have something called a “pixel”. And with this pixel you can follow up with your website/blog/report visitor with retargeting ads ALL OVER THE INTERNET. And you can follow up in some really cool ways. That’s a topic for another post entirely so keep an eye on this blog. So get the click to your valuable and 100% transparent piece of content that reveals everything they need to know and what they need to do next to solve their problem. And then follow up with retargeting. And this is where I come in with click, engagement and video ads of social proof. There are two kinds of social proof that I like to use. #1… you and your patient in the view and they share their story about how bad they were when they came in… and how fantastic they are now. Pretty straight forward. #2… Daily 1-2 minute treatment style videos that turn into a testimonial and social proof. It’s simply you checking and adjusting patients. You have a conversation about “Mary” while you’re working on her. “Hey it’s Dr. Uhrmacher here. I’m here with Mary. Mary first started coming in to see us for migraines. She struggled for about 6 years before find us for chiropractic care. She had tried medications and even had some injections in her neck to get rid of the pain. Some of those worked for a day or two but she kept getting migraines about 3x a month. When she came in we found a subluxation in her upper neck that was causing irritation of the nerves and causing the migraines. We started working on that area and it’s been quite awhile since she’s had a migraine. Do you know how long it’s been?” Mary – “It’s been about 4 months”. You – “That’s awesome to hear. So if you are struggling with migraines or headaches… or know someone that is… please give us a call to schedule your appointment.” It’s that simple. And you record and publish AT LEAST ONE EVERY DAY! Then you show those as retargeting ads to the people that clicked over to your initial post/report. And that’s it. Get the click to great content… then retarget with social proof. You never know when someones “pain/why” becomes great enough that they will take action and call you. Everyone is different. I will put together some future posts to go deeper on the content, retargeting, the offer and more.
