Is your digital marketing plan out of alignment?
If you are a chiropractor in need of more patients, some simple adjustments in your online marketing plan could yield big results without spending a lot of time or money.
Here are 5 tips to help you get more patients and turn them into raving fans.
1 Create a customer profile with these two main categories.
- Demographics. Demographics include things like age, gender, geographic location.
- Psychographics. Psychographics are, in a large part, the interest of your ideal patient (customer). Write these down even if it seems unrelated to the chiropractic industry.
Why is this important? By conducting simple surveys about your existing patient database, you will start to see patterns of age, gender, hobbies, and interests. Then you will be able to take that data and focus your digital marketing efforts on that particular group of people.
Facebook reveals data such as demographics and psychographics to help small business owners such as chiropractors find new patients. It’s called Audience Insights. Here’s a link to more information about it.
2 Use social media differently than your competitors.
What I mean by this is there are so many small business owners in [geocity] (chiropractors included) that have no idea how to use social media the right way to attract clients.
For the record; when I say “social media”, I am usually referring to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. However, if you could only start with one, I would highly recommend Facebook.
Okay, so you’re asking yourself, “How do I do that?”
I’m going to answer that question. But first, let’s talk for a minute about the metrics that are typically used to measure success on social media. Engagement is a term used to describe the actions that people take in relation to your Facebook page. Likes, comments, and shares are the common stats that are used to determine if a post is successful.
Engagement is difficult for “boring” businesses like Chiropractors (no offense). 🙂 I’m willing to bet that you may only get one or two likes and IF you’re lucky, one comment on your Facebook posts. If this is accurate, social media has little to no impact on your business. But that doesn’t have to be the case!
Experience tells me that the following types of posts have more engagement.
Consistency: Posts such as #ThrowbackThursday or #FreebieFriday are posts made every Thursday and Friday respectively. When your Facebook fans expect these types of posts, they start to look for them. You don’t have to come up with something everyday but consistency pays off in the long run.
Questions: Simply ask what your social media audience wants. Pose questions, and create informal “one-question” surveys to get your fans to comment.
Hypothetical Questions: Similar to the previous one, hypotheticals let your Facebook fans use their imagination to comment on you posts. For example, “If you could _________, what would you do?” or “Would you rather…”
Humor: The most “shareable” post will be related to humor. A funny short video or short story, as well as memes can get a lot of engagement.
Mixed Media: A healthy mix of text, images, and videos is the best way to go.
Use Community News and Events: Please don’t think that your social media posts need to ONLY be about chiropractic care and health-related stories. I am confident to say that you’re fans are not thinking about (or don’t want to think about) chiropractic care all the time. So why are you only posting information about that industry. Instead, mix it up with news from your local community and other *topics of interest of your fans. *See the connection to your ideal customer profile?
Combine any of the above strategies to get more engagement on your Facebook page.
3 Use Facebook Offers.
Facebook allows you to create an ad on their site for special offers. (Link here.) Offers are a great way to turn people into new customers (patients).
One example of an “Offer” for a Chiropractor would be a “Bring a friend for a massage.” 2-for-1 offer. Seeing as how a massage may be an “entry-level” service that will likely attract new patients.
4 Combine Social Media with Email Marketing.
Email marketing is often overlooked as a viable and effective online marketing channel. Email marketing gets a bad rap because if you’re not careful, it becomes synonymous with SPAM. If you have an email database of existing customers, you should be connecting with them through email as well as social media. I can show you how to do this in the best possible way without being “spammy” or “salesy”.
Did you know?
- For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI. (source)
- 61% of consumers enjoy weekly promotional emails. (source)
- Email is 40x more effective at getting customers than Facebook or Twitter. (source)
If you aren’t using email marketing in your business, it’s time to rethink your marketing strategy.
5 Social media giveaways that combine email marketing and social media.
I came up with a method called, “Viralocity” that combines the best of social media giveaways and email marketing using third party software to track the results and analytics of the campaign. If you have not ran a social media giveaway or contest before, then contact me for a free consultation to help you get setup with “Viralocity”.
Social media is the new word-of-mouth marketing that allows businesses to be a part of the conversation. Using social media giveaways with third party software will help you create super fans and brand ambassadors. I created a walkthrough demo of this software that combines social media and email marketing to help businesses increase their social media engagement (likes, share, comments.)
*Before you watch this video, let me be clear that this software works with any business wanting to promote their products and services on social media. For demo purposes, I chose to giveaway a tablet but I would recommend for any chiropractic office to giveaway a massage or a similarly priced service.
Conclusion
Using social media the right way can help you get as many clients as you can handle. Let Shout Creative help you create an effective social media strategy to build up your client base.