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Here it is your weekly
Chiropractic Marketing Newsletter (week 15)
-Revealing all of the “SECRETS” free of charge
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HOUSE CLEANING SECTION:
This weeks’ newsletter is over the top. This material would cost you thousands, please take a minute or two after you read it to let me know that you did in fact get something from it. It’s a great deal of work and I love it, but I need to know the effort is worth it.
I NEED YOUR HELP -I WANT TO REACH AS MANY CHIROPRACTORS SO I CAN OFFER THEM THE HELP THEY NEED FOR FREE. PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO A FRIEND.
URGENT PLEASE READ: PRACTICE ER- I get e-mails from doctors who are very desperate, they are on their last dollar, thankfully all 3 who have asked for my help have survived and 2 are now doing very well. If you are in a situation where you are at the end of your rope and even thinking of leaving chiropractic don’t be embarrassed e-mail me right away. I can help you, the world needs chiropractors and we cannot afford to lose even one.
The CD’s of the conference call with Dr. Kent have been mailed, if you did not receive yours and you have previously registered to receive the monthly CD’s then e-mail me at drvernonchiro@aol.com and put the words NO CD in the subject line.
A number of you continue to ask me to do one on one coaching, as I have indicated my schedule is full and will be until January. However, if you are interested let me know and I will put you on a list for January. I like to stay on the East coast if possible. Also, don’t worry about the money, unlike the other guys, I only charge you after I’m done and you are satisfied that I have done what I said I would do. I only charge $100 a month, this doesn’t even cover my expenses. But if you are interested I need to know soon. I only take on about 5 clients at a time. And I’m not going to list all the BS material I will give you and put an inflated value next to it. YOU GET ME!
Please do not hesitate to contact me, drvernonchiro@aol.com, if you feel that you may have information, resources or web content that could provide additional assistance to those in the profession. Please feel free to write me with comments or criticisms.
Remember: To get the most out of this newsletter, I suggest that you print it out and read it-don’t skim it-Refer back to it when implementing your marketing plan
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”Albert Einstein
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(PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE)
Internet marketing using Google ad words, pay per click. The upside and downside.
Mark your calendar now: On November 21st,2007 at 8:30 pm (EST) A conference call featuring one of best internet marketing experts in America.
Roger Hall, Author of the book, ‘37 Killer AdWords PPC Secrets Exposed
Mark Your CalendarsToday For 11/21/07 8:30 PM (EST)
I have put a great deal of effort to bring you this author and the very valuable information he will share with my members. Please don’t be one of these people that wait for the CD, please participate. For god’s sake it’s FREE
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THE GUY DOWN THE STREET IS NOT THE COMPETITION!
It’s a funny thing, the more I do this the more I realize that things don’t change. When I started practicing many moons a go we were led to believe that the other DC down the road and the one around the corner were the competition. Well, unfortunately this mentality still exists 30 years later. The guy down the street is NOT your competition. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you two or three are not competing for the same healthcare dollar, you are, however if the guy around the corner and down the street were the only competition you had to worry about you’d be in Shaffer City. Why? Because if you have been doing everything that I’ve been telling you to do or even a fraction of it then you knock these guys right out of the box. The problem is that your competition is EVERYONE ELSE out there.
Everyday the consumer is inundated with thousands of minutes of advertising. It has been estimated that in a 24 hour period the consumer will see 4-7 hours of advertising of one form or another. Be it a magazine ad, newspaper ad, radio or television commercial, direct mail and even from things we don’t overtly recognize as advertising such as the kid walking down the street with the Nike shirt and Harley Davidson hat. THIS IS YOUR COMPETITION! You have to attempt to get your message through all of this clutter. So how do you do this?
The best way is to have your marketing stand out form the crowds. What chance do you think a Name, Rank and Serial Number advertisement has of getting the readers attention in a Sunday newspaper filled with hundreds of display ads? NONE, NADA, ZERO! To get attention you have to be different, you need to do something that gets noticed, that gets attention. Let me digress for a minute.
The master of this was BJ, (no I didn’t know him and no, I’m not that old) wherever BJ went he caused people to talk about him, once they met BJ people never forgot him. In more recent times the profession has had Jim Siggafuse. Jim has done many of the things the Jim did, from making his physical appearance “different” from the norm of the day to speaking about chiropractic from a spiritual realm. The point is that once you see and hear Jim you will never forget him. Now I’m not saying that everyone of you should grow a pony tail and wear a red plaid sport coat or tell people that you are Jesus Christ incarnate. However I am saying you should always keep these things in mind whenever you are doing any form of marketing. Always think to yourself, I have to break through all of the clutter, how can I do that?
When you are marketing in an attempt to gain new patients and you are using print media, the most important aspect of your ad is your headline, it MUST be attention grabbing. When attempting to reactivate a former patient keep in mind that he/she is getting on average 15-18 pieces of junk mail a week. You need to have your mail “break through” all of the other junk mail. An example of what some experts would call “outrageous” advertising is my use of the corps on a slab reactivation post card. Some of you would think that this is crazy and that it could offend people, well I’ve been using it for almost a year and I can tell you this. Shocking? Yes. Outrageous? Yes. Offensive? No. I have not had one practice member tell me that they found the card offensive.
As an aside, I get a lot of e-mails from my members asking what products I use in my office. So here ya go, I told you that I use the corps post card, I also use the “3 STOOGES” cards (love em’) I am also a big fan of posters in the office. I have used some of the older Balk Talk Systems posters as well as Bill Esteb’s posters from Patient Media. I will be presenting another article on the use of posters and in house marketing in a week or two. Speaking of posters there are a couple of great office posters that will be released in a few weeks, these include the Little Rascals poster that I have told you about, my members will get first dibs on these as long as you have pre ordered, they will be about $30-$35 dollars, if you haven’t pre registered to be notified when they are available lick here. The other posters are two new “3 STOOGES” posters that I have seen a preview of and they are fantastic. If you didn’t read last weeks article on humor in marketing you should do it now.
So, the bottom line is that you must be outrageous in your advertising, but always remember to be truthful. I have some great campaigns coming up, these include a New Years marketing campaign, a lottery ticket campaign, and believe it or not it’s not to early to start planning a super 4th of July campaign. So stay tuned.
PS: The corps and 3 STOOGES cards are available form www.imagearchives.com.
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OKAY, I NEED EVERYONE ON BOARD FOR THIS, NO EXCUSES. LIKE NIKE SAYS, JUST DO IT
I want you to commit to a $100 marketing campaign, I want everyone to this. I want to demonstrate that what I’m telling you works. Follow the steps exactly and I will show you how to get a 10:1 return on your investment. We are going to go gold mining, and I’m going to show you how. You’ve have probably wasted more the $100 in your previous efforts, so take the chance. Give me a shot of not only explaining how internal marketing works, but to show you the best way to do it. I want you to trust me on this. I will NEVER lead you down the wrong road.
We are going to go through this step by step and you need to follow it EXACTLY as outlined.
First you need to go to your mailing list/patient files and make up an “A” list. This list is made up of patients who were good patients, but haven’t been in the office in 3 months or more. I define good patients as those who, if you have and insurance practice have good chiropractic benefits. If you run a cash only practice then those patients who appeared to have no resistance to your fees.
Next you will need to put the following message in your word processor and save it.
I’ve been very concerned about you
I haven’t seen you in a few months
and want to hear from you. I really
want to know that all is well with you
and your family. Pleas give me a call
today at (856) 222-XXXX and ask to
speak with me.
To your Health
Dr. Vernon
Now you need to order a package 100 patient reactivation cards, not just any cards, but the 3 STOOGES cards, and a particular card. Go to
http://www.imagearchives.com/viewphoto.php?imageId=377757 and order 1 package (100 cards) of these cards. EVEN IF YOUR OFFICE DOESN’T USUALLY GIVE FREE EXAMS, this time try what I’m saying.
The next step is to get Avery address labels. Either you or your CA if she is familiar with WORD needs to make mailing labels. This should have the message above and the patients name and address. Put on postage and mail them This whole thing cost you about $100. Now, let’s see what should happen next.
You should get 2-3 phone calls from patients asking to speak with you. Make sure you pick up the phone and speak to them, or if you are with a patient be sure to return their call. My bet is that you will convert 1 of these people to come and see you. Another 1-2 patients will call and schedule their free exam. You should be able to convert these as well.
Even if you convert just one patient who decides to stay for long term care, you are way ahead of the game. The purpose of this exercise is NOT to get you one reactivated patient. It’s to demonstrate to you that what you are involved in is a numbers game. Getting you readers attention, then having a compelling offer always works best. This lesson is about how reactivation works and how mailings every 3 months to a reactivation list could be worth a great deal of money. Remember your mailing is every month, because we are going to mail 100 cards to our “B” list as well every month. DO IT TODAY AND REPORT IN TO ME 2 WEEKS AFTER YOU MAIL THE CARDS.
Just by doing this one campaign you could generate as much as $12-$15 thousand dollars extra per year.
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THE ANNIVERSARY CAMPAIGN
Is your practice approaching a significant historical milestone, such as a 5, 10, 15, 20 year anniversary? If so, grab this opportunity and shout it from the highest mountain, and from your website and your advertising and your patient communications and from every possible marketing platform.
Your practice is relevant to people health because of the services you provide. Take this ready-made opportunity to demonstrate that relevance to former as well as new patients. Show them how your milestone reveals a degree of strength and expertise that is only achievable over time.
Begin pumping the celebration early on
Mark your anniversary with a 3 month promotion culminating in a celebration. To do so, your planning should be out in front of that by another three months, or even longer.
Begin by developing a strategic plan and budget.
Start by announcing in your newsletter (You better have one by now, if you don’t you are missing the biggest, best marketing tool available) that in XXXXX you will have been in practice X years and you plan to celebrate this milestone in a BIG way. Tell your patients that once the plans are finalized that they will be notified of all the details. It is very important to start this campaign early and build to a crescendo.
Ask old patients to supply you with stories about their experiences in your office over the years. These should be more humorous then testimonial type stories. Ask your old employees as well if they left you on good terms and ask them to bring their spouse/significant other or a friend to the event. Ex-employees can be a great source of referrals.
Put all of the humorous stories in a book or binder and have it available at the celebration for people to look at as well as to have someone read one or two of the funnier stories out load to the group.
As the time for the celebration gets closer get invitations printed. Depending on the size of your mailing list you can get blank invitations at Staples and print them on your printer (use a laser printer otherwise you will be there all day printing) or if the list is very long Staples or Kinko’s can print them for you. Make sure they are very formal looking and use a nice font on the invitation.
Come help me celebrate 5 years of service to the community
About 1 month prior to your event send out the invitations with an RSVP phone number. Try to get as tight a number as possible so you know how much food to order. Remember the invitation should be addressed to the XYZ Family; you want as many people there as possible. As people RSVP, make sure that one person in the office is responsible for this list. Make sure that you get telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of the people who have RSVP’d. The reason for this is that human nature being what it is, people will forget about the event, that’s why you need to call and/or e-mail them 2-3 days before. This will also allow you to give a better number to your caterer.
For some of you food is a great motivator, especially free food, however for a great many people they need more then food to give up there Friday Night or Saturday morning, so I suggest that you purchase some prizes to raffle off at the celebration. An Apple i-Pod, and maybe a flat screen monitor for a computer and a gift card to Best Buy or Circuit City. You should plan on spending about $500-$700 on prizes. These gifts will motivate there attendance. Now you tell them that every member of the family who attends will get a raffle ticket and has a chance to win one of these great prizes. And for giving you the name of someone they think could benefit from chiropractic they receive an additional 2 tickets, so bring a list with you.
The event is a tool to create hype, excitement and reactivate former patients and obtain the names of potential new patients.
DO NOT DO SCREENINGS, SURFACE EMG’S OR EXAMINATIONS AT THIS EVENT.
Use the Event to Connect With Your Community
Use the power of the press release and send a few press releases to your local paper. If there is a community events reporter contact him or her and ask if they could send a photographer to the event. You have the potential of obtaining thousands of dollars in free publicity. Depending on your budget, you could even open up the event to the entire community. Another nice gesture is to make a donation of $100 to the local library.
An event like this can cost as much as $2000 to run, however if you work hard on it and really pump it to its maximum advantage your return could easily be 3-4 times that and possibly 10 times your investment.
I am assuming that you don’t need my advice on ordering food or that you need to have a great sales letter and follow up with the leads that are supplied to you. Make sure that the sales letter has an irresistible offer, i.e. free surface EMG and mention the fact that Mary Jones was so concerned about your health she passed your name on to me.
This is not a hard campaign to run and works great if you maximize it.
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USE THE POWER OF TESTIMONIALS IN YOUR MARKETING COMMUNICATION
The public has come to the conclusion that almost no one is to be trusted. Following the collapse of Enron and more recently the housing market-home loan fiasco, there is a great deal of reservation on the part of John Q. Public to take any single person at his or her word.
This is where the most powerful persuader in the marketplace come into play. It is the opinion of someone the prospective customer or in our case the prospective patient trusts.
That’s why so much effort goes into viral marketing or ‘word of mouth.’ It is the reason that I try so hard each week, with the hope that you will tell others about me and the service I provide to the profession. It’s why I ask for feedback, so I can use this feedback to convince others that this service and I am for real. It’s even harder for me because my service is free, the level of skepticism is 10 fold that of another website.
It is for these reasons that genuine testimonials are so effective. A testimonial is third-party endorsement at its best. There is much more credibility in the words of other unbiased people than in your own words of self-promotion.
I say ‘genuine’ because anyone can make up supportive words and pass them off as the real thing. But usually you can tell such testimonials and they smell of fakery.
If you provide a good service to your patients, you should be able to ask people for some kind words. Don’t hesitate to ask their permission to use the words and identify them in the testimonial.
The act of seeking testimonials is a good psychological spur to you to produce your best results all the time because a testimonial to ordinary work is an ordinary testimonial. An unexpected benefit is that a testimonial reminds the other person to think over the service they have paid for, which will remind them of all the good aspects they may have forgotten or taken for granted. Also, the act of providing you with a testimonial strengthens the bond between you and the patient.
The key word with testimonials is “ask.” Keep asking and you will get a lot of testimonials. Ask for testimonials at every opportunity, and quote the best ones. In this way you don’t have to promote yourself; you can let the other person promote you. Use testimonials liberally everywhere. Spread the testimonials through brochures, articles, advertisements, ‘advertorials’, video presentations, websites, emails, podcasts (delivered verbally), etc.
You can never use too many testimonials. Marketing consultant, Sean D’Souza, says he put up a page on a website with 800 testimonials and sent customers to that page with no sales pitch. Customers were buying the product on that page “by the droves.” The testimonials alone were causing customers to buy.
Different customers look for different things, so if you collect many testimonials you will get a spread of appreciation covering various key aspects such as quality, reliability, or friendliness.
Where appropriate, you can also seek to obtain testimonials from a wider appreciative audience. Stimulate and collect the right testimonials and endorsements from experts and opinion leaders or influencers such as the office-bearers of community organizations, local government mayors and councilors, presidents of professional associations, school principals, talkback radio hosts and journalists such as life-style columnists and celebrities, high-profile socialites etc.
Whether you are acting on your own behalf as a one-person business or on behalf of a large organization, you can use testimonials to persuade potential users towards your service.
Not only are testimonials more powerful and credible than advertising, they cost nothing! That’s real value for money! But don’t be vague - ask for a testimonial according to the proven formula outlined here. Too many people don’t know what to ask for and then they get ineffective responses. Know what to ask for and you will get great results.
Key questions for great testimonials
Patients come to you to solve a problem, so ensure your testimonials start by outlining the problem briefly and then commenting on the solution.
Their testimonials will be especially effective if they relate to potential patient objections, (I was afraid or I never had been to a chiropractor before or I thought he would crake all my bones) thus nipping those objections in the bud. Keep the testimonial in the words of the patient - if they make grammatical mistakes, run the text with those mistakes because it is the genuine thing.
Ask:
- Why did you consider our service
- What were your perceptions about our service beforehand?
- How has that perception changed?
- What do you like most about our service?
- What are the three biggest benefits you have gained?
- Would you recommend our service?
After each person has written the good words, ask them to confirm in writing that they are happy for relevant comments to be quoted from their testimonial including their name, position and organization. In these legalistic days, you need to cover yourself with this step.
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PARDON MY RANT!!
A Tidal Wave of Horses**t!
The amount of hype marketing that is going on is
quickly rising to epidemic proportions. People that
used to be relatively “normal” and under control
with their promotions have now graduated to
become Phd’s in over-the-top hype marketing.
I have a theory as to why this is happening.
It’s the same for drug addicts. If you start to take
10 grams of a drug to get high, eventually you’ll
need more.
Once you up the dosage to 20 grams, you’ll get
a bit of buzz for a while and then you’ll have to
up the dosage even higher!
Ask Elvis (I believe he’s in Michigan somewhere)
what happens next!
Same thing for the HYPE MARKETERS.
This disease seems to be spreading like wildfire.
Just look in the Journals like DC
Like drugs it doesn’t seem to discriminate as to
who it infects.
People who I THOUGHT were honorable people
who would not LIE to their colleagues are doing JUST
THAT!
The level of unadulterated HORSE CRAP is
getting higher and higher with every issue I receive.
What is sad is that many of the people using these
techniques used to be pretty straight up guys.
Not true anymore. There are less than a handful
of people in the information marketing
community that I even care to be in the same
room with.
Are some of them making more money than me?
ABSO-FRIGGIN-LUTELY!
But, I believe their days are numbered. Like Senator
Larry Craig, how long will people believe you.
How long can you hype the s**t out of people? My
guess and hope is not too long anymore. People are smart.
The tendency of the marketer to over-hype is usually
because (like drugs) it works at first. Then they
have to UP the dosage.
My suggestion? Don’t follow their lead like most
other SHEEP in this profession are doing. That’s
one of the problems in this profession. When one
of the “bigshots” uses these techniques, others
start copying them thinking it works.
I warn you: It may not be working.
In fact, it may very well be a desperate move to
try and pay the bills this month since they’ve
increased their overhead so high they now MUST
have the cash.
Again, very similar to a drug addict.
JUST SAY NO! Say no to hype. Say no to
HORSE CRAP!
Say no to the emails now being tossed around
by the “gurus.”
But, don’t worry, the day will come when NO ONE
will order their products.
Why? Because no one will believe them anymore.
Just like the boy who cried “Wolf!”
Don’t be one of “THEM!”
Best,
Lenny |
Awesome New Pediatric Office Poster
I just received word that a new pediatric poster for use in the chiropractic office is now available. A copy of the poster is above. The marketing benefit of the poster aside from the obvious is that it gives credibility to chiropractic and its ability to benefit children. The use of a highly recognizable and TRUSTED photograph, the famous “Little Rascals” adds to the creditability especially for parents. This is a perfect example of super advertising. The photo is highly recognizable and attention grabbing to all Baby Boomers and Gen-Xer’s. The photo will cause parents to start a discussion about how they used to watch the show; this will then lead to a discussion about chiropractic and children. The 18×24 poster, is availabel by clicking here. Put the word POSTER in the subject line and supply your name and address, they will bill you the $35. DO IT TODAY as they will son be on E-bay and will sell out. |
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UPDATED INFO:
My patient newsletter for NOVEMBER/DECEMBER will be posted and available on WWW.FREEDCHELP.COM next week some time, you will receive an e-mail alert. It is prepared in Microsoft Word, so you can edit it and get it off to the printer immediately.
Until next week,
Yours in health
Lenny |
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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 1:31 pm and is filed under Weekly Newsletter Archive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are closed.
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