You’re ready to grow your chiropractic patient roster, and we’ve got a few “marketing adjustments” to help you succeed. That’s right, today, we’re breaking down seven things chiropractors can do to expand their practice.

Chiropractor Marketing Hack #7: Offer Word-of-Mouth Discounts

It’s a tip as old as the medical profession itself — but word-of-mouth advertising still works! After all, Sally is much more likely to pay attention to her best friend Molly than she would a traditional advertisement or someone on the Internet.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t worry about online reputation. In fact, having a robust digital footprint is vital, which we’ll explore more below. But word-of-mouth remains one of the top ways to pull in more patients.

Pro Tip: To incentivize people to pass on the good word about your practice, offer a referral discount. Be careful not to push too much, though. Hard sales tactics can be a major turn-off.

Chiropractor Marketing Hack #6: Hold Events

Events work. For starters, they build a sense of community. Secondly, people welcome a change of pace and scenery from time to time. As such, chiropractors may want to consider hosting:

  • New patient dinners
  • Meet the staff cocktail hours
  • Free screenings
  • Wellness Workshops

Pro Tip: Most people love a little wine and cheese at evening events. However, always make sure you have at least two non-alcoholic beverage options. Moreover, check your local regulations to make sure it’s legal to serve food and drink at your gathering.

Chiropractor Marketing Hack #5: Reach Out to Inactive Patients

Don’t write off inactive patients — engage them instead! Send personalized notes to patients you haven’t seen in over six months — or save the stamp and reach out via email. Whichever method you choose, just make sure it’s personalized.

Finding the right frequency is key. You don’t want to overwhelm folks with flyers and bulk mail. An inundation of unsolicited marketing materials can have a chilling effect. Plus, when people get too much of something, their brains may subconsciously file it away as unimportant dreck, which is the last thing you want.

Pro Tip: Putting aside 30 minutes a week to write out personal check-in cards to patients can yield tremendous rewards. Be sure to include literature that may entice them to come in for an adjustment.

Chiropractor Marketing Hack #4: Keep in Touch With Active Patients

Engaged patients are repeat patients. That’s why maintaining a newsletter is wise.

Unless it’s an unusually competitive market, we recommend sending it out once a month. A weekly newsletter from a chiropractor may be overkill. Moreover, developing and writing engaging content takes time, and the goal is to include genuinely interesting articles in each edition. Four weeks between each mailing gives you the space to make it great.

In addition to a newsletter, meet patients where they are online: social media! When mapping out your social strategy, it’s important to understand that different demographics flock to different platforms. What works on Facebook probably won’t cut muster on TikTok.

Below, we’ve compiled a quick reference chart for social media outreach. It’s only a general guide. Yes, every demographic has a small population on each platform, but every digital marketer should be aware of trends.

  • Facebook — Best for reaching baby boomers, Gen Xers, xennials: 40 to 75 year olds. Facebook users respond better to traditional advertising than other social media user bases. They’re also more tolerant of longer, in-depth articles and explanations.
  • Instagram — Best for reaching Xennials, millennials, and older Gen Zers: 20 to 50 year olds. Instagram is a very visual platform. Clean, crisp images work best with snappy and helpful captions.
  • Twitter  — Twitter is a mixed demographic bag. If you have something witty to say, do it on Twitter. Also, use the platform to post links to your other social media posts.
  • Pinterest — Best for reaching Millennials, xennials, Gen Xers, and baby boomers: 30 to 75. Personality-wise, people who pin tend to be highly organized and appreciate a good quote. Like Instagram, it’s a highly visual medium.
  • Linkedin — Best for reaching Xennials, Gen Xers, late baby boomers: 45 to 65 years old Linkedin probably won’t garner you a ton of patients for your stateside chiropractic office because about 70 percent of the user base lives outside the United States. However, posting an article on the platform every couple of months isn’t a bad idea in terms of creating backlinks and diversifying your online footprint.
  • TikTok — Best for reaching Late millennials and Gen Zers: 15 to 35 years old TikTok is all about short videos. Since the viewership trends younger, the content is generally more snappy and trend-centric.

Pro Tip: No matter what social media platforms you choose to use, there are three things to avoid at all costs when tweeting, posting, or tok’ing: politics, religion, and reality TV! The goal is to attract clients, not alienate them.

Chiropractor Marketing Hack #3: Make a Video

Yes, people still read — but they also watch a lot more! As such, many businesses and medical practices have started making videos for YouTube. The topic possibilities are endless. You can do a tour of the treatment rooms, introduce your staff, or produce a series about the benefits of chiropractic care. Patient interviews also work well for many practices.

Here are three video ideas to get you started.

  • About Our Practice: Introduce yourself and your staff to potential patients. Make sure to mention professional credentials and strive to be friendly and welcoming. A little silliness is fine, but avoid being overly goofy.
  • The Five Benefits of Chiropractic Care: This can either be a slide show or a full video. The goal is to make the points compelling. Don’t forget to include contact information at the end of the video and in the description.
  • Busting Chiropractic Myths: This is your chance to prove the nay-sayers wrong! Create a video addressing the concerns of skeptics. Patient interviews bolster these types of videos.

Pro Tip: If staff and patients participate in videos, make sure they sign the proper paperwork and legal release agreements.

Chiropractor Marketing Hack #2: Update Your Website

If you haven’t updated your website in a few years, it’s probably time. The same goes for hosting.

We often like to point out that websites are a company’s number-one salesperson, branding ambassador, and virtual receptionist all rolled into one. With all that responsibility, it needs to look good and work well. So what does that mean in today’s digital landscape? Websites for chiropractic offices should:

  • Have a clean, minimalist design
  • Use appropriate color palettes that convey soothing relief and professionalism
  • Function on a range of screen sizes, from mobile to gigantic
  • Answer questions people may have about the practice
  • Include conspicuous contact information
  • Have a proper privacy policy

Pro Tip: Managed WordPress hosting is the way to go. Not only is WordPress a great content management base for websites, but the bells and whistles that come with managed hosting will give you an edge.

Chiropractor Marketing Hack #1: Invest in SEO

Over 92 percent of Americans use Google to find goods and services. That’s about 40 to 60 billion searches a day! That’s why sites that perform well in search engine queries are worth their weight in gold.

So, if you want to land at the top of the pack when someone queries “chiropractor near me,” you must invest in SEO — or search engine optimization.

The Evolution of SEO

Back in the Internet’s toddler years, SEO consisted of repeating the exact keyword phrases — over and over again — on a given web page. It didn’t matter if the writing was terrible or even made sense. Almost without fail, the website with the most number of keyword matches won the top spot.

But these days, algorithms are much more intelligent. SEO has become a marketing art and spawned an entire industry. Businesses that invest in search engine optimization land at the top of the list and reap the subsequent profits. Those that slap up a static website and call it a day usually linger in no man’s land — i.e., past the first five search engine result pages — aka SERPs.

Assessing Your Current SEO IQ

In a way, SEO is mystifying. Many factors contribute to the SERP calculation, and search engines safeguard their ranking algorithms as trade secrets. As such, there’s no surefire path to the top. Contrary to popular belief, SEO is not a simple matter of plugging in the proper amount of words and publishing an exact right number of articles. Instead, SEO professionals must assess the digital landscape for a given vertical to determine the best course of action. They consider and weigh things like:

  • Amount of competition in your niche
  • Current state of your website
  • Current state of your competition’s websites
  • Number and quality of links pointing to your site
  • Quality of your copy and content
  • Extant online footprint

Elements of SEO

To learn more about the mechanics of search engine optimization, follow the links below.

Connect With a Chiropractic Marketing Team

If you’re ready to jump-start your marketing efforts, we should chat. Rounded Digital works with chiropractors across the country, and we know the niche intimately. Our digital marketing team does everything from content creation to managed WordPress hosting. But most importantly, we have the skills to help you climb the SERPs.

Let’s talk. Reach out today to begin the conversation about growing your practice.