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5 Ways To Market Your Practice In An Uncertain Economy

 

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Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.  Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

Hi folks, Jeffrey Grossman here. And thank you so much for joining me and thank you AAC for inviting me back for yet another installment of how to grow your practice, marketing ideas, tips, and insights. So my name is Jeffrey Grossman. For those of you that don’t know me. I am I, the founder and creator of acupuncture, media works, ACU downloads and ACU perfect websites.

And I’ve been in this industry of helping practitioners since 2002. So we do everything from building websites to creating digital marketing assets for you to use. So today I wanted to do is I wanna talk with you about five ways to market your practice in an economy. As we all are aware, things are uncertain.

We’re not sure what’s gonna happen with different price hikes on mortgage rates and where we’re headed right now. So there’s a few ways that I want to share with you that can help embed your. Certainty in these uncertain times with the idea of what you can do to keep your practice growing, to keep patients on your schedule, to keep people, wanting to refer to you.

Okay. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna share my screen with you today. And then what I’d like to do is at the end, there’s some information that I’ll have available for you. But the first thing I wanna say is. In the month of October 24th is. Called acupuncture and herbal medicine day.

My friends that is our day as acupuncturists to out from the rooftops. That acupuncture is awesome. It’s a national event that’s been orchestrated and created by the NCC AOM many years ago. And it’s our time to share a concerted. A concerted message that acupuncture works and to get out there and let more people understand and educate them further about how awesome acupuncture is.

So at the end, I’ve got a special gift that I wanna share with you that is available for you. For you can get out there and market your practice for H American acupuncture and herbal medicine day. And these tips that I’m sharing with you can be used specifically to stimulate greater awareness during this particular event that’s coming up.

So I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go ahead and share my screen with you. Here we are five ways to market your practice in an uncertain economy. So the first thing is that tip number one is that there’s this thing called viral marketing. And the idea behind viral marketing is that you wanna get your message out to as many people as possible.

Using your patients as the carriers, right? So viruses the viruses, the people are the carriers of the virus getting that, that, that virus out there to many other people. So in a state, in a sense you want to create that kind of same viral awareness about your practice, and you’re spreading the message through your own word of mouth networks.

And. So one thing that’s important to do is try this. You’ll be able to get a good gauge on how good your patient education, your marketing tactics are. If you ask a patient, if they know anybody who can benefit from acupuncture, That’s too general of a question, right? So they may think of their uncle.

They may think of their friend. Who’s frequently sick with stomach trouble. And you’re only going to get a limited number of referrals when you narrow down the scope of what you’re focused on in, in your viral marketing request. So people have. Likeminded friends, like-minded communities, like-minded circles that they all connect with.

So if you ask your patients, if they know anybody who is like them who might be experiencing the same type of problem that they’re experiencing, it’s gonna be far easier for them to recall these other people who have similar issues, whether, whether they’re, someone who’s in a job with them on a sports team with them or whatever lifestyle that is related.

You know their condition or their lives. So the idea is with viral marketing is to find those like-minded people, and ask them if they know anybody who. Is experiencing something that they’re, that they came to see you for, that they might be interested in referring more to you. So for instance, let’s say you have a patient who came in and they want to quit smoking, and you’ve had success with that patient in helping them to kick the habit.

So in with viral marketing, what you’ll do is you’ll provide them with specific tools that are specific on what you helped, that person, that patient. Overcome or get better with, so you’ll equip them with tools on quitting smoking and different routines and things of that nature to further their own awareness around how well, they’ve pro they’ve moved through this process, but they will also be able to identify other people who.

Are smokers who want to quit as well. So the idea with viral marketing is to find those specific people, those specific vectors, if you will, who who have similar the same condition or the same issue or the same concern that they can refer someone to. Okay. So other types of marketing are a little more diffuse and spread out and we just market to everybody without anything to focus on.

So this is more. Of like a specialized approach to getting your message out. So when you identify that particular person, you might have a number of people that come in any given week that have gotten, quit smoking and they’re, you’ve helped them achieve over overcome their digestive pain or you’ve helped them with allergies or whatever it is narrow down into each of those individual.

People with their individual conditions and ask if they might know somebody else who might be suffering from or might be experiencing or who, or might wanna make a change similar to what they’ve experienced there. So that is the idea behind viral marketing and I, a few ideas are to ask your patients this question.

So this is where you get a really good clarity on whether or not you are marketing your patient education. Is doing justice, right? So many practitioners just go in, they treat, they, patients leave and that’s it. Whereas it’s important for you as a practitioner to use every moment of the time that they’re in the treatment room, in the waiting room, and even what they go home with something that can further their knowledge and education.

So you will have a really good understanding as to. You stand with your patient education. If you ask them this question, if you were at a party and someone asked you what your acupuncturists did. What would you say, or how would you explain Chi or your care or whatever? Okay. So this is a very important piece to this part of viral marketing.

Having your patients be able to clearly explain what may have happened to them on the treatment table or how you have helped them overcome quit smoking, or have you have helped them with their allergies and so on. Because the more information they can provide. It becomes more convincing to that other person that they’re referring.

All right. The other part, another idea with viral marketing is to make sure that you identify your, a patients. And I talk about this probably every time we get together here and meet on Facebook is your, a patients are the patients that you know, and you love. And they’re just amazing, right? So your, a patients, as you want to just.

Populate your entire practice with these people because you really resonate with them. And when you see them on your schedule, your energy level goes up as opposed to those patients that you see on your schedule. And you’re just like, oh man, how am I gonna, how am I gonna get through this now?

So when you identify your eight patients, start with them and start identifying what they. Condition was that brought them to you in the first place that you helped them overcome, asked them if they know other people who might be suffering from that same problem and then go through your asking of a referral.

Okay. And that’s a whole different conversation that we’ll talk about at another time. You don’t have time for that today. Another part of the viral marketing aspect ideas is to make sure you have a strong call to action. Gift certificates or little business cards with a call to action on the back of them.

Something that literally motivates a person from the outside world to literally step foot in your practice. My friends, every marketing, you do needs to have some type of a call to action that motivates them to just be like, this is really cool. I wanna try this out and I’m gonna take them up on whatever that offer is.

Okay. And the other thing is to host a referral drive and referral. Quite simply are within your clinic where you are motivating your, a patients to help you achieve a certain number of new referrals in a particular given period of time. Like a month, you have a thermostat and you’re like, Hey patients, I wanna get to.

30 new patients. This month are 25 new referrals this month. And then every time a new referral comes in, you just keep filling it up and filling it up and filling it up. And it creates this good energy around the clinic. When you have a referral drive that everyone can participate in and it, know, you have your gift certificates ready, you have a conversation that you can share with your patients and so on.

So that’s another way to do that. Okay. Tip number two is doing some lead generation and lead generation. Is doing something like a promotional event that you could do at your practice. Okay. You could do it anywhere really, but doing something at your practice. But lead generation also goes beyond doing something in the clinic itself.

And I’ll talk about that in a few minutes. So doing lead generation accomplishes a few things, it celebrates your. Hosting event inside your clinic does a few things. I’m sorry, just for clarity’s sake, it celebrates your practice. It celebrates your patients. It brings in new blood and introduces new people to your practice and what you have to offer.

It builds Goodwill because you’re hosting a particular event. Inside the clinic that your patients are excited about and it attracts family, friends, current patients, and it reactivates inactive patients cuz you have something to share with them, to bring people back into the fold. Okay. So lead generation in this respect relates to the idea that you are bringing in more leads by hosting an event.

In your practice. Also many of you might be familiar with the term lead generation for online marketing, which is using emails and using opt-in forms and using Facebook ads and things of that nature that is important. That is lead generation, and you should always be doing something that generates new leads, AKA new patients, new prospects into your practice.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here in this. We’re talking about creating an event that you could use in your practice to bring people in. Okay. Hopefully that makes sense. Few ideas. You could host an acupuncture happy hour event or AKA 2022 technique, which is something that I’ve taught about in the past.

And using two acupuncture points, getting 20 minute treatments for 20 bucks and putting people on cloud nine using. Points for that. And I have a whole specific protocol and technique for hosting the acupuncture happy hour event. And if anyone’s interested, you can feel free to reach out to me, put a comment below here and I’ll check it out and I’ll send you some information about, about those types of events.

But those have been very fruitful when I hosted them in my clinic. You can also for lead generation, you can have an open. You could have a dinner with doc with, where you invite patients in to, have food with you or where you invite patients in have food with you and you’d get takeout from a local restaurant.

You could have professional networking meetups. You could have in-house talks, movie nights, how to events, like how to boost your immune system, how to alleviate stress, how to you. Create cone GS and things of that nature, healthcare classes, online marketing and social media. Okay. So that is a whole category in and of itself.

And like I said, we’re not really gonna go into that very much, but but those are some ideas, some ways to, for you to generate leads into your practice. So in uncertain times, what do you wanna do? Best thing to do is to throw a party in your clinic, right? Host people coming in there, generate some energy.

Generate some leads by doing something like. Okay. Tip number three is to get local. So you could team up with like-minded establishments and be part of a health fair or some type of a screening event that happens. And let me tell you one of the, one of the ways that I really grew my practice was by participating in health fairs on a weekly basis.

When I was practicing downtown Seattle and health. And screenings are an amazing way to generate new leads. Okay. So what it does, it allows you to meet people in person. You get to interact with one another that they get to learn what you do. They get to ask ’em questions. They also get to learn what you can do for them.

And you can talk with them about insurance. Connecting up, there’s a lot of business. LAR you know, those of you that are in larger cities or even smaller towns have larger companies that host health fairs that you might not even know about, or maybe you do see them, and you don’t even think about being, participating in that.

So health fairs are a great way for you to generate new leads. And it also lets you get local and start meeting more people around and. The more you put yourself out there, the more you’ll bring back to you. I’m not trying to be philosophical or anything like that, but that is the truth.

The more energy you’re putting out there, the more you’re gonna be pulling back. So the more you’re doing any type of Legion or any type of event or things of that nature, that’s all gonna come back to you. One thing that I wanna share with you, that is a massive tip. If you’re doing any type of health fair event or any type of screening, or even anything that you’re doing in the world, Put out Giovanni’s book on the ugliest tongues ever.

Take his book, open it up to that, that, that color palette of this page and put the tongues out there and people will walk by and they’ll be like, Ew, gross. Why do you have a bunch of tongues there? And that my friends. Opens up the door to conversa con conversation with this new prospect and allows you to begin educating them, informing them, inspiring them and encouraging them to come in to see you great tool.

I tried so many different ways to bring people and attract attention to my booths or my tables when I was at these health fairs. And this by far was the best thing that really pulled people in. So massive tip there. If you haven’t heard me talk about that. Tip number four is to reactivate inactive patients.

So for those of you that have been in practice for anywhere over a year or two, whatever it is, you probably have more inactive patient finals than you have active patients. I remember. Back in the day. My inactive patient file was many boxes, more than my file box of active patients. And it just happens, right?

People, they come see you, they fall out of care for a number of reasons, but this is something that you should be doing on a regular basis. You should be having a regular. Patient reactivation process and protocol that’s in place systematically every quarter in your practice where you’re going through your files, you’re reaching out to the patients that are falling out of care.

Start with your a patients, when you’re doing that and then rinse and repeat, keep it going, keep it cycling. And the reason is because inactive patient are a gold mine, right? Because you’ve spent time and energy. Bringing that person in the first place, getting them to see you, getting them on the table, getting them to accept care and getting them to pay you, or, getting their insurance on board and you spend all that time and energy making that happen and building that, knowing that like that trust factor.

It’s a lot easier to work with and market to those people who already know you. They like you, they already trust you than it is to bring somebody in. Who’s never seen you before. You gotta, then you gotta start just developing that relationship. So your inactive patients are goldmine for you to tap into.

So if you’re feeling slow in your practice, I would suggest you start a patient reactivation campaign, my friends. Okay. And a couple ways to do that. You can call people. Make a list of your, a patients you haven’t seen in a while that you love and you miss right. Call ’em up. Check in with them.

You can send snail mail, you can send emails, you can do newsletters that are printed in digital, and don’t lose them in the first place. Make sure you stay on top of mind awareness. That’s Toma to. Top of mind awareness, because what you want is what you want to keep having your patients see your logo, your brand, your comments on Facebook on a regular basis.

So when they think of, when something comes up for them, they think of you. Because you’re on their top of mind. Okay. And stay on top of it. Be consistent again, like I said, keep it in a cycle on a regular basis every three months or so. Okay. And then the fifth tip is to give talks, right? People are thirsty for information, that information that can help them be happier and live a healthier life.

Especially now people want that there’s stress. There’s immune problems. There’s there’s skin conditions. There’s breathing problems that are happening. How can you get out there and share the information that can help them be happier that can help them be healthier. You can provide.

Lectures, whether they’re free or they’re paid to organizations, to schools, to colleges, to libraries, to businesses, to support groups, to healthcare facilities. There’s so many opportunities here. There’s yoga studios. There’s other clinics that are out there. There’s chiropractors, massage therapists, there’s other professionals.

There’s doctors. That you could get out there and share this information about acupuncture. So again, if you’re not as busy as you want, you wanna get busier one way to do that, if you feel comfortable, giving talks is to get out there and give talks. And for those of you that are curious about giving talks, yet you.

Don’t feel super comfortable. I would encourage you to join Toastmasters. I encourage all of my students when I was teaching the practice management class to join Toastmasters, because it gives you the confidence to succeed as a talk giver, giving presentations, and also gives you access to potential referrals.

Okay. And the other thing is to just do it. My friends, you’ve heard this quote before and just get out there and do it. You don’t want to be like, SSUS here pushing a rock up the hill, you do some marketing and then it falls back down and you gotta get out there and mark it again. You don’t want take, if you’re struggling in your.

And you just shift one thing, just do one thing that could make all the change from you pushing this, struggling, Boulder up the hill to pushing something a little lighter. Okay. So just do it. I’m referring to the fact of just getting out there and just taking one little marketing nugget, whether it’s something you got from here today, whether it’s something I talked about in the past or what, something, somebody else didn’t just do it.

just get out there and switch it up. Just one little thing can make a massive change in your practice. Okay. And then, like I said, if you wanna learn more, we put together this free marketing bundle for you for a acupuncture and herbal medicine day. It’s got a bunch of cool things in there. There’s this website right here.

ACU websites.com/. Hyphen day, and you can download this really cool bundle that has all the tools that you could use in your practice to create and stimulate a greater awareness for for upcoming October 24th. Which is acupuncture and herbal medicine day. So folks again, thank you so much for taking the time and joining me here today.

Take one little piece of nugget and inspiration and insight and put it into use today. If you need any help, if you feel like you need some accountability or some questions or concerns, reach out to me. You could reach out below here, or you could send an email to Jeffrey acupuncture, mediaworks.com.

It’s J E F R E Y. Other than that next Fri or this coming Friday is gonna be Shelly Goldstein. Who’s gonna be joining us. So keep your eye out for another great event that the AAC will be putting on. So in the meantime, stay strong, be well, take a nugget, put into the use, just do it and we’ll see you soon.

Take care. Bye bye.