Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, content marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.
Kevin: Hey, docs. Welcome to another episode of The Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show. Today, I've got a solo episode of me talking about your 2020 marketing plan, and yes, I want you to have a 2020 marketing plan. I'm always, you know, I'm always surprised when I hear how many chiropractors don’t, but then I also realize up until about 5 years ago, I didn't either. So it wasn’t like I was always doing for the last 15 years, but I would say over the last five and over the last three, really solid sit-down sessions, planning out 2020 for me. Obviously, last week's episode was a 2019 review - positive focus that we did to just clear on all the positives that 2019 brought, and then try to transition now my thinking into 2020 and this is exciting because it's not only a new year, it's a new decade. Right? [0:01:11.0]
And I've kind of got this you know, 20s decade in my mind is going to be fun and exciting. I'm looking forward to it. For me personally, I also turn 40 on January 9, so it's… it lines up to where each decade is a new age decade for me too. So my 40s will be in the 20s and I've got my first child on the way in April, so I'm obviously very excited. But I think everybody's kind of looking forward to this new decade and all the exciting things coming from it. So we want to get really clear on it from a marketing standpoint, from a business/financial standpoint. You know, for me, I sit down and I really try to project what my financials will look like and set some goals for the year. I set the marketing also and we're going to break that down into details…we do a quarterly team meeting where we meet for a half day to dive into our goals and the numbers and just really get clear on everything we need to do. [0:02:07.4]
The one at the beginning of the year, we're doing it the first Friday in January is where we're going to have a little bit more because it's going to be for the quarter, but also for the year. So it'll be more extensive than the previous quarter meetings. But we will dive in - in our practice, we will dive into the marketing plan. So if you have a team, I highly recommend meetings and I highly recommend sitting down and doing this marketing planner together and getting clear on who's going to do what and what are some of the goals and we'll dive into that in a minute. If you feel like you need help with this, as many of you know, we do have the Modern Chiropractic Marketing Mastery. It's one-on-one coaching aspect where I guide you on everything marketing, developing marketing plans and strategies and budgets, really just be your guide to having an overall content marketing strategy, but also, I hold you accountable and we also dive into business things too. [0:03:07.1]
So it's not just marketing. I would say, if I had to sum it up, it's …the big part of it is content marketing. We really try to tailor it to you. Right? If you're a lone wolf, we have got one, you know, how are we going to set that situation up. If you've got a full team, we're going to do that. I've got one practice where I just communicate mostly with the marketing person, not the owner as much as I used to, and so we have transitioned to that. I've got other ones where we have got plenty of time, not as much money because we're early on. So doing a lot of one-on-one with that particular person. So, I would say it's a lot of marketing. It's holding you accountable and just having a coach. Like I…you know, obviously, I have a couple of coaches. I interviewed one of them recently. It really helps prevent being left on that island and so I'm here to hear all of the positives and negatives of practice and kind of put out any fires that you have. So, it's someone that you can reach out to consistently and do that. [0:04:02.8]
And then third, again, business, business strategy, accurate thinking, making sure that we're making the right decisions. So if you're interested in that, just to the website, ModernChiropracticMarketing.com. You can fill out the form there. I will make sure we are a right fit. I don’t take on everybody and I'm only taking on a couple more because I'm almost basically at my max of doing the one-on-one. I have completed the manuscript for the book, so I've got a little bit more time on my hands, so I'm willing to take on a few more. So, if you're interested, check out that at the website and let's dive into the marketing planner. And it's, you know, it's something where I want you to start thinking big picture and then we'll distill it down. Right? So big picture categories, if you will, will be social media. Right? So what are some of your social media goals? Do you want to start doing Facebook ads? Do you want to start doing Instagram? Do you want to have a retargeting campaign on social media where you're targeting your email list into Facebook. [0:05:04.0]
Do you want to start getting more engagement and likes on your social media, your Facebook business page? Right? Some of the big topics of your social media. So I want you to start laying out the things that you are already doing and that you want to continue because there's going to be some things that you're already doing, already have been doing and you want to discontinue it. There's going to be some things that you have not been doing and you want to do it. There's going to be some things that you are doing and you want to continue to do it. Right? Nothing's going to change. So those are the things you want to write down for your social media. Get clear on that and that's part of what I try to do with chiropractors is get very clear on it as far as what the social media is going to look like because there's a lot more to it than there used to be. You know, Facebook used to be really easy, where you could click, you know, run a quick ad, get a bunch of people to click on it and take you up on your offer. It doesn't work like that anymore. A lot of it now is just trying to progress them from that cold traffic to warm and then to hot and obviously schedule with you. [0:06:08.5]
So it's kind of just staying top of mind. So you want to get clear on what your social media is going to be. Okay? Your blogging - so you want to also say to yourself, "Yeah, we're going to do one blog per month." I don’t need you to write out the topics at this point. That's down the road. So we're going to blogging and how often you want to do that. So get clear there. Paid advertising. So I want you to start saying, "Yeah, I'm going to start running Google Ads. I'm going to start running Facebook ads. I'm going to do an ad in some kind of mailer." Right? Or magazine. Just making stuff up. So those are going to be your paid advertising options. you're going to start saying, "Yeah, I'm going to start doing that or you're not. You're going to stop. Whatever you want to do. But you're going to get clear on what your paid advertising is going to be. We'll talk about budgeting in a minute. So we're not going to go there as far as the allotment, but that’s what we're going just say, "Yeah - I'm going to start doing some Facebook/Instagram. A lot of times when you're running Facebook ads, it is Instagram. You can optimize for both. Obviously, the platforms are owned both by Zucks there, so. [0:07:12.1]
Alright. Next one is campaigns and that's going to be certain things like you know what, I want to run a golf campaign in the summer, if you're up north or I want to run a plantar fasciitis campaign or I've got a gym associated with my clinic and I want to run some kind of gym campaign for weight loss around January. Right? Those are campaigns. Those are things that are… you add on to your content marketing strategy and you just clear on certain types of conditions or types of people. So for example, a campaign that we have done two so far in 2019 and we're adding a third, but we did a free online course on our website for desk jockeys and we just did one for runners and triathletes and then third one is going to be on low back pain prevention. We haven't put them on our website yet. We have just done some marketing around it. It's got its own page, but we haven’t put it on the homepage. Once we get that third one, all three are going to sit right on our homepage and it acts as a really good lead magnet, amongst other things. [0:08:15.7]
So that would be an example of a campaign, a free online course or a virtual summit or you're going to do a big sports recovery experience. If you've got recovery boots and cryosauna and stuff like that like I have. That's a campaign that we do as well. So you want to get clear on some of the campaigns you would like to do and make sure you take into consideration the seasonality of it. Right? So for me, golf is the winter. For you, it might be the summer. Some of the running groups have a season. Right? So keep that in mind as well.
Okay. Moving on. Video. So what do you want to do with video this year? Right? Do you want to shoot three videos a month? Are you looking to maybe build out your YouTube platform? Are you looking to utilize video for Instagram? Like, you know, you’ve been doing long-form video and you're putting it on YouTube and now you want to do short form and add it to Instagram or Instagram Stories. Right? So get clear on what you want to do for video and then you'll be able to distill it down from there. [0:09:12.6]
Next is going to be sponsorships. Right? So, are there any big sponsorships you have for the year? Get clear on those because then that's going to help us with our budgeting coming up. Email marketing - how often are you going to email? Once a week? Twice a month? Daily? Again, my recommendation - I've said it before - I tend to recommend once a week. Content marketing. Are there any other content marketing strategies you are thinking of? Right? So, maybe it is writing a blog is new for you or maybe it's doing a virtual summit like I've done in the past or you're going to start a print newsletter and you're going to add more content for that or you're going to write a book. Right? Those are all forms of content. You're going to start a podcast. There's all kinds of things that you can do that are content marketing related, and then you want to obviously write them. [0:10:03.6]
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And then I want you to also write out your community outreach, your MD marketing and your attorney marketing. Okay? If you're doing attorney marketing for personal injuries. So, just write out what your plans are for that, how often you want to meet with MDs per week, per month. Same thing with attorneys. Community outreach. You say, you know what? I want to add a gym program where I train the trainers on injury prevention. Right? That would be a form of community outreach. Or I want to start doing injury prevention talks for runners or I want to start doing more corporate health fairs. Like there's all kinds of things that would fall into that community outreach. So get clear on that.
Direct mail would be the next one. Do you want to start sending out birthday cards? Welcome letters to your new patients. Maybe thank you letters for people that refer you patients. Maybe you want to do the investment of a monthly newsletter, which has really good benefits and you've realized you can afford to do that financially and that'll go into the budget as well. Okay? Then, I've got one category where it's kind of like all lumped in together. Google, SEO, website. Is there anything you need to do in 2020 for that? Like for me, I am due for a freshening up of my website. It's a really good content platform. We have got really good SEO. We are doing well with Google and organic search, but I'm about a year past its prime as far as look and feel. [0:12:10.0]
So that's on my 2020 list of things I want to do for the website. You may need to be storybranding it. You may need a whole new website. You may need to add a blog to it. Right? There's a lot of things that you may have to do and you want to get clear on that in 2020. And then lastly, front stage-back stage. Right? So the front stage is the things that people see and experience, your patients do. The back stage is all the systems that support that. Right? And so, I get a lot of chiropractors who want to improve their systems and so I want you to write out some of the systems you do want to improve. Maybe it's a functional assessment, you need to get better at with your systems. Maybe you want to add online scheduling on your website. Maybe your EHR is terrible and you want to update that. Maybe, you know, like a front stage thing was there is that swirrl social media counter which is like…I think it's swirrl, where it sits on your, in your reception area and it's like for Facebook or Instagram or both and basically, a patient can be in the waiting room and like your business page for Facebook and it ticks up, it adds that person to it so they can see it right there and you have a nice distinct call to action. [0:13:15.0]
So it's a way you can improve that front stage and get people to like your business page more. Or like for me, years ago, when I opened up my, when I bought my new space, I purchased a…it's from Kwik Boost, K-w-i-k-B-o-o-s-t and it's a cell phone charger with my logo. It's a stand, portable, but it's nicely done. It's got all the different wires for the different types of cell phones to plug in. And where you set the cell phone charging, it's got our logo and a whole thing there. So it's just…that's like a front stage thing that I've done and people use it, but even if people don’t use it, they remark on how clever that is and it's like, you know, just a nice little front stage thing. So you can add those types of things into there. Alright. So that's getting clear on the global stuff and then what you want to do is set your budget. Right? [0:14:05.9]
So your marketing budget and the things that would be for the month - how much you're going to spend on Google Ads, how much you're going to spend on Facebook ads, any type of Fiverr or Upworks type of expense, your email platform - how much does that cost - sometimes it's free until you get to a certain number of registrations, how much are you going to spend on direct mail campaigns, graphic design, print. Right? Those are the main monthly costs and maybe you decide you're doing well with things and you hire someone to run your social media. So that would be a monthly cost, like an ad agency or you got someone that's creating content for you. That would go into there. Those are all of the things that are going into your monthly budget. And you want to determine how much can you spend on your monthly budget. I'll probably do a whole episode on that in the near future and it's a whole chapter in the book I just wrote about budgeting and I really dove down into how to do that because I don’t like the lazy thinking of 10% of your monthly revenue. [0:15:10.7]
If you're bringing in say $30,000 a month in revenue, do you really need to spend $3000 on marketing? A lot of people would say yes, and I don’t think…I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but just to say, oh, I've got $30,000 and I have to spend $3000, but you have no real strategy behind it is a fatal flaw. So, I've got a lot of chiropractors that bring in $50,000 a month and they spend $1000 a month on marketing and it's working. Right? So you're basically doing good marketing, spending less, getting the results. So, you've got to get clear on what you can spend and work from there. On an ad spend thing, if you have $1000 to spend, I would…my recommendation, this is an exact science, this is what I do for my practice - is I spend $750 on Facebook ads, Facebook/Instagram ads and $250 on Google Ads. That is just what we have found to work with my marketing company in my area. It may be different in yours, but that's where I am at on that. Okay? [0:16:09.1]
And then you want to have, for your budget, the one-off expenses? Right? So the website changes I mentioned I need to do. I need to figure out if there's going to be a certain amount of money for that. We did shirts last year. We did hats last year. Sponsorships. Right? Some of the big things. Maybe you're going to have a full SEO audit and implementation of your website. Maybe you're going to do a big campaign that you want to put some money behind. Right? So you just get all clear on that. Come up with a number. Let's say it's $5000 for large one-off expenses, and if you need to prepare for that from a cash flow standpoint, you can start trickling in money into a sinking fund, which is basically money that you're putting away preparing for a large one-off expenses, and that's something that Christine Odell and I have spoken about before in great length. So that's how you can do your budget and now you're clear on your year, what you want to do, your marketing budget, monthly and one-offs and then I just want you to get clear on your Q1. Right? [0:17:06.1]
So then take January, February and March and start to say, yeah, since I picked… I’m going to do one blog per month, I want you to write out, what's the blog topic in January? What's the blog topic going to be in February? What's it going to be in March? You said you wanted to do three videos. What are those videos going to be about in January, February and March? If you don’t March yet, that's fine, but just… and it can be fluid. It doesn’t have to be exactly, but you know, write that out. If you're going to do a campaign on plantar fasciitis, I want you to say what month that's going to be in. So you say, yeah, I'm going to do February. We're doing to do the plantar fasciitis campaign. Right? Sponsorships. In March, we have this 5K we're doing. So add that there. Email marketing. What are you going to email about? Alright? So just clear in the month and then you're going to get into the editorial calendar for each month and I'm not going to dive into that because that could be a whole episode, but that's some of the stuff I work a lot with chiropractors is the editorial calendar. [0:18:00.1]
So we have got our January plan. Now, we're going to dive into January like exactly the details - what are the topics? What's being said on which week? Who's responsible for doing it if you've got a team. It just really starts to delegate some of that out. To have things like your content headlines, your content type. Who's the audience? Right? So if you're writing a blog on tennis elbow, then the audience persona is tennis players. Right? Who's creating the content? When's it due? Things like that. So that's going to be the editorial calendar. But I want you to just start thinking about and maybe you have a different strategy on how to do it. Maybe you work with someone else that does this. Maybe you've got a template already. You know, just whatever it may be. If you’re a member of CSA, we have this in here. We have got the full template to do this, the whole marketing planner and budgeter, the whole module on it. So check that out. We are actually going to be opening up the Chiropractic Success Academy in January at some point. We haven't set a date yet, but we go over this as a full module as well. So check it out. [0:19:02.8]
I just want you to really make sure between mid December and very early January that you have a very well planned out fluid, it's not set in stone, marketing plan for 2020 and start to set some goals and actually achieve them. Okay? I hope that helps. I highly recommend having a marketing strategy for 2020. I don’t care where you're at in practice and how busy you are. You want to make sure that you're always growing. Have a good one and honestly have a happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Happy Hanukkah. All of them. I really hope you guys have a great 2020. It's been fun, you know, being part of 2019 in your world, whether it's just a podcast or the Facebook group or the live events that I've been to. I hope I get to see you again in 2020. Have a great one.
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