Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.
Alright. Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie, and today I've got an interview with none other than Dr. Jeff Langmaid. This isn't the first time he's been on this podcast, and today, we actually dive really deep into three key aspects of email marketing, and there's just a lot of good information that he brought to this episode. I really hope you enjoy it. One of the things we talk about is that we just don’t think a lot of chiropractors are doing email. We really can't stress it enough. It's not as hard as you think it is. It's not as intrusive as you may think it is. It's super rewarding, even if your open rates start to go down and things of that nature. [0:01:04.7]
There's going to be a few roadblocks that are maybe preventing you from doing it, but you can do it. It's not that hard and it's going to be one of the most rewarding aspects of marketing you can do for your practice. So we dive into that. Before we do, I want to make mention of something I'm really excited about. You know, we had this CSA retreat in Portland back in June. We are doing another one. We are going to a couple a year. This next one is going to be in Palm Beach. I have none of the information set up on any type of place to sign up. All I want you to do right now is to mark off your calendar for December 14 and 15. You can get in on a Friday, which is 13, if you'd like, but put that on your calendar. It's the CSA Retreat Palm Beach, we have got the venue picked out, and we have got some of the retreat aspect of things. We have got the speakers. We have got John Morrison and Jeff Langmaid, your episode guest today, and so they're going to be going Bobby Maybee, and myself. [0:02:08.4]
So it'll be the four of us providing you with a ton of information, but we're also going to have a lot of fun. So just for right now, put it on your calendar. Over the next month or so, we're going to, you know, we'll give you the information that you can actually register, but sign up for that, whether you're a CSA Member or not, there will be a discount for CSA members. That's going to be CSA Retreat Palm Beach, again, December 14 and 15, and I'd love to see you there.
The next thing I want to see you at, you better be at, is the Forward 2019 Rise Up will be at my alma mater, Logan University in St. Louis. And I'll be speaking there, again with John Morrison, so him and I are actually speaking in New Jersey in October again, so it's like we're attached at the hip now, which I don’t mind. We mesh well. We work together well. We have been doing a lot of stuff together and it's always enjoyable. But Forward 2019, that's going to be at ForwardThinkingChiro.com. You can register there. That'll be September 20 through 22. [0:03:08.9]
I will be there. Hopefully, you can run into me. We can chat. I'd like to hear what you've got going on. If you've got any questions, I'm going to be available, so make sure you join that. It's going to be a great, great show. Tons of, you know, Greg Cook and other amazing speakers are going to be there, so join us there. So again, CSA Retreat Palm Beach in December. We have got the Forward Thinking Chiro group is putting on again. This is the second time they've done it. Last year was an amazing success in KC. This year, it's St. Louis in September, so I hope to see you at both of those events. Alright. Without further ado, here's my interview with Dr. Jeff Langmaid.
Kevin: Alright. Welcome, Jeff. I appreciate your time again. You've been on the show before. You've been on the other podcast I used to have, the Modern Desk Jockey. We have obviously spoken at the same places, hung out for dinners and recently I was at your live event but just, I want to thank you for getting on the show again. I know your time is valuable and you're busy, and you just came from California, so thanks for joining us. [0:04:07.4]
Jeff: You got it. Happy to be here. Always happy to chat and connect.
Kevin: Yeah. Definitely. So what's new in your world?
Jeff: Good question. So, yeah, I just flew back from California. I was out there actually visiting Titleist Performance Institute in So Cal, so I was down there with Greg Rose. He gave a tour to the facility and a mutual friend of ours, Josh Satterlee, and we out there hanging out and learning about what they're up to at TPI. Then I hopped up to Northern California to talk a little Smart Chiropractor with my business partner out there and got some exciting things, you know, as far as that product is concerned. It really helped out to see them market their practice ultimately. So, a lot of good stuff. A little bit of learning, a little bit of strategy and business and a little bit of fun mixed in. So good trip overall.
Kevin: I didn't know you were a golf guy.
Jeff: I am not. That's a good question. I am the worst golfer. Like, Charles Barkley, he is like Tiger Woods compared to what I can do. Like, I am the worst golfer ever but I'm really interested in what they're up to because they also have spun off OnBaseU in the baseball world and racket in the tennis world. It's kind of all under the same umbrella of how they utilize their systems and processes and educational programs. I just respect what they've done. So while I am the opposite of a golf guy, doesn’t mean that I don’t respect those who are. [0:05:23.2]
Kevin: Yeah, yeah. I'm actually certified through TPI all the way through the medical track and been heavily involved in it. It was something for me, early on, actually I started doing that when I started following Greg Rose when he was at Advantage Golf in Maryland, and then he did TPI, and I started going to that. It's just been, for me it was huge. I've done a lot with golfers and that was the real baseline for me, the knowledge. Great stuff.
Jeff: Yeah, there's so much opportunity, and that's really what precipitated it as well. Not only do I respect what they've done in terms of education, but the opportunities that are presented to chiropractors in what I'll call "the sports world" and in the way that they're doing it are super interesting to me. So anytime I get the … and it's outside of my typical world … so any exposure to that is all good as far as I'm concerned. It is a lot of learning because I definitely don’t know it all when I step into that arena. [0:06:14.6]
Kevin: Yeah. You know, it's interesting too, from like a practice-building standpoint, you know, we, I think sometimes we run into these scenarios where these docs get all these certifications and they want to put all these letters behind their names and all that. And I get it - it's not about, for some people, it's about the letters behind the name, but for others, it's just trying to learn and really become the best provider that you can. And if you're going to try to position yourself in the community as something, right, like I know a lot of people have asked me how did I get where I did with golfers, and I told them, it's really, for me, it was the combination of a couple of certifications. One was Active Release Technique definitely helped me out, but two was TPI and kind of marrying those two things together positioned me in a way at a time, this was back in 06, 07, to where I was a unique combination of TPI and ART. [0:07:05.1]
There's probably a lot more of us around now, but it got me opportunities that I may not have had without that combination of training and knowledge, but also yeah, the letters behind the name or at least people finding me on the TPI site and things like that.
Jeff: Yeah, you bring up a great point because I think it's really about the practical application. It's, you know, I jokingly and I will, full take behind the Emperor's Clothes here - I don’t have any additional letters after my name, so it's easy for me to say, but it's like I'll look at some docs', you know, websites and there's letters and I'm like, if I don’t know what the damn letters mean, there is a zero percent chance. So all it looks like is you're kind of, it's not shining you in a great light, let's put it that way. If I, as a practicing doctor, I like to think I have my finger on the pulse, don’t even know what some of this stuff means, it's outrageous. But I think that you brought up some very interesting things with ART and I think TPI is doing a great job as well, is that it's the practical application of it and it's, what are those… like ART, for instance - I'm not ART certified but I've seen them do a very good job marketing that brand, where if you have 17 diplomates through a subset organization that nobody's ever heard of…[ 0:08:16.4]
Okay, if you just love the knowledge, awesome, all for it, be the best provider, be the best practitioner you can be, that is great. But if you think that's going to turn into marketing, you need to explore that before the education process, not try to do it afterward because some of these organizations are 20 times farther along in their brand identity than others, and it's not always about how expensive it is and it's not always about, it's actually quite inversely many times, how many hours it is. You know.
Kevin: No. You're right, absolutely. And you said there are some heavy hitters out there. I remember a funny story with ART, being certified. I was probably one of three in South Florida back in 05, 06, 07 and I was getting a lot of people that would travel and then I remember Tim Ferriss had, he released his 4-Hour Body and he talked about ART in the book, which was huge, and I remember getting these patients referred to us. [0:09:09.2]
They would find us on the ART provider site because it was on the book, and I was like, this is great, you know. So ART has had a lot of weight. Obviously, TPI, there's a few others. I think Graston does an okay job, like I get some. I mean, it might be like three or four a year, but not a lot, and then there's other ones like, you know, I was one of the dumbasses that got certified in Kinesio Tape. I remember back in like, I think it was 2007, I got certified and then it was like a month later you started finding all the tape in the running stores and Target and all this. I was like, oh so I guess anybody could do the taping. So but like, I never got a referral from Kinesio Tape on it, but taping has been really good for my clinical outcome. So you're going to get some things that are going to help you out clinical outcome wise only, and then some that are going to help you out clinical outcome but also potentially referrals and word of mouth. So yeah, it's, you know. Know what you're getting into. [0:10:05.1]
Jeff: Both are cool. I think it's just a matter of being exactly, as you said kind of open and probably doing more investigation where letters don’t equal patients, but there are some that can help that along a heck of a lot more than others. So it depends on - I think it also depends upon what kind of doc you are and where you are in your practice. If you're really trying to grow actively and you feel great clinically, well you know, you can probably spend that time and energy elsewhere. But if you're really, you know, educationally hungry, so to speak and looking to get into a network of specific people, sometimes those couple of letters can make a world of difference in terms of access. So, I think it's just about probably, many docs I think probably, just being a little more clearer up front at what their goals are, and then you can probably make better - I assume you can make better decisions and what I've witnessed is that you can make better decisions on how you execute it.
Kevin: Well you mentioned something too, real quick, you said "network," and I think that's another thing that happens is the network effect of so, for me, when I got through the early stages of TPI, I got really involved in TPI, I got to the point where some of the other high level TPI guys that were - whether they were fitness or golf pros or other doctors, they knew who I was and they knew I was in South Florida, and so those people became a referral network for me, and that's how I even… [0:11:18.2]
In 2011, I actually traveled on the PGA tour with some golfers and I never would have got that without the TPI, and it wasn’t even necessarily the letters behind my name, it was the network I had built of TPI providers and one of those providers reached out to me and so that's sometimes you get… I know like with Motion Palpation Institute, I get referrals from other MPI docs because people are looking for that. So sometimes, you can build a network of likeminded certified folks too. So that's another thing to consider.
Jeff: Yeah. It's like prequalifying, right. Like if I was trying to do some sort of sports chiropractic and golf right now, I probably would have a hard time getting the caddy at the Putt Putt. You know, I have no experience, no network in it, you know… But, as you said, when you start to open up, you can take, instead of one step, you can take a 10-step jump. Right? In other words, instead of having to necessarily just slog through, you can accelerate the pace at which you treat higher end individuals and work with higher end individuals by being able to open up the network. It's all relationships. [0:12:16.2]
Kevin: Yeah. Absolutely. It is relationships. And speaking of which, I've enjoyed our relationship over the last few years, and I wanted to thank you, again, for having me over at your live event in Tampa. I was there for Sunday. I missed Saturday, but I looked through the outline of stuff that you had, and it was just amazing content and you mentioned early, too, it was about the Smart Chiropractor. I want to touch on a topic within that kind of covers what you discussed heavily at your event and also what you're doing with the Smart Chiropractor, but email. Email automation, email patients - it's something that I have always harped on. I, you'll be surprised, and I know, I shouldn’t say "you"… the audience will be surprised with how few chiropractors are actually emailing their patients. Can we talk about that topic a little bit? [0:13:02.9]
Jeff: Yeah. Like nobody is.
Kevin: Yeah.
Jeff: It's kind of… yeah. I mean, there's a lot to this. Right? So statistically, we know 90% of people open their email once a day, 50% open more than 10 times a day. So, yes, while open rates have dropped, it still is something that is, I mean just look at what you do, what, you know, if you are listening, how many times do you open your email up a day? A lot. We all do. Right? So it's a great place to be. It's also a great place to reinforce messaging. So what we have seen - we literally look at three aspects of email as the most important. Number one is onboarding new patients. When they come in, are you addressing fears and concerns, reiterating your care or treatment plan, you know, just reducing friction. Right? It's nervous to being a new doctor and they come in to see you for, you know, a half hour and 23-1/2 hours each day until the next day they're in, they're left to their own devices. Touch them. They reached out. They want you. They chose you. They came in. Onboarding patients in a way that makes people feel comfortable and confident, #1. I'm happy to dive down any of these, but I'll kind of just say all three. [0:14:05.5]
Kevin: Yeah.
Jeff: The second aspect is long-term drip. So what I mean by that is all the inactive patients, think about how many patient records you have. If you're a new doc, it might be 100 or 200. A seasoned doc could have up to thousands of people in their database, and it's like, how often are you touching them. And here's the clincher on that - it's not about saying "Fire sale! Come in tomorrow" every week or "Hey, Insert Scammy Title Here." It's about being a trusted advisor and staying top of mind. So when the patient that already knows, trusts, and likes you is ready to come back in or they have a question about chiropractic, you don’t have to compete on an ad. You're not competing from scratch. They will remember you because you have reached out and built a relationship consistently throughout time. So patient reactivations is huge. I like to qualify what I mean by that. It's not about being scammy or tricky. It's about being actually what they want, which is a trusted health advisor, long term, who is available. And then #3 is events and promotions. So many docs out there, you know, they show up either to a place, maybe a race, and it's like, "Well, I hope people walk by my booth." That's a crappy way to do it. [0:15:03.6]
Or it's like you're trying to do something in-house and you can't get people to show up or it's super arduous. How the heck are you not promoting your events online or off line, through your email list? It's the most valuable asset every chiropractor has, potentially, besides the building that they own, and nobody utilizes it and it's absolutely mind blowing.
Kevin: Well, it's like I interviewed Crystal from Progressive Practice Sales and we talked about having a marketing plan and being able to show up to the table if you want to sell your practice. You said, you know, being valuable. Obviously owning your own building is huge. That's great. But we talked about it, it's like obviously you got to come to the table with your financials if you're going to sell, but if you also came to the table with this well-outlined marketing strategy and include this well-developed email list of thousands and a history of emailing them, that's valuable. That's worth something.
Jeff: Let me, and I'm going to flip, let me flip that a different direction that's just as relevant. Think about if you're a doc in practice right now or if you are going to, you're like a new doctor you're just about to graduate. So I'm going to be the doc who owns the practice. [0:16:07.5]
Kevin: Okay.
Jeff: I am going to look for an associate. I own this practice. I'm growing. I'm expanding. I'm looking for an associate. I need to free up a little bit more of my time. Somebody comes in and they're like, "I'm a great clinical doc. I can't wait to get started. I cannot wait to move to the area." Cool. And you meet them, you like them - I'm very over simplifying this. The next person walks in, "I'm a great clinical doc. I can't wait to move to the area and I have developed an email list of 5000 people that I communicate with each and every week, and here are the open rates and the click through rates, and they're waiting to see where I'm going to begin to practice." Who do you want to bring into your - if you're the doc with that list, leverage - or you're the doc who is looking to hire an associate, think about the opportunity that you have to build your team through that. So ultimately and then the terminal point is you should darn well be doing it yourself.
Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. So let's go down a couple of those paths that you talked about. You know, the first one you mentioned, let's touch on that a bit for me. [0:17:02.3]
Jeff: Yeah. So onboarding new patients. When somebody comes in to the practice, in my opinion, it's exceptionally important those first few visits to stay in good communication. I mean this from a retention standpoint, but not like, I'm trying to get to 40 PVA standpoint. No, I mean it in terms of those first few visits are when the highest percentage of drop offs happen. Drop offs typically don’t happen because they've completed their plan and they're 100% healed within one to two visits. Or that they are having a bad result. It's often due to a friction point or a miscommunication. I need to call and reschedule, but I don’t know who to call. I, you know, just touching people and letting them know, hey, I'm glad you're here. I am glad you are, you know, a part of our health community, and we are looking to do great things as an intro, and then getting people engaged. Right? Send them an email a day or two later - "Hey, on our Facebook page, we post positive health content all the time. It really helps people out," you know, those tips, you know those tips and strategies will help you get better. [0:18:01.4]
It'll progress you better through what you do in the office. So then you start to build that, you know, it helps to drive your social channels and then you're following up by saying, "Hey, here's a few frequently asked questions that many new patients in our practice might have" and just outline them. Just ask your front desk, "What do you get question… what are the same questions you get all day, every day?" You should be positively talking about that and then leading into, you know, obviously at the end of the first week, potentially saying, you know, "Hope you're having great progress and here's what we expect moving forward." But just touching people, let them know that you are a real person and giving them the opportunity to interact with you, not just in that couple minutes that you're face to face in the office is just so, so huge in our rapport, in our trust, for everything.
Kevin: No, I agree. And you know, you know that term "cursive knowledge?"
Jeff: Yeah, yeah.
Kevin: Where it's like, where it feels like sometimes I don’t say things because I know like, oh, I've said this 100 times or I assume people know it, but it's that whole thing that I talk about with the before, during and after units of marketing and email onboarding sequence is a phenomenal way for that during unit, that patient experience as far as getting content out there, which like you said, is going to increase your patient retention, and it's just one of the best things you can do for it. [0:19:16.8]
And I don’t see many chiropractors doing it, unfortunately. It's frustrating because they're not doing email in general, and so obviously, they're, not a lot of them are doing automation.
Jeff: Right. Yeah.
Kevin: Or the onboarding sequence of it. So that's something that I highly recommend as well.
Jeff: Yeah and I understand that technology is challenging. I mean, that's, you know, sort of I have this slide where it's like, you know, the guy's like hair is like blown out and everything when you like … and so I get like that feeling of you might, maybe you have Aweber or Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, whatever. They're all very similar. And you open it up and you're just like, oh my gosh, this is like a different language. I have no… like, I get that. But that doesn’t negate the fact that the skill of that, if you don’t want to, if you don’t have the time and you don’t want to learn, great. But there's plenty of people out there that can help you do that or you bring it in house and do it yourself. [0:20:04.6]
But it doesn’t mean that you ignore it. And you know, being able to reach out to people consistently - again, these people - think about somebody that comes in to a chiropractic office - it's less than the majority. It's less, I think it's less than 10%. I know everybody says 15% utilization; I think it's less than 10 in terms of how many people come in. So not many people. Quite often, they're scared and apprehensive and then they're like deer in headlights when they're in the office itself. That's the experience. So, you know, give that experience some lift, you know, by touching them outside. The other thing it helps with is so many chiropractors go through staffing issues, which churning through new people at their front desk or new marketing people. Now you don’t know what is being said at your front desk. You're training people up all the time. You have an email automation for onboarding new patients? That's like the best staff member you ever had in your life because you control it. You do it one time and even if things change in the office a little bit, you still have a very direct line of communication with the patient where you know what's being said each and every email that goes out, which is so, so important. [0:21:02.0]
Kevin: It is, and I, you know, I wanted to ask a question. Do you find like a lot of chiropractors get bogged down too with some of the analytics of email? And a personal experience - I started emailing my patients in 2014. I opened my practice in 2010 and so I was a little bit slow to it as well, and I started doing it, and I remember looking, I was like, when I first started emailing, it was getting really good open rates and then it starts, you know, it dwindles down and things like that. Or I would look at the list of people who unsubscribed and like, shit, I can't believe Bob unsubscribed - like, I thought Bob liked me. And it had nothing to do with Bob not liking me, right. But do you find that sometimes is a road block for people?
Jeff: Yeah, I mean, no doubt about it. I mean I think sometimes it's easy to look at things and say, "Is that being effective? Is that not" and you know, you see something, you know, you see a friend unsubscribe and it's like, oh, I can tell you it's hard not to take it personally. Or you're like, I have 100 emails that means like I have 100 email addresses. I pop them all in. Wait, 20 people opened and 5 people clicked? But it's like, that's okay. [0:22:05.1]
Like email is a, you know, you want… you want to, as the doctor sending it, have high quality, but your send should be high quantity because that's the way it goes. And we all… again, think about yourself. You probably cruise through, you know, as a listener and you, Kevin, and myself as well, there's plenty of like channels, people things that I love and like, you know, like I'll delete. I see the headline. It's just like not something I'm interested in that day. It doesn’t mean I didn't like the brand or I don’t want to have the information, but like then they send something to me a couple of days later or a week later, and I'm like, oh cool, like right on. So it's really about a foundation. It's building brand, and that's the difference between emailing as brand building and emailing as sales. You might be able to spring in a little bit of a special event, so to speak, every once in a while, like a, I don't know, if you sell physical goods, you might be able to sprinkle in a little bit of sales in there every once in a while, but the bottom line is you should be thinking about your email as brand building. [0:23:02.2]
That is where you are able to really stretch your legs as a brand, and over time as we get into the drip sequence or the weekly email or whatever, that's where you're able to really show expertise, show things that you do that impact the lives of people in your community, and there's just an infinitely blue ocean, as far as that's concerned.
Kevin: Yeah, definitely. And you know, for me as far as like numbers, you know, the way I look at it is I looked recently, I think a little over 6000 emails have gone into my Mail Chimp for my practice.
Jeff: Cool.
Kevin: We have been open since 2010. And then between two things, between unsubscribed and then I also did a, I do occasional kind of cleansing of my list, and for the audience out there, I know you know this, but you know, you can go in and what I did was like all the people that haven't opened up an email in the last 50, I was like you know what, I want to get a little bit more accurate. So I didn't like completely delete them, but when I sent out the emails, it doesn’t go to anybody that hasn’t opened up the last 50. [0:24:03.8]
So I get a little bit better reading of what my actual open rate is, especially now with, you know, Gmail and all that where a lot of these are just going right into promotional folders and such. We're down to probably; I think we're at like 3300 emails now as far as my practice. So we have obviously sloughed off quite a bit, but when I send out an email now, I get at least 600-800 people, depending on the email, that actually open it and that's, like our… okay Mail Chimp costs me $50 now a month because of the numbers that I have. So it costs me 50. For some of these practices with smaller lists, it's free. And so for $50, I got 650, 700 people opening up an email. That's a lot fricking cheaper than running any other type of paid ads.
Jeff: Yep. And it can - the goal is too to be able to stay on top of mind. So if we look at statistically that, and we'll use the bottom of the pyramid, the easiest stuff - we can do a lot more than this, believe me. Low back pain. 90% of people have back pain at some point in their life. Point prevalence is 30%. [0:25:10.7]
For every 100 people that you have on your list, no matter where you are, no matter who you are, if they're an alive, human being, 30 of them have back pain right now. So you start to do this and this is where, what we have seen, and we have been, you know, I've sent millions of emails personally. There's, Jim, if you're listening, you’ve unsubscribed to me. There's many people…you know, there's probably people listening that have unsubscribed emails. But what we have seen is that with some of the docs that we have worked with, we have seen lists as little - it's like results may vary and all this kind of stuff, right. But we have seen lists as little as 400, you know, be able to stimulate a couple of reactivations on a single send. Now you get into like, obviously, it's like, you know, our goal is to write great copy. Write good emails, have good headlines, have a little call to action that's not scammy but that's empowering to the patient. Then you get into like the technical aspects of really getting what I'll call "real results," but the bottom line is you should be touching those people because they are the gold mine. [0:26:06.6]
They are in the best way, not in like a, oh, I'm hardcore business, but meaning they love you. They know, trust and like you. You probably, if asked any chiropractor, everybody I talk to, "Do you get 90% success in your clinic?" Everybody says, "Yes," which is the best thing. Like, if you give somebody a pill, it's like 50/50. We have like this unbelievably awesome service. People that come in to see us, there's high patient satisfaction and we have to, by nature, typically most of us, direct market to the consumer. Yet, we don’t use email. It's like, what? There is something missing from this equation.
Kevin: It is. And so, let's dive into the email drip. What are some of your thoughts on that?
Jeff: Yeah. So, what we have seen through, you know, from the tech and entrepreneurial industry and mixing it with the healthcare industry is that touching people one time a week seems to be a good cadence, where you're not killing them, you're not overwhelming them, but somebody goes onto your email list. They might get more than that when they onboard, right, so we have about six emails, let's say, in 15 days. [0:27:03.3]
Because you're touching them a lot , you're going to be seeing them the most frequently. But after that, everybody, including the inactive patients, go to one time a week forever unless they unsubscribe or whatever the case may be. So what that email is is what we call "research that matters," which all that means is like give them something that's of interest to them, one time per week. Hey, you know, here's… and make sure you frame it in a way that has a nice headline, that you have a little bit of an explanation, and then there's a call to action. So if it is - I'll give you an example - I use this example a lot but it's an easy one - "Is your arm pain coming from your neck?" Pretty good subject line, you know, and so anybody that has that symptom is going to open it up, and then you just dive in. Hey, you know, just simple in the email. Don’t overcomplicate it. Is your arm pain coming from your neck? A lot of people don’t realize you know the discs and nerves in their neck, you know, you have a disc bulge or herniation or a compression, it can cause pain down your arm. If you or someone you know, you know, has been challenged with this, don’t hesitate to give us a call today. Super, super simple, and that is stimulating. It is interesting and that was very simplistic version. And then I'll give one more advanced tip. [0:28:07.0]
Kevin: Okay.
Jeff: The beautiful part about it is if you tease it in the email, so in other words you made it as simple as I just said, but you say, "Do you want to"… you know, "Click here for the video of three stretches you can do" or Click here for our handout that gives you three stretches you can do." You know, now you start to get people that are what we call segmented right there, really raising their hand. They're, you know they have that problem if they've clicked through and you can drive traffic back to your website or your YouTube channel. We could get into the weeds on this like crazy…
Kevin: Oh, yeah.
Jeff: But the bottom line is email information that matters or provides benefit to the people in your community weekly, but make sure that you do have something in there that is a call to action. It doesn’t need to be sale. It doesn't need to be come in today or you'll die tomorrow. You know, that's obnoxious. Just if you or someone you know is challenged with this, or if you'd like to learn more or visit our upcoming class, click here and let us know or give us a call and most phones, right, you click the button that has the telephone number, and it will call right there. Super easy. [0:29:05.7]
Kevin: Yeah, our bottom of our emails have, we have the online scheduler as well so you click the button and schedule online or they can, like you said, on their phone, most of these people reading it on their phone click the phone number, call, and I've had many patients tell me, it's like, yeah, I just, you know, when I need to schedule, I just find the last email you sent me and I do that.
Jeff: That's awesome.
Kevin: So, and then the other thing too I think people don’t put enough credence into and it's definitely not perfect, but even if they don’t open up your email, it doesn’t mean they're not seeing the headline and it doesn't mean they're not, you're not getting that top of mind awareness. They're seeing it from you and maybe they don’t click on it because maybe the headline didn't really, you know, intrigue them or whatever, but they still know you exist.
Jeff: And you can almost think about this in terms of your Facebook page, right. You know, many people put out a Facebook post and they have a couple of hundred people following their practice page, maybe a couple thousand and like two people engage, and it's like, ohhh, shot to the heart, you know. There's an aspect to that that might be the content, don’t get me wrong, but there is also, there is benefit even if somebody doesn’t click like, share, or comment that you are staying, again, in front of them, top of mind, and I couldn't agree with you more, Kevin. [0:30:18.1]
The same thing holds true - it they're seeing your brand in a way that's professional, in a way that's nice and clean, in a way that's systematic, it shows what type of doc you are. And that, you know, we, and that's, that goes a heck of a long way even if they're not engaging with every single thing and loving every single thing, that you can see it doesn’t mean it's not having impact.
Kevin: Absolutely. And I want to go into the next, the third part, and I actually just pulled out a book because I've used this analogy quite a bit, and I want to actually give her credit for it. I've always mentioned like, you know, there's this book and this woman mentioned it, but it's Kim Walsh Phillips. She cowrote a book with Dan Kennedy on direct response social media marketing and the analogy she gives is she wants your content to be 85% PBS and 15% QVC, and so it's definitely okay to sell, it's okay to have that call to action, and so that third type of email you mentioned was more of kind of like a promotion or sale and stuff like that. [0:31:20.1]
And that kind of falls into that, like, it's okay to do that. You don’t want every one of your emails to be that, but it's okay to do it. So let's touch on that final aspect of email marketing.
Jeff: Yeah. It's almost what, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk would say, you know, jab, jab, jab, right hook - same concept, right - 75, 25, 85 or you know, whatever the percentages are, you want to give more than you take or ask for, so to speak. And if you are on the plus side of that, you're probably doing pretty good, and if you are 3/4 or more towards that, you're doing real good, and the more value that you get out there and give, the better off it will be but don’t make it 100, 0. Right? It's like you don’t, you know, you can't give in perpetuity without every once in a while asking if somebody wants to raise their hand. Give them the opportunity to raise their hand. You could do that through a few different ways. [0:32:05.9]
We look at it through the lens of events, online and off. So if you're hosting an online workshop or webinar, however you want to describe that or if you're doing something live in the community, workshop, webinar, race event, whatever it might be, being able to promote that - we recommend a real simple sequence. Out two weeks before, you know, let people know. A couple of days before, let people know. Day of, let people know, and then if there's a replay, if it's like filmed, let them know afterward. So three or four emails, you're not like crushing people with like 85 emails. Three or four emails will boost attendance at those things like crazy, but then the subset, it's like, you know, or maybe it's a slightly different email but I think it's the same vein is yeah, if you sell products, don’t hesitate to every once in a while let people know. You know, like, hey we're running, you know, everything shouldn't be a sales email, but the other thing I think docs get confused about is you don’t need to discount your services, but you might want to discount a product. [0:33:03.5]
You might be able to say hey, it's 15% off, you know, the pillows that we have. It's 15% off, you know, the tapes so you can utilize at home, but don’t hesitate to reach out every once in a while and let people know, hey, you know, we're, you know, we're running a promotion because of x, y, z. Hey, we're going to be, or a combo, right, best - hey, we're going to be at insert name 5K here in two weeks. We can't wait to have a booth. Stay tuned next week where we announce what we're up to there. That's your two week before email, right. Then a couple of days before, we can't wait to be at insert name 5K. We are super proud to be doing taping demonstrations and we're going to have 15% off tapes, basically the same email morning of - we're going to be there, show up and then you get your free, you know, widgamagidit, you know. And then the replay might be if, you know, we had such a great event. Here are two pictures from what we did and if you didn't get a chance to pick up your tape, you can go to our online store now for the next 24 hours. We're extending it another day or two and pick up your tape. I use tape as an example, but you could use almost anything with that and that's like being helpful, being engaging. It's not fire saling. It's not Grouponing. It's just being a nice, supportive, passionate and profitable business. [0:34:16.8]
Kevin: No, it is. Exactly. A couple of examples we do in our practice is we do a quarterly sports recovery experience on a Saturday - big event - we usually get 50 people signed up, usually 30 show up, and it goes really well. And so we'll definitely promote that through email and it's usually our best promotional option. So that's been good. And then back in December, I think it was, we implemented orthotics through Dr. Weidenauer, Dr. David Weidenauer's program, solutions it that and we just sent out an email and I think we got four people that had scheduled for orthotics and you know, those aren’t cheap, and so one email produced a fair amount of money from that. And so that was a couple of examples of promotional emails that we did that have been super helpful. And no one, no one gets upset because the vast majority of our emails are really good, you know, effective and educational content. [0:35:09.0]
Jeff: Yeah. That's the thing - it's like sometimes I feel like, you know, as you know, "the brand, the evidence based chiropractor" it's like, you know, sometimes I feel like you know docs that might, let's say, resonate with those words swing so far to the other end of the spectrum. It's like they can't talk about sales. They can't talk about anything to do with business, yet, that's the greatest challenge that they have. And it's like, you know, it doesn’t mean, the pendulum doesn’t swing zero or 100. There's a lot of grey in between in life and in practice and in business and just because you sell something doesn’t mean you're scamming. Just because you email doesn’t mean you're pitching. And just because you're a chiropractor doesn’t mean you're a lunatic. Right? These things are all truths. So, you know, don’t hesitate. You're a great doc in your practice. You know, chiropractors, on the whole, are some of the safest, most effective, we all know what we can do within our four walls. But you should not stop in those four walls, or else you're going to have a real hard time building throughout time. [0:36:08.2]
Kevin: Yeah, you know, it's like you said, the pendulum swinging, I think a lot of times, especially in the evidence based, evidence form kind of chiropractors is we try to avoid being that other, you know, like where it's, you know, 10-month long treatment plans and all these crazy things that the profession has done, currently or in the past, and so we end up on the other end of the spectrum, to our own disservice, and they don’t want to sell anything because they, oh, like I don’t want to close a patient, which I don’t either, but you can compel them. Right? And then you can, you definitely got to do some selling. You have to sell yourself. You know, I always ask chiropractors, like, do you believe in what you're offering, you know - do you think this benefits people in your community, and they're always like, yes, of course, of course, of course. I was like, well then why wouldn’t you want more people to utilize what you offer, you know. And they are like, oh, that makes sense. And it's not about being a car salesman or closing people or anything like that, but there's got to be some selling to what you do because ultimately, they're going to benefit from that. People want to buy things and if they're not going to come you, you're not going to sell them on your service, they're going to get it from somewhere else, and most likely, it won't be as high quality as what you're offering. [0:37:17.3]
Jeff: Yeah. I'd say two things to that. The first is you can't help anybody if you're closed. So there's that. That's not an excuse, though, to do unethical things. The secondary portion of that is people spend billions of dollars per year on a whole bunch of health crap that doesn’t work. You should be doing everything you can to showcase what does, and if you're not, that's on you.
Kevin: And you're actually helping them avoid being ripped off from other aspects, right.
Jeff: Yes.
Kevin: Alright. Cool. Cool. I really appreciate it. That was a great breakdown of email, and so, just you know, quickly, explain what you guys are doing to help chiropractors with email and how they can find some of that information.
Jeff: Yeah. So there's kind of two versions of that. One is we have ChiroEmails.com. [0:38:04.9]
So ChiroEmails is we basically build all the automations; all the doc has to do is upload their email list and we build out all of the emails, all of the automations, all of the content - everything is already there. So it's really completely done for a doc, so, and it's an email product. We kind of built it on some of the architecture of the biggest email systems in the world, and then we built it specifically for chiropractors and probably no surprise to you, we have the three, of course, automations that we talked about built in, right. So we do onboarding. We do long-term drip and nurture one time a week, and then we have event sequences that the doctor can turn on and off. If the doctor is already onboarding through a software program, they can turn that off and just use our long-term drip and still get a supreme amount of benefit from it. Or if the doc, the splintered version of this would be that if the doctor loves that, but also needs help on the social media side, that's where we have the Smart Chiropractor. That includes ChiroEmails, but also has social media graphics, blog posts, videos, and all of that as well. [0:39:01.2]
So we have both because we know some docs, you know, just need help with the email - cool. Check out ChiroEmail and see if it suits you, or if you need help with a little bit more than that, online presence wise, then Smart Chiropractor has ChiroEmails built into it, and they work synergistically. So, I'd welcome anybody that's, you know, looking to kind of build and grow. I mean, if you're listening to this and you know who I am, the evidence based chiropractor, you kind of know the gist of where it's going. We love, we always talk in the vein of research that matters. I brought that up earlier. We take a look at what's out there, what people are searching for in your community, key words, hot topics. We build our calendar around that and then we find the research out there, if there is any, you know, we're obviously making sure we are right in line with what is available. I'm not stretching it to say, hey, here's what's out there, research that matters to you, your patients, your community and that's kind of how we go about it.
Kevin: Perfect. Yeah, we, at the CSA Retreat in Portland, I, my presentation was on optimization, automation and outsourcing, and I'm trying to get docs to understand is that you know, the way I look at it is everybody's at a different place, you know, and but the first thing you want to do is like okay, with your marketing or your business systems, can you automate it? And if it can be completely automated, great - you want to automate it. [0:40:14.2]
If it can't, can you afford to outsource it. Right? Which is awesome, and if you can, please outsource it, and that's what you're talking about right now. If you can't afford to outsource it, you're going to have to really optimize it as much as you can. So like for instance, we're talking about email. You got to make sure you have templates in there, make it easy, do all that, but as soon as you can, get the crap outsourced, pay the, write the check, do it. Because we really want you focusing on your unique abilities. Early on, maybe you have more time than money, and I get that, but if you can afford it, write the check, outsource it. Get the marketing done for you. Get all those rule books out of there and what you're talking about helps do that.
Jeff: Hey, Kevin - let me ask you this. Do you have the ability and the show notes to link? I'm happy to offer the people listening, I wrote an onboarding sequence that they could copy and paste and utilize to get started. Do you want me to, I can shoot you a link and we can put that in the show notes? [0:41:06.7]
Kevin: Yeah, we can definitely do that. We have got, I've improved our show notes. I've brought on the Podcast Factory to do my podcast production, all the different stuff, and that's definitely one of the things that's come with it was much more robust show notes.
Jeff: Sweet. So yeah, if you're listening and you'd like to, you know, pick up an onboarding sequence, I'm happy to share it with you. Normally, I sell it for $20, but I'll share it with anybody. So, catch it in the show notes or email Kevin or myself and just let me know that you heard about here on the show, and I'll send it over to you and you can take a look, get started, see if it's something you can do yourself, and if not, obviously, we'd love to help you.
Kevin: I appreciate it. You know, I really appreciate your time as well. Thanks for coming on the show. We'll make sure all that stuff is in the show notes. And I know you and I will be talking soon.
Jeff: Thanks, Kevin - appreciate it.
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