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.
Kevin: Welcome to another episode of the Modern Chiropractic Marketing show, this is your host Dr Kevin Christie, and today I've got a solo episode and I'm going to break down my top five marketing books that helped me grow my practice, and obviously help with this podcast, the Facebook group, everything that I've been doing around marketing for chiropractors. Going to really break down the top five books, not in complete detail, but going to give you just a reading resource if you're interested in marketing and how it can be applied to your practice. Obviously you listen to the show and hopefully are part of the Facebook group and you read our blog on the website that helps you, but if you want to dive deep into some certain topics that really were instrumental in me understanding it and then being able to apply it to my practice, we're going to cover that today, we're going to go over my top five books. [0:01:14.8]
Before we do that, I want to again mention the CSA winter retreat, which will be in Palm Beach, Florida, and we're going to have that December 14th and 15th. For right now I just want you to mark your calendars off. I don't have a registration page yet, we're getting that together. We've got the venue, the Seagate Hotel and Resort, you can look that up. We'll have a room block. We're going to have a great day of learning on Saturday, we've got Dr. Jeff Langmaid coming to speak, we've got John Morrison coming to speak on messaging and story branding, I'll be speaking, Dr. Bobby Maybee will be speaking, and Saturday's going to be in the classroom in the conference room at the Seagate hotel. We'll really dive deep into it like we did in Portland. And then at night there's this really cool, so it's actually going to be in Delray Beach, Florida, which is in Palm Beach County, it's not too far from either the Fort Lauderdale or the Palm Beach Airport. [0:02:09.6]
There's this pinball museum, they call it museum, but you can play all the stuff and it's really big, two stories. We're going to rent out, they've got different bars in there and they've got the Kiss lounge after the 80's band, and we're renting that out for CSA members, and we'll have food, drinks, play all the pinball, Pac-Man, old arcade games, skee ball, like all this stuff, but it's all vintage machines and you get to play, and it's really a good time. They play great music, sometimes they have a live band. So we can do that on Saturday night, and then on Sunday morning when we get together, the morning at the beach, so the Seagate Resort has a beach club, which they will trolley you there, they have their own trolley. They'll take you to the beach, we're going to get into small groups, we'll have breakout sessions, small group with Jeff Langmaid, small group John Morrison, small group of Bobby Maybee, small group with me. [0:03:00.9]
Really start to dive deep into your practice or your situation, maybe you're a student, maybe you're an associates, whatever. We're going to wide ranges like we did in Portland. And then the rest today will be beach day right there, and you can hang out at the beach, have a good time and enjoy December beach, which is, I know rare for a lot of you listening, and we'll have a good time until you have to leave for your flight. So mark that in your calendar. Again, that's December 14th and 15th, and soon we will have the info out there for you. Okay. Alright, so let's dive into my top five marketing books. You know I've read a lot, I spent, you know I'm 15 years into this profession, and the first 10 of it was just so heavy clinical, which I'm glad I did, you know I'm a clinician first, a lot of people don't realize that. I've done a lot on that side of things. And then about five years ago is when... So I opened my own practice in 2010, and I would say about 2013, maybe it was more like six years ago I really started to try to learn how to grow my practice. [0:04:09.9]
At that time I had two practices, I still do, Miami and Boca Raton, Boca's the main one, and I really wanted to grow it. So I started reading into some marketing books, and one of them really got into podcasting, I was listening to a couple podcasts and they kind of led to books, but one of the big books for me, and this will be the first one we talk about is called Epic Content Marketing, and that's by Joe Pulizzi. He's the founder of the Content Marketing Institute, which I've done a lot of, I've done trainings with them, I've gone to their huge event they have each year in Cleveland, the Content Marketing World. I went to the content marketing masterclass which was taught by him and Robert Rose, both of them have really been instrumental in my marketing, and so if you listen to me at all or see me speak in public, a lot of what I talk about is Content Marketing Strategy. And this book, Epic Content Marketing was really the foundation for me to do that. [0:05:06.8]
He's got a few other books I'll just kind of mention, and one is called Content Inc, which is another good book, but really the Epic Content Marketing book was the foundation of it. So I highly recommend that, if you really want to understand the strategy behind content marketing and how it's not just, you know, just producing content isn't necessarily a content marketing strategy. Obviously I discuss a lot about that, so check that book out, it's really easy to read. It's a little thick, but it's easy to read and it's interesting, good stories in there, good examples of how like Red Bull. You know obviously, we think of Red Bull as a drink, but they also have the Red Bulletin, which is their journal, and they've got this whole Red Bull Media, and a lot of you realize like they're making a lot of money off of their media and they take a ton of photography of extreme sports and such, and then they got to the point now where they've actually started licensing their images. [0:06:09.6]
And so what's happening with some of these companies is that they are not only a brand, but they're a marketing company. So obviously Red Bull's a brand, but now they have Red Bull Media, and it's a whole media company that's making its own money. So not only is it growing the soft drink, but it's also making its own money in the marketing, which most companies have a marketing department that doesn't necessarily have a revenue stream, obviously the marketing department makes money for the brand, but this is a situation now where you're seeing brands become media companies, and that's where I think we can do that as practices. Now we may not make money at it, but we can definitely be a little mini marketing, a media company in our community and really produce a lot of great content. [0:07:03.0]
So that's one of the take homes from that, so check that book out. Number two, and this, I have written this in order for me personally of what I think is really been, has moved the needle. Number two is Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller. I know that's not the first time you heard that one. A lot of you have read it. Again, it's a very easy read as well. If you really want to get clear on your messaging, it's huge. A lot of times we develop a content, and it's relatively good content. We use a distribution channels, we do it pretty well, but it doesn't resonate with our audience, or maybe we even have a clearly defined audience to begin with, but we're just missing the boat. Or we see a lot of young chiropractors struggle in practice with having patient retention and patients following up on their or their care and their recommendations and a lot of it, frankly, is communication is lacking, and the messaging, even in your one on one interactions with patients is off. [0:08:03.4]
I think this book does a really good job of starting to understand how you can get really clear with your messaging, so check that. I mean heck, the subtitle is Clarify Your Message so Customers Will Listen, and that really tells the story. So check out Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller. Obviously I mentioned earlier John Morrison is coming to present in the CSA retreat in December. He and I are our co-presenting at Forward St Louis in September, and then him and I are also co-presenting on this topic in New Jersey for the state association meeting, I think it's October 12th. And really how John and I are pairing up a lot is because I talk a lot about content marketing, planning and budgeting, distribution and John talks a lot about this messaging and building a storybrand, he's a certified storybrand coach. So it's definitely helping a lot of chiropractors out. [0:09:02.4]
Alright, the third one is The 22 Laws of Immutable Marketing. This is one of those books, you know I think with a lot of times marketing we fail to realize that it's not just about social media, it's not just about content, it's not just about messaging sometimes. There are certain laws and psychologies around marketing. People will buy or act because of certain ways that you have presented and positioned, and it's just a really good book. Heck, I could probably do a podcast on The 22 Laws of Immutable Marketing and just run through each one and how it applies to chiropractic, but it's really just a great foundational understanding of marketing. Okay? So it's just understanding what marketing is, and it just was a foundational book for me, so check that out as well. That when I actually listened to on Audible a couple times, and it's an easy listen, so check that out on Audible if you feel like not reading. [0:10:08.1]
I think most of these are on Audible, frankly. I still read physically a lot, and I also listen. I am the type where I've always got a book I'm reading, always got a podcast I'm listening to and always have an audio book I'm listening to, so it gets a little ridiculous to say the least. Alright, number four is Everybody Writes, and this Anne Handley, and I really like this book, and it really breaks down. So the subtitle of the book is Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content. A lot of people get scared of writing, and writing can be everything from an email to a blog post to a long article to a book to an Instagram post. There's all kinds of ways, and she breaks down a lot of great..., and the thing that's great about it, she talks about it in here is the readability. This book has got such good readability, and one of the things that stands out for me is the chapters are really short. [0:11:09.5]
Sometimes one page, sometimes four, but they're between like one and six pages. Bigger text and law bullet points, and she definitely practices what she preaches in the book, and it's just so easy to read, and she talks about how to write that way to where it's easy to read, how to get started, all the little roadblocks you may have in getting writing done, it does it, and then it breaks down different channels. Like how to write for Instagram, how to write for Facebook, how to write a good blog post, sentence structure without getting boring and into all the grammar and stuff, but it's just a really good book on copywriting. So that has been instrumental for me, I read that a few years ago, it cleared the way to write, and just I highly recommend it. Even if you're just writing emails and certain things like that to your patient base, it's a great book. So that's Everybody Writes by Anne Handley. [0:12:04.1]
And number five is... So Dan Kennedy, I'm going to kind of go into a little bit of a spiel. If you don't know Dan Kennedy, in 1980's, 1990's he was really the foremost authority in marketing, in particular direct response marketing which is another type of marketing where you're getting a direct response from it. Like you're trying to get them to call your office or trying to give them your email, their email to you so you can follow up. You're trying to get an immediate response from them and so you have the right compelling copy, and also just different strategies to have that person act. It's kind of going back to the psychology of marketing that I talked about with the 22 Laws. So Dan Kennedy was, he did a lot actually in the chiropractor profession, and he, I think there was a particular large franchise of chiropractic practices that he really helped grow them and he's just a really great mind when it comes to marketing. [0:13:06.8]
He's got many books, he's got marketing books, business books, sales books, and so he's a good resource for you. But the one book that I cherry picked out of all, I've read all of them, but the one I cherry picked was Direct Response Social Media Marketing, and I'm going to read this whole title, it's kind of clever, but it's the No B.S. Guide to Direct Response Social Media Marketing: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Guide to Producing Measurable, Monetizable Results with Social Media Marketing. So he coauthored this one with Kim Walsh-Phillips, she knows a lot more with the social media side of things, he's more marketing direct response, he's definitely old school and he's not into social media too much but you can, it kind of shows you. Like there's a whole chapter here where social media is not marketing, and I'm a huge believer in that. [0:14:01.8]
It's just a distribution channel, so he can apply a lot of marking principles and Kim Walsh-Philips can optimize the distribution. But one of the things that she mentions in this particular book that resonated with me and you've heard me talk about it, is your marketing should be 85% PBS, and 15% QVC. She coined the term, at least in this book, and that's where I got it, and basically she's saying 85% should be great information, educational information like the PBS channel, and 15% should be call to action or sales, like QVC. I'm very, very, very strongly opinionated on that. I think it's the way to go, especially as a chiropractor or any type of health field, I think that's just the way you should be doing it. And so this book was great for me to understand how to leverage the distribution channels of social media and get actual results, because what's happening is a lot chiropractors, a lot of people in general will start running Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and doing all that, but they're not optimizing the channels, they're not clear on their message and they're not consistently creative with their content marketing and they wonder why it's not working and they blame Facebook ads or Instagram or YouTube, and that's just really the problem is that you're putting the cart before the horse if you're only focusing on running a Facebook ad, but you're not doing it optimally, you're not having any type of good copy writing and the direct response aspect of it and you don't have the content or the messaging. [0:15:43.1]
So that's why I really like that book, really these five kind of tie in to what I teach with the marketing roadmap, which again is you have to have the destination, and that's your planning and positioning and budgeting and all that, you have to know where you want to go. Then you need the GPS, and that's how to get there and that's going to be your clearly defined audience and a clearly defined message that matches up with it. Then you've got the fuel, which is going to be your content marketing strategy, and then you have the vehicle which is the distribution channels, that's your social media, email, print, public speaking, all those different things. And that's the roadmap to where if you apply that and you do that consistently, that's how your practice will grow, and these five books were very instrumental for me. So to recap, Epic Content Marketing, the second one was Building a Storybrand, third one was The 22 Laws of Immutable Marketing, four Everybody Writes, and five, Direct response BS book. It's the No BS Guide to Direct Response Social Media. I won't read the rest of it. So check out some of those books, dive into them, see how you can apply it to your practice and watch it grow. Have a great week, and we'll talk to you soon.
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