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.
Hey, docs. Welcome to another episode of The Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie. Today, I've got an interview with someone that I've been trying to get on for a while, busy person. As you'll see, he also is able to take summers off and enjoy his family and so this summer he was MIA. He was relaxing and enjoying the fruits of his labor that he spent many years building and this is Shaun Buck of The Newsletter Pro and we're going to dive really deep into direct mail newsletters and give you a lot of good information regarding that. He brings a ton of value to this episode and I want you to keep an open mind for this because I know a lot of chiropractors get concerned with the cost of direct mail, but the results are there if you read anything about newsletters. [0:01:10.7]
He's going to give you some really good free resources at the end of this, but if you read anything about it, they just work. Right? And it's got to be done right, just like anything else, but when it's done right, they just absolutely work and so it shouldn’t be something that you just shove aside and say it's not for you or it's not for chiropractic or you don’t have the money for it right now. If you have a marketing budget, you should have a marketing budget, this needs to be considered and I think Shaun gives us a lot of good information on why it could really help a chiropractic practice. So, we have a nice wide ranging conversation about direct mail and newsletters. I hope you enjoy it. I know it's something that we have done in the past and I am … one of the reasons, again, this podcast can be very selfish sometimes for me, but one of the reasons I wanted to have Shaun on there was because I'm very interested in what they're doing and what they can probably do for my practice as well. So, without further ado, here's my interview with Shaun Buck. [0:02:10.7]
Kevin: Alright. Welcome to the show, Shaun. I really appreciate your time. Before we dive into direct mail and newsletters, let's hear a little bit about yourself, both personally and professionally.
Shaun: Yeah, so as you mentioned, Kevin, my name is Shaun Buck. I own a company called The Newsletter Pro. I have been an entrepreneur more or less my whole life, but really went in full time about 20 years ago. So when I was 20 years old, I am now 40 years old, and I've been doing that…I've been running some kind of business, usually multiple businesses for that period of time. Some I have had great success with and some of them have flopped and failed, just like anybody else who's tried a lot of different businesses. Right? So I've got five kids, all boys, probably the most unique story there is that I had my very first son when I was 16 years old and his mom bowed out of the picture and I decided to raise him, which is one of the things that launched me into this entrepreneur journey that I've been going down here. [0:03:07.3]
Back in 2011, I went against the grain and I started a marketing company that focused primarily on offline print newsletters with the goal to build relationships with patients to get more referrals and to get them to buy…and get patients to buy more and stay longer. That was the goal of it. See, I've been using newsletters for my own businesses previously, always had had good success and I thought, man, this is great but it's really hard to do. What if I did it for other people, and I did it and now, we fast forward to today, as we are recording this, I've got roughly 75 employees. We'll do well over $10,000,000 in revenue this year. We are mailing out approximately 600,000 physical newsletters per month and millions of email newsletters for our clients and man, and this thing just, this thing is rocking and rolling. In fact, I've got it set up in a way where I was actually able to take the entire summer off, from May 22nd until after Labor Day in September and the company ran. Not only did it run, but it grew. [0:04:12.9]
Kevin: That's amazing.
Shaun: Yeah, about growing companies, about running companies, about scaling, about how newsletters work. I'm an open book; however I can help your audience, that's what I want to do.
Kevin: Yeah, what did you do for the summer off?
Shaun: Oh, it was great. I went with my… my family and I went on a vacation - no joke, about every other week, and so we just wanted to make memories. We bought a cabin over the summer and I actually got made fun of. Like I call it a cabin. It's not very small, but … that's why I get made fun of a lot because people call it my forest home or my forest mansion, but I don’t say that to brag… I'm just saying like we bought a crazy cool cabin. It was awesome. So I was just up there for the weekend. So we went up there with the boys a lot. Yeah, man - I just traveled, hung out and you know, I worked … I worked really hard to get to where I am and that costs… there were some summers where I wasn’t around and so, you know, I definitely owed it to my kids and I was … my company is in a position where whether I walk in or I don’t walk in on any given day, it doesn’t really make a difference. [0:05:15.8]
You know, I've got to do interviews and things like that, but other than that, it's, you know, I don’t have to be there for day to day.
Kevin: Yeah, it's a self-managing business.
Shaun: Yeah, it's great.
Kevin: Good stuff, man. So, you know, our audience is made up of chiropractors. They're doing marketing. I'm a big believer in practicing what you preach and I can definitely tell my audience that's what you do, you know. Obviously you do say direct mail newsletters for other businesses, but you do it for your business as well. I've seen it. It's great. It's top quality. Speak to that a little bit about kind of, you know, practicing what you preach because we see a lot of marketers out there where they say one thing, but they really don’t run their own business like that.
Shaun: Yeah, look - there's a lot of charlatans out there.
Kevin: Yep.
Shaun: A lot of people who are trying to sell you the shiny object. Here's one thing, and I'm going to give you guys some philosophy. I hope everyone … it's just my personal opinions. I … you know… you may…yours may differ and I hope no one hears anything I'm about to say, whether it's about the cabin in the forest or anything else I might say on this interview - I hope no one takes it as bragging. That's never my intent. [0:06:17.3]
I always just, I'm a very open book. I don’t think things like money are taboo. Right? So I just talk about them, right? So I hope everyone hears that and then understands like hey, I'm giving you advice from my opinion to tell you how I got here and then you can take what you like and leave the rest and do your own thing. Right? So for me, I'm always … I always play the long game, 100%. I'm not interested in the short game. I don’t do get rich quick. I don’t do high risk, you know. So for me, if you think about it, you know, investing in your patients is playing the long game. Spending a buck a month to communicate with your patients and make sure they're a patient again next month is a small investment to, you know, secure your future. Right? [0:07:01.3]
Because in all reality, every patient can go to any number of different chiropractors. I mean they're a dime a dozen in the … in my area, here in Boise, Idaho, and actually one of my best friends is a chiropractor and I … so I …I know his business very, very well, the ins and outs of it and stuff and I help him with it quite a bit, but I… but I've worked with a lot of chiropractors, so I really understand, you know, what you guys do more than most. But look, it's relationship marketing. Yes, they want you to get them better. Yes, they have pain. But listen, if you're a tool, they're not coming in. If they don’t like you as a person, they may come in until they find somebody else, but they're not going to be there. So by playing the long game and letting them get to know who you are as a person, not just as a doctor, right, opening up a little behind the scenes, building those relationships, investing in them, you can't invest as much one-on-one because there's too many of them, but you have to…so you have to do it in a one-to-many fashion, which is what the newsletters does. It allows you to leverage your time and invest one-to-many. [0:08:03.1]
And by doing that, what will happen is is that they will become more loyal to you and they will become more loyal. They'll spend more. They'll come in more often. They will refer more people in. They will buy more of what you recommend and they will overlook more of your mistakes. Right? If you mess up, they're willing to overlook it because they have a relationship with you. Just like with your spouse - if you've ever been married or if you're married, probably overlook mistakes that your spouse makes way more than you would overlook an employee doing the same thing to you. Why? Because your relationship is different. And so that's what you want to get. You want to get that relationship where they feel like you are the trusted advisor, the go to source and the only person they can ever see. And so when you invest in the long game, and that's how you play, you scale up. So we have done that. If you get on my list, and I'm going to give you an option to get - at the end of this thing - if they want to see one of my newsletters, like I'll send them my newsletter. Right?
Kevin: Yeah.
Shaun: We will send you this high quality newsletter that has so much information on how to grow your practice in there and grow your business and how to run a business successfully, and we'll send it to you for free. We're not even going to charge you for it. But if you go on that list, unless you ask us to get off of it and you opt out, we will send you a physical newsletter in the mail every month for the next 5 years. [0:09:16.4]
Kevin: Well, I can attest to that because I'm holding right now The Ultimate Guide to Newsletters book that you wrote and part of that, getting that book from you probably, eh, it might have been 18 months ago.
Shaun: Yeah.
Kevin: And you've been very consistent with the newsletter that followed it but I wanted to touch base in this book a little bit because it's really good and one of the things I talked about with chiropractors as far as content marketing is you know, it's not just about new patients - that's a huge thing, obviously - we get that, but I always talk about, you know, patient retention and patient reactivations and the actual subtitle of your book is Your Secret Weapon For Doubling Referrals and Tripling Retention.
Shaun: Yep.
Kevin: And it's huge and I think a lot of chiropractors are just focused on new patients only and all the quick hitter things and the tactics, but having a really well-developed newsletter will improve retention and referrals, for sure. [0:10:10.2]
Shaun: Yeah, 100%, and I mean, like that's not even me just saying it as a guy who owns a newsletter marketing company. We do this for clients every single day. Right? Like we…most marketing companies are lucky, lucky if their average client stays with them for 18 months. No kidding, 18 months - that is a good, considered a good number. Our average clients stay with us for 4 years. Right? Like it's …they're … it's because of what we do works. Right? And so, it..they're …they're … you have to think about this, right, you can go get all the people you want in the top of the funnel. Right? And you can get all those new patients in, but if…let's say you got 20 new patients in this month. Right? Month of November or whatever it is, you get 20 new patients in. Great. If you lose 16 and the problem is you don’t even know you lost those 16. They just stop coming. Right? Like they… it's not like you realize it, but if you lose 16, you only netted 4. [0:11:08.2]
Do you understand that at the end of the year you will have almost no growth. It'll be anemic at best, and now, here's what's going to happen - next year, you may actually go backwards because you'll do all the same marketing to get new patients in. You'll get your 20 every month but you have more patients. So now instead of losing your 16 or 17, you lose 19 or 20 and you're just treading water. See, then what happens is doctors panic. They start to panic and they start to make bad decisions and they start to cut things and they start to change hours and they start to do all these things and then they lose even more patients. I have literally watched this repeat in both chiropractic, dental, cosmetic surgeons - like I've watched this repeat across so many different areas of medicine so many times now it's insanity. And it's, because they're doing the same thing. They're only focused on the short game of new patients in today and they're not thinking about …they just assume … it's like they're almost entitled. They just assume that those patients are going to be back tomorrow and that is a horrible, horrible thing to assume because it is not true. [0:12:14.0]
Kevin: And it's weird too because they have this thing in their mind where a new patient is so much more valuable than a reactivation - let's just take that example and it's really not. Right? Like I get maybe a new patient exam, you get a little bit more money for that visit, but think about how much more expensive it is to get a new patient versus retaining them. Right?
Shaun: Totally, yeah. So you've got… here's the thing - if everyone listening to this is going to have a different number for, you know, what it costs them to get new patients. Some people are going to… if I was to… if I had a small group of people in a room here right now, a small group of chiropractors and I was asking them questions about it, they'd go, one guy or gal would pop up and be like, "I get them for $37.52 a new patient." And I'd be like, "That's great, but you have zero ability to scale." Okay. you can get them for $37 for the 7 that you can get for that price and you can't ever scale because you can't buy unlimited patients for $37 each. It just doesn’t exist out there. I'm glad you have one source that's doing that. I hope it never stops. [0:13:11.5]
It probably will, but that's not a business. You just got lucky, basically. Okay? And so congratulations on that, but you can't make your decisions based off of one lucky marketing source, but that's what people do. They make those decisions and it's just mind boggling, right, like …so most people are going to spend hundreds of dollars to get a new patient in, but if you were to track that patient for 12 months, you will find that if for every 20 you get in this month, 12 months from now, you won't still have 20 of those patients and many of them will be gone.
Kevin: It makes sense.
Shaun: And it's just because they tried you three times and decided you were not convenient. Like I tell my buddy, who owns a chiropractor office, and he wants a little bit more of a lifestyle business. So I get that. I understand. Right? And but I tell him, I'm like listen, you will never get big. And he's like what do you mean? I'm like, dude your hours are BS, man. Like you close early on Fridays. You open late on Tuesdays. Like you sometimes just take off a week, you know, where you're gone on vacation. I get it. You're human. [0:14:09.9]
You have to do this stuff, but you are running your business as a lifestyle business, so you will never get big, you know. Right? And you can't expect that. You get… you want all your business to come from referrals, you know, from either lawyers or referred in patients - like that's not how you scale a company and so, if that's what you want, yeah, we're probably like running newsletters may not be a thing for you because it might not matter to you, but if you're actually trying to build a business, that's a whole other story. Now you're playing the long game and you have to start operating as if you're playing the long game.
Kevin: Yeah and you know and I … one thing I want to bring up is I'm big into content marketing and that's kind of our thing for chiropractors is …
Shaun: Got y'all.
Kevin: … is really teaching them on content marketing, creating content, curating it, repurposing it and then you know, obviously you want to leverage the distribution channels, call it Facebook or Instagram or obviously a newsletter is a vehicle to get your message out there. Speak to us a little bit about the concept of, because I'm a big believer in it, the added value of a physical newsletter versus just seeing another Facebook post or another YouTube video for these people that get these newsletters. [0:15:12.4]
Shaun: Alright. So here's the biggest … I'm going to teach something here that if everybody listening, like literally takes this to heart and understands this and really gets this, they will be able to take this little piece of knowledge and if they start using it throughout their practice, like it will change things for them. Okay? The number one, the number one most valuable resource on the planet right now is attention. Okay? If Facebook all of a sudden, time on app cuts in half, their stock price would tank. They would lose billions and billions and billions of dollars in value, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars in value. Okay? When you put up your Facebook post, and I'm not suggesting you don’t this - you have to do that. Okay? You have to have good social media presence. You have to have good online content marketing. Okay? [0:16:04.6]
But you have… your ability to get someone's attention is almost zero. You don’t get time with them because they scroll through. They see it for 10 seconds and they move on. When you send someone a physical newsletter and you do it quality, a good one - not a boring one, not a shit one, okay? You send a quality newsletter - so I apologize if I, I shouldn’t have said that word…
Kevin: No, we're good. We're good with those words.
Shaun: But you send, you send that newsletter out. Okay? They read it and they spend 12-15 minutes consuming it, which is kind of our goal for them to, time to consumption.
Kevin: Okay.
Shaun: You are spending a significant period of time with them and then here's what's better - you're doing it in some very intimate settings because I assure you, they're reading that newsletter at their kitchen table, in their favorite chair, at their office, while they're going to the restroom, in their bed, on an airplane. You are spending intimate moments with them. So I get this all the time. I will go out to an event and I will have people stop me and talk to me and they will know stuff about me that I'm like how in the world do you know this and then I have to remember, of course, they've read all my stuff. [0:17:10.2]
They've been getting my newsletter for 3 years. You know, they've read, you know, the books I've put out or the articles I've put out or the emails I've sent - like of course they know me. Right? That's what I wanted, but they're spending time with me and we have done some informal surveys on where people typically read their newsletter and you'd be surprised - like 25% of them are reading it while they're using the restroom. It's like… that's crazy… like they're literally in their most intimate private time and they're like reading about you, you know, I mean… So listen, that's where you build bonds and relationships and it changes. It changes everything. Let me give you guys, maybe there's a couple of single people on this call, but I'm going to give you guys a tip. It's a dating tip, but I want you guys to not … no one should be using this for evil because what I'm about to tell you, people use it for evil. Okay? You should only be using this for good. [0:18:00.3]
There is a thing if you are in a pickup artist, okay? So you're a guy or a gal who goes around and picks up on men or women and tries to date them. Right? So we'll just assume it's a guy because that's usually who it is. Us guys, I guess we're not as nice as the girls. Right? You know, so. So what they do and if you're a single woman listening to this, pay attention. What they do is they meet you and they try to move you to different settings. So they meet you at this bar and then they suggest that you go over to another bar across the street and then you go to a club down the street and then maybe you stop over and get tacos at the little taco truck, you know, that's out on the evenings in downtown and then maybe you head back to the first bar and then maybe you head to a final, another place, right, to get a drink somewhere. All those points, your brain doesn’t realize the time that is happening, all it realizes is the memories of you and all these places and you have escorted this, you know, if you're the guy, you're escorting this girl over and she's arrived safely and you guys have been having fun and your brain sees you in different settings. Right? And it builds trust really, really fast and then in turn, these pickup artists use that to manipulate the woman and then go and sleep with her. Right? [0:19:06.3]
That's the …that is something that is taught in that community. And that is how you use it for evil. Okay? But how you can use it for good is understanding that that's how the brain operates. So when they read your newsletter in the bathroom and then on the plane and then they see you in the office and then they get your email on their phone while they're hopefully not driving, but you know, while they're at the mall and they're spending time with you there. Then they get the newsletter again while they're, you know, at the kitchen table and then they see your Facebook ad on the laptop and then on their phone somewhere else, they see your Instagram ad. You are building this relationship and the more they're consuming of your stuff, the better the relationship is, the more loyal they are, the more money they'll spend, the more referrals they'll give, the longer they'll stay. It all works together. Right? And that's how it works, but if you're going to just go after new patients, right, and if you're only going to focus on them, then… if you're only going to focus on new people, then why should any of the existing people care about you? Why should they refer? Because you're a good doctor? Well guess what - there's 100 good doctors within 5 miles. [0:20:05.8]
Kevin: No, that's the truth. You know, it's great being a good doctor, but that's just table stakes really and then everything else is going to really help grow your practice. So let's dive into some chiropractic newsletters specific questions. How often do you recommend that a chiropractor send out a physical newsletter to their patients?
Shaun: Yeah, there's only one frequency that works, which is monthly. I have tried and tried and tried over the last 9 years to make other stuff work and at least in medical, I can't do it. There's like one industry I've been able to get bimonthly to work in, two - I take that back - two industries. I can't get quarterly to work in any industry I've ever tried and you know, I'm not trying to sound cocky here, but we're the best in the world at what we do. Like if we can't get it to work, I don’t know that anybody else … and I haven’t seen anyone else get it to work. I've seen other people sell it, but whether it works or not is another story, and I just refuse to sell stuff that doesn’t work. So we'll only take clients on as a monthly client because it's what we know works and we're not in…we're in the business of getting people results, not in the business of taking people's money. Does that make sense? [0:21:11.2]
Kevin: No, that's perfect. I love it. I'm pretty certain that once a month is definitely the frequency you need to start as well and so, now as far as say the chiropractor is now going to get into the direct mail newsletter, is there a certain timeframe when that patient had last been in their office that they should mail to? Is it like a year or two or more or less or is the …what would you say to that?
Shaun: Yeah, it's definitely not more than two - 18 months is usually a very good number, but 12-18 months is the recommended range that we give for chiropractors.
Kevin: Perfect. And you have a… your system has a way of kind of sorting that out or at least their EHR does? I know mine does.
Shaun: Yeah. Most of the systems can do that really easily and we can consult on a case by case basis to help people with that if need be.
Kevin: And then what's the reasoning say 18 months versus your entire patient list? Is it just a lot of those names that are six years old are just kind of gone? [0:22:08.7]
Shaun: Yeah. Not only are they gone, but it's been too long since they've done business with you. You really need to… they're basically a brand new patient at that point. So you should be doing brand new patient marketing to them, not you know, not existing, you know…
Kevin: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And plus it's … I guess there also might be a return on investment issue of how much you're going to spend for those people that have been six, seven years out versus where they're actually going to come back in where you get a lot more bang for your buck with the 18 months, I'm assuming?
Shaun: Yeah. Yeah, economically, yeah, I can't make a pencil either, so you know, again, we would…I would much rather you send it to the right list that's smaller and get a great result than send it to a giant list and get … and be upset because it didn't work, you know, right? So we're always going to be conservative on that approach, but 12-18 months is… again, we have been doing this a long time. That's the right number. [0:23:00.3]
Kevin: Thanks for saying that because that's important to know that, like look, it's not just about … because you could, as your service, you could recommend saying look, let's send them to everybody because that's going to benefit your company.
Shaun: We would make a lot more money if that was the advice I was giving in the short term.
Kevin: Yeah, but not the long term. Right?
Shaun: Not in the long term, yeah.
Kevin: Which is a good business principle for everybody to have, all chiropractors included. So make sure that you're not… you know, a lot of chiropractors, they historically burn and churn, man. Like it's how many new patients can we get in here? Let's take advantage of them. Let's you know, just take every dollar we can from them and then get them out and get the new ones in. So I'm a big believer in chiropractors really need to stop that burn and churn type of stuff they're doing.
Shaun: Yeah. I 100%... I mean, it's not like … there's no real money in it at the end of the day. Right? You can be affluent, maybe even…maybe once in a blue moon someone can even get really crush it, you know, and get to you know, $1,000,000 plus practice. Right? But it's so rare and since you know so many people are doing that and have struggled with it, why not just … I mean, why not just look and say, well maybe I should just try to run it like a real business. You know? [0:24:08.2]
Kevin: That's perfect. And then you know, so, what are some… aside from what you've already mentioned - you gave us a lot of…a ton of good information. What are some tips for effective direct mail newsletters that you can recommend for our chiropractors?
Shaun: So here's the biggest, the biggest thing. Like if, even if you don’t use us, like, you know, you said you have my book on The Ultimate Guide to Newsletters. Right? Again, we'll give everyone a chance and they can have it for free. It won't cost them a nickel. We'll… I'll send it to you at my expense. Even if you take that book and do your own newsletter, okay, which is what we teach you how to do in the book. So like you totally could do that. What I want to tell you is this is the one thing, the one most important thing - you have to have a personal article on the cover. You have to. That is where you are going to give them a small peek behind the curtain of who you are, both in the practice and outside of the practice. Okay? [0:25:04.1]
That's when they're going to build trust. They're going to see that you guys have maybe similar interests. So, you don’t have to tell them your deep, dark secrets. Okay? Right? We don’t need those … that crazy stuff you did in college one night, you know, like… we'll leave that one alone. But pick a couple of items that you don’t mind sharing. So I'll use an example from my own story just to illustrate it. Okay? I don’t mind talking about having a kid at 16 and the fact that I raised him. I don’t mind talking about the fact that I have five boys and that we go on crazy adventures. Right? I don’t mind talking about, you know, some of the challenges in growing a business. That's a little more of a business side of things. Right? I don’t mind talking about my failures. Like I mean, I don’t get everything right in business. No one does. Right? And anyone who tells you they do, they're lying to you. Right? I don’t mind pointing out my mistakes. I don’t mind talking about the fact that you know, one of the things that I love to do is take… I take my kids on amazing vacation, usually alternating between Disney World and Hawaii and I talk about those trips and those lessons they learn. [0:26:10.9]
I talk about their entrepreneurial adventures. I talk about some of my own entrepreneurial adventures. Right? So I have determined, these are things I am willing to talk about publically. Now, there are other things that happen in my life, personal things that happen, that I just don’t go into and that's okay, you know. If one area of your life isn't crushing it, you don’t have to talk about that. Why? It's no one's business. But I have decided that these areas are things I'm willing to talk about and so those are the areas I share on. I just rotate through them, wherever I have a good story. Now we make it easier for our clients because you know, as a doctor, you just got to get on the phone for 15 minutes. We have a writer who is the same writer every month, so they really get to know you. They interview you and then they ghost write the content and then you still have full creative control. So you approve it. So we make it really simple for people, but if you're not using us and you're doing it yourself, you have to include that article. That is the most important article in your entire newsletter. [0:27:09.5]
Kevin: That's a great tip. I think it's, you know, being human. Right?
Shaun: Yeah, because here's the thing - this is like, if you actually… if people sit and think about this, this is the truth of what the consumer thinks. We have no idea whether you're a good doctor or not. We don’t know. It says DC. Okay, you must be good. You're in business. You have a business. Your reviews aren’t horrible. You must be good. So we can't tell clinically whether you're good or you're not good to choose. Right? Okay? We know there's a million of you. Right? So we have no idea. Like there's …so, now all of a sudden, we just don’t know who to choose because there's so many options. Right? Okay? So we're running into that. So then there's price that comes into play. Well, so since there's a million of you and we have no idea whether any of you are good or bad, maybe we should just go off of price or who our insurance accepts or whatever criteria we're using for that. Right? [0:28:04.0]
So the only thing you have to be unique is you. They can't take your stories. They can't take your relationships with your patients. No one can take that from you. No one can copy that. Your competitor down the street can't do the same thing you're doing and the beauty of a newsletter is they don’t even realize how you're doing it because they don’t get one because they're not a patient. Right? So this is how you win.
Kevin: That's good. That makes a lot of sense. You know, it's …it's building that relationship, what you said earlier is cementing it, essentially.
Shaun: Yeah. Help them know, like, and trust you. Like I'll talk about college football. I'm a huge college football fan. I bet everyone listening here, if they are a college football fan, all of them are at least somewhat a fan of Boise State because who isn't, right? Everyone loves Boise State and the blue field. But you know, except those guys from Alabama. I'm just kidding. No, no. Like look - here's the thing. So many people love college football, so I connect with people on college football. Right? [0:29:03.7]
And so many people love…so many people love their kids and so I connect on their kids. So many entrepreneurs want their kids to be entrepreneurs, so we connect there. So many people have a hard go, a hard start to life and so we can connect there. Right? Sometimes they connect with me on stuff that I'm like I don't know how you made that connection, but I'll take it. You know, like… that wasn’t what I was saying at all, but if you feel comfort in that and you connect with me on that, then I'm good, you know.
Kevin: Perfect. I love it. So there's always positives and there's always negatives. What are some of the concerns you've heard from whether it's chiropractors or businesses about direct mail newsletters and what can you tell them that can kind of, you know, address those types of concerns?
Shaun: Yeah, yeah. That's a good question. One of the biggest concerns, I guess I should say is that this is not an instant piece of media. Like we're not putting out a Facebook ad with a coupon here. Okay? This… I have to build a relationship with your patients. You know, I have got to work with you and together we have got to build a relationship with your patients. That doesn’t happen overnight. [0:30:05.7]
And so I always tell people, listen, you'll start to see some results from the newsletter in 3 months. You'll start to be… you'll start to say, hey, this thing works at about 6 months, maybe sooner, but these are definitely in these points, you'll have seen this and within 12 months, you'll be a believer. But it's not going to happen overnight and if you're looking for the next thing to save your business, you know, with all due respect, we're not the company for you. We're not going to … if you're getting ready to crash and burn, we're not…we're not going to resurrect you from the ashes. Okay? So it's not an overnight media. You're building relationships and you are playing … and this is one where the other thing it is is this is a support-based media. So everything we're doing is supporting everything else you're doing. It is not the best direct ROI media. Like you know, you don’t necessarily say a dollar out and a dollar 10 back in because that's not the … that's not usually what we're doing. We're not usually putting coupons and discounts in the newsletter. [0:31:01.0]
Sometimes there's promos we're running for you, but that's not the primary aim of it. Right? The aim is to build a relationship, to measure the decrease in churn. The aim is to put content in there and to put information in there to help you get more referrals so you can measure an increase in referrals. Right? Those are some of the aims, you know, but it's not… it's not direct ROI so I would say those are the two biggest things that we hear that people are … take a pause on, but I'm … you know, what I guess I can tell you on both those is - one, again, you're going to have to play the long game if you want to do this, so the first point of it taking a little time and two on it not being a direct ROI, you can still measure ROI, you've just got to measure the increase in referrals, the decrease in churn, you know, you've got to measure if you are doing a holistic campaign and you're running the same campaign you ran last year - did you do better now that you have the newsletter and we promoted it there as well? You know, like there's ways to measure it. It's just not completely black and white. [0:32:00.1]
Kevin: Yeah, you know, when I coach some chiropractors on marketing and business, one of the biggest things I try to get them to do is I need at least their last year, but if I can get the last two years of their practice analytics ironed out and that's everything from new patients to patient retention, which is basically like a patient visit average, it's not a great number but it really helps - office visit average as far as how much does an office visit bring in, how much does a new patient bring in, you know, is it $1000 or is it 2 or is it 500? I want to know all those numbers historically because then we start to layer on great marketing like this, you can then see, okay, a year ago it looked like this. Now it's … it looks like that. Right? And it's kind of a way of trying to get the ROI because, yes, sometimes really good content marketing, like a newsletter and even email and things like that, they don’t have that direct ROI that you can, you know, like you can run a Facebook ad with a unique phone number and when someone calls that number, you know it was that and you can… yeah, you can do with some marketing, but if that's the only marketing you're doing, you're really short sided. [0:33:07.7]
Shaun: Well, and here's the thing - anyone who …it's very rare nowadays.. I mean, it happens a little bit on Facebook. Right? But it's pretty rare that you go from straight from a lead to a sale nowadays. Right? It.. people are moving …they're first seeing on Facebook and then they saw you seven times between Facebook and Instagram, you know, and then they Googled you. Right? Then they reviewed your website. Then they looked at your reviews. Then they got distracted. Then their back hurt again. So they found you again. Then maybe they got a… they went to set an appointment and their kid hit them.. you know, hit on them, like not hit on them, but like was like hey, hit them up - that's what I'm looking for - words, harsh …and then they… and then what happened was then you know, they got a post card in the mail or something and then they're finally, finally they saw your Facebook ad again, clicked on it, and decided to register. Like, you know, I mean…there's no…there's very few direct lines anymore. This is not 1980. You don’t put a Yellow Pages ad and put a call tracking number on it and know that that's how you got your patient. Like it just doesn’t work that way anymore and if you're looking for that, you're going to be very disappointed. [0:34:12.6]
Kevin: Yeah. You know, I think it's got to be well rounded. A lot of things I talk about is a total web presence, having an offline presence like direct mail is a perfect example of that and then obviously, you know, networking, community, public speaking, all that thing. If you have a well-rounded approach, then you're going to see amazing growth and results and I think the newsletter is a big part of that and I really want to thank you for the time you gave us and the amazing information. So how could they get to… I know you mentioned the book. I really liked the book. So I hope chiropractors take you up on this. How can they get that? How can they reach out to you if they have any more questions or are interested in getting newsletters started?
Shaun: Yeah, totally. So here's… I'm going to give them two ways. The easiest way is just to grab your phone, right now, grab your phone, type in the number 208-269-9111, again, that's 208-269-9111 - send the word "connect," c-o-n-n-e-c-the to that phone number. Now here's what I want you to do. [0:35:14.6]
Even if you're not sure, like you're like, oh, I don't know if this is for me - I want you to text that anyways because what you're about to see is some really, really cool marketing and if you like marketing, you're about to see a funnel that is automated, even though it's not going to feel automated as you walk through this process because we're going to ask you a couple of questions via text message, like what's your name, where should we send the book. It is all happening automated. No human is doing it. And all that information is going into our CRM system so we can send you the book. Right? And so watch what happens here because there are places that you guys could use this technology, chiropractors could use this technology all over the place. Okay? It's simple but it's powerful. We will send you the book. Now when you get the book, it's going to come not just as a book like you got from Amazon. It's going to come in a big package. We call it a shock and awe package. I want you to also look at the marketing that went into that package. That particular package, I'm not joking with you, has generated well over $5,000,000 in new revenue in the last few years for us, $5,000,000…[ 0:36:17.9]
Kevin: That's crazy.
Shaun: Like.. yeah, that is a piece to study because that is a piece that makes a crap ton of money. Okay? Those are the kind of pieces you want to study. You don’t want to study like the chiropractor doing an ad that you have no idea whether it worked or not. Study the ones that are profitable. This one is very, very profitable. So this year alone, that book package will be responsible for $3,000,000 in new revenue to my company. Right? So think about this for a second, guys. That's a lot of money. Okay? So study this marketing. Study this funnel, what's working because you can duplicate and replicate this in your own business. It's not hard and even if you only take pieces of it, because you probably don’t need the whole thing. Your sale is much easier than my sale. My sale is way more complicated and takes way longer, but you can take five pieces and just change the entire practice. So, you can do that or you can head to our website, which is simply newsletterpro.com n-e-w-s-l-e-t-t-e-r-p-r-o.com and there will be a place where you can type in your information and we'll send you the book and you'll walk through the… a very, very similar funnel as if you texted and opted in that way. [0:37:22.7]
Kevin: Perfect. I'll make sure I put that in the show notes. Great information. You know, just like you said, that package you sent me and you sent others alone is a lesson in marketing in itself and so, it goes back to what I was saying before - you guys definitely practice what you preach there and you deliver to other businesses what you deliver for your own clients and your prospective clients. So it's definitely congruent and again, I really appreciate your time today.
Shaun: Yeah. Kevin, thanks for having me, man. It was fun. I hope I was able to help your audience. I just really appreciate the opportunity and your time as well.
Kevin: Definitely. Have a great one, okay.
Shaun: You too. See you. Bye.
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