AHPRA is the health regulation board here in Australia and they have some of the tightest advertising regulations in the world.

Revealed in this blog:

• I’ll introduce you to a simple, effective, easily actionable and proven heart centred marketing system that outsmarts, out-positions, and out-executes your competition (without having to be pushy or sleazy).
• Discover the simple strategy a plumber used to massively increase the number of new clients that you should implement into your practice too. 
• Learn exactly what to do to break through the noise and position yourself as the expert in your community.
• Find out the secret ingredient to epic results with your marketing [tip...it’s mostly about being cool and helpful].

If you’ve struggled to attract new patients, if you’ve tried every type of marketing imaginable, spent thousands on websites, mail outs, wasted weekends standing around at screenings and you still haven’t managed to consistently and predictably turn on the “new patient tap”; then you’re about to read the blog post you’ve been waiting your entire practice life for.

Here’s why?

I get it…it’s frustrating..

• You followed all the rules, you went to university, got your degree…..and paid lots for it! 
• You know you’re good at what you do but you’re disillusioned because you don’t have a regular and predictable flow of patients coming to see you.
• Sure you like the idea of positioning yourself as the go to thought leading health expert in your community, but you're not even sure where to start and besides there’s too much to do and never enough time!
• …and you can’t help but ask yourself “why aren’t I making the money everyone said I would?”

Sound familiar?

Let’s face it..the old way of attracting new patients just isn’t working any more.

I remember the days where I could fill my practice with “newies” just by sending out a flyer or running a screening. 

Sadly…even if AHPRA would let me do this, these marketing strategies just don’t cut it anymore.

… and to make matters worse the competition in healthcare is higher than ever!

Just 20 short years ago (yep…I’ve been in practice that long) if  a patient with had some spinal/musculoskeletal related issue the only real choice they had was to see a physio or chiro.

Now… I’m not sure if it’s just in my suburb but it seems there’s a massage, pilates or wellness centre opening on just about every corner (not to mention every shopping centre). 

So the way I see it you’ve got 2 options:

Option 1.. Ignore the changing healthcare landscape, stick your head in the sand, complain to your friends about how hard AHPRA and others are making it for us and then prey to the new patients gods every night before going to bed.

Option 2…Realise that change presents new opportunities, learn, adapt and then reap the rewards of being one of the early adopters and get on board the biggest wave to have swept health care in the past 100 years. 

I’ll let you in on a secret.

The way we’ve marketed before is floored.

I can’t help but be amused by the irony that exists here… many of us complain about our patients are always wanting the “quick fix” yet that’s exactly the same approach that most of us take with our marketing.

Every week I’m getting messages from chiropractors, physio's, osteopaths and naturopaths wanting to know what they can do to get some more “newies” fast!

Let me explain why things haven’t worked in the past…

… but instead of trying to attract new patients to your practice let’s pretend instead that you’re trying to find husband or a wife…this will make sense in a moment. 

The way most of us have marketed in the past is the equivalent of walking into a bar and asking the first person we come across to marry us.  

Now, I’m no expert on dating but I’m guessing that most of the time this isn’t a successful strategy and if someone did actually agree…then they’re probably not be the kind of person you’re wanting to marry in the first place 🙂

You see, when we move too quickly in our marketing we end up looking needy (at best) or more often like a jerk!

Successful marketing, like successful dating is built on a series of small steps.  

Let’s go back to the marriage example we spoke of before.  

Rather than immediately proposing marriage, when you walk into the bar, you’re better to start with some pleasant conversation or perhaps offer to buy them a drink.  If all goes well, you might leave that night with a phone number. 

Step number 2 might be a follow up date, in many cases it makes sense to keep the it simple and not over do the commitment - perhaps a coffee and or maybe lunch. 

Step 3 (and onwards), as the relationship progresses then we move to dinners, weekends away, meeting the family and well…..I think you get where I’m going with this.  

When we stand at the local shopping centre doing a screening, when we place an advertisement in the newspaper or on Facebook that simply says - 1st Appointment 50% off, that’s the equivalent of asking for marriage on the first date!  

Sure... you might even get some response, but more often that not, those patients tend to be the “tyre kickers” that end up costing you time, money and energy. 

Luckily for us there is another way!

The equivalent of "buying a drink" for our prospective patients is sending them first to your helpful content.  It could be a blog, a special report, video or even a an ebook.

We'll talk more about this later, but first let's deal with the biggest mistake most practitioners make with marketing!

The BEST Marriage (Marketing) Advice That I Ever Received.

I remember once asking an older friend his best advice for a happy marriage, his response….

…choose the right partner!

Sounds obvious right….but this is also GREAT marketing advice.

When I ask health practitioners who their market is, most respond with “everyone...I look after people from the womb to the tomb".

Catch phrases like this get applause at conferences but they suck if you want to attract bucket loads of "newies" to your practice.

Widening your net and trying to get your message to as many people as possible makes sense on the surface but sadly, when we try to communicate to everyone, we end up communicating to no one! 

Digital marketing experts estimate that we are exposed to somewhere between 4,000 - 10,000 advertisements each day.

If we are to break through that noise, the goal of our marketing is to have our potential patient read the headline of our article or watch the introduction of our video and immediately be able to say to themselves - “that’s for me.”

Marketing great Frank Kern once said  “ positioning yourself as an authority, is the single most important thing you can do to increase your perceived value to the market place.”

…and on that same topic Dan Kennedy, the Godfather of Marketing, had this to say, “The simple truth is, if you aren’t deliberately, systematically, methodically…. establishing yourself as a celebrity, at least to your clientele and target market, you’re asleep at the wheel”

That won’t happen if you try to communicate to everyone!

Let me give you an example of two chiropractors:

Imagine someone in your community has developed a back problem and they’re deciding between using the services of two different chiropractors.

Chiropractor A has been around for several years and the patient knows him from the local school group. He appears to know his stuff and is a really nice guy.

Chiropractor B wrote a best-selling book on how to improve posture and minimise back pain with out drugs and surgery, she’s is a regular health contributor in the local news paper and radio and always seems to be posting helping and up to date content on social media.

When faced with a choice like this I’m guessing that Chiropractor B is going to win almost every-time.

So…Is Chiropractor B necessarily smarter than Chiropractor A? Will she do a better job because she’s written a book, or is a regular contributor on radio and in the newspaper?

Probably not at all.

But Chiropractor B will be able to attract a larger audience and command higher fees because of how she has positioned herself as an authority and celebrity. She’s become the “Go To” expert in her community.

Charging higher fees is just one of the benefits of positioning yourself as an authority

For instance, once you develop authority and celebrity, you’ll no longer have to chase patients. 

In fact, many times they’ll be chasing you.

In our previous example, Chiropractor B will find that she no longer has to go to networking events and run screenings to attract new patients. People will find her because of her positioning and once they do, they will stop looking.

To learn more about expert positioning then take a look at the video below.

They key to expert positioning though is to narrow your focus.

No one can become an authority on EVERYTHING. so begin by choosing a niche.

Are you the sports chiropractor, the posture guy, the headaches whiz or the kids chiro. Choose an audience you love to work with and that you know you can help – don’t stress, once you become an authority in one area you can move to another.

…and the simple truth is…a new mother has different frustrations, fears and desires and needs to hear a different message from an athlete… who needs a different message from construction worker…who needs a different message to a hairdresser….

Make sense?

Marketing expert Christo Hall tells a story of how a plumber client of his was able to sky-rocket his business by narrowing down his niche. At Christo’s advice this plumber rebranded himself from a general plumber to “The Hot Water Service” expert. 

He chose this niche for several reasons but mostly he loved working on hot water services and secondly it was super profitable.  

He changed his cards, the sign writing on his van, his website and all his advertisements.  At first he was nervous about all the work he would miss out - after all it made sense that if someones drains were blocked that they wouldn’t be calling  “The Hot Water Service” guy. 

The results where just the opposite though.  His phone started ringing of the hook…with lots of people looking for help with their hot water services.  Think about it for a moment.  If your hot water service was on the blink and you did a quick google search for local plumbers and you had the choice between a general plumber and “The Hot Water Service” expert, who would you choose?

He didn’t leave it there though.  After he’d done an excellent job repairing or replacing the hot water service he’d spend a few moments with his customers explaining all the other great plumbing work that he also did - fixing toilets, unblocking drains etc etc and that if they ever had any of these problems they could be confident to call him also.  

Can you see where I’m going here??

Let me be clear…. this doesn’t mean that you spend the rest of your days in practice just looking after just one group of patients. Once you dominate one niche, you can expand your business by finding another profitable and highly targeted niche, then dominate that one also.

The Best Way To Market Is By Being Cool and Helpful.

The goal of your marketing should be to first position you as a person of value. When you do this you’ll come across as a welcome guest not an unwanted pest. 

You need to be seen putting out helpful content. Jack Mize, the co-host of Authority Alchemy, a weekly podcast on authority marketing explains, “You begin to position yourself as an authority by consistently providing useful information to your audience — information which solves problems, offers solutions and addresses needs.”

The last part of that sentence is the most important — information which solves problems, offers solutions and addresses needs.

The best way for you to of be of value is to actually begin solving some of the problems that your potential new patients are having before they even come into your office. (i.e be cool and helpful).

The good news is that the internet allows us to easily do this in a manner that’s never been available before…unless of course you were a gazillionaire (is that a number?)

When you do this right, you’ll become known, you’ll be liked and you’ll build massive amounts of trust, authority and expertise.

This is the foundations for your new patient attraction plan.  

When you’re known, liked and trusted, patients will travel further for your services, price becomes less of an issue and retention will go through the roof….sound good?  

Rather than putting an advertisement on Facebook telling them about your 50% off first visit special you could add value by directing them to a blog post (much like this one), you could write a special report, send them to an ebook or put together a video series that solves one of the burning problems that your customers currently suffer from.

Let’s say that you chose to focus on sciatica suffers. Here’s some examples of videos, blogs and/or eBooks you could create:

• Create an Ebook:  How Silent Inflammation is Preventing You From Finally Putting an End To Your Sciatica and Lower Back Pain.
• Create a Video that shares the RIGHT WAY TO STRENGTHEN YOUR BACK AND CORE..
• Blog Post: Discover The Little Known Connection Between Stress, Sciatica and Lower Back Pain. 

The great news is... some of the potential patients will get on the phone and be calling your office immediately after reading special report or watching your video.

But most of them wont and that's totally ok.

Once they’ve had a chance to read your report, watch your videos it’s then time to follow up with a series of automated  emails….basically continue to be cool and helpful!

Share some more of your helpful tips (perhaps about stress management or nutrition) and  then offer to get on the phone and give them guidance (remember the dating analogies we spoke about earlier). Only after you’ve provided immense amounts of value…invite them into the practice and then…

…guess what happens next?

The phone starts ringing! 

I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t experienced it my office and in others I’ve coached through this entire system.

It gets better…when these patients come into your practice they are the HIGHEST quality new patients imaginable because they already know, like and trust you!

We call this entire process The Game Plan…it’s a A Predictable, Automated And Systematised Way Of Attracting high quality New Patients WITHOUT UPSETTING AHPRA.

And right now..virtually no one is doing it.

Your New Patient Factory 

The great thing about this process is that it can be entirely automated…which is perfect if you want to have a life outside your  practice. 

In fact you can be running The Game Plan by spending just one day a month on content creation and follow up.

Yes..it will take some work upfront but heck if you’re not prepared to put in one day a month then you better go back to praying to the new patient gods.

But..the payoff for putting in the work can be enormous…imagine this:

• Never having to worry about where the next new patients is going to come from.
• You’ve got a simple, effective, easily actionable and proven heart centred marketing system that outsmarts, out-positions, and out-executes your competition (without having to be pushy or sleazy)
• You’ve been able to win more attention from patients by positioning yourself and your practice as the thought- leading health experts in your community.
• For the first time you’re free to truly consider bringing on more practitioners, taking a real holiday and living the life you’ve always dreamed of.

There’s never been a better time (…or easier)

The tools needed for you to implement this type of marketing strategy are cheaper and easier to use than ever before…in fact many of them are free.

Here’s all you need

• A website to publish your cool and helpful content (I love WordPress sites because they’re cheap, reliable and super easy to use)
• An email provider (mail chimp is a great free service that will help you set up automated emails)
• Mobile phone to shoot some short, helpful and engaging videos (using video isn’t essential but you might be surprised to learn that 4 times as many of your patients would prefer to watch a video about you than to read about you). Below is a sample of the simple kind of videos that you should be making....pretty simple really!

Now before you go and start getting overwhelmed by the tech side of things then let me remind you that if I can do this after 20 years in practice then you can too.

If you can send an email and attach a photo then you have enough technical skills to implement this entire strategy. 

I get it…learning anything new can be overwhelming but we're here to help. Snd us an email, shoot us a message and we'll be sure to get back to you.

Thanks for all you do.

Keep saving lives

Dr Angus Pyke

Melbourne, Australia