Most chiropractors are using "dinner with the doc," "refer a friend," customer appreciation days, grand openings, health fairs, chamber of commerce meetings, and other networking events to get new patients.
In order to maximize results, your website needs to have a sales funnel to capture, engage and convert those leads into patients. Some chiropractors have no idea how to do this. Let's discuss why social media and blogging can be vital tools to getting you more traffic; and four ways to capture, engage and convert traffic into patients.
Social media is one way to quickly build a fiercely loyal fan base that loves to share your content with their friends, which in turn, sends you free traffic and leads in the process! According to recent stats on Statista (December 2014), there are 1.79 billion active social media users monthly. With that many constant users, the lines between offline and virtual life are becoming blurred. On Facebook alone, the average number of "friends" increased from 100 in 2013 to 338 in 2014. That means when someone comments, "likes" or shares your content on Facebook, your content is potentially shared with 338 other people with no additional work on your part.
Facebook is the largest social media site, but you get similar stats from Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn. The part people forget to mention is that social platforms now limit the number of "like subscribers" who are notified when you post new content. They want to force you to buy ads if you want your followers to see your content.
Engage – Spread the Word
There is a way to circumvent paying for ads. For example, if one of your "fans" engages with your content on your page, all of their "friends" are automatically notified of that activity on your page. As an added benefit, when one of their "friends" checks out your page because they saw one of their friends do it, all of their friends are automatically notified of their engagement with your page.
The next thing you know, what started as a simple "like" can snowball into an avalanche of new subscribers who will be automatically notified when you post new content ... provided you first get people to "engage" with content on your page. The reason this works is because social platforms (in this case, Facebook) do not limit their reach like they limit yours as a business owner.
It is important to understand why you need people to not only "like," but also engage with your page and your content. If your content is not producing considerable engagement, I recommend you review other popular pages in your local market to see which kind of posts produce the most comments and shares. Then create similar posts on your page to bolster the engagement of your fans.
Redirect – The Power of the Blog
Since we all "lease" space on social platforms, our next goal should be to get fans as quickly as possible onto something we have 100 percent control of – like our website or a landing page. You can lead them to these sites by having special offers and promotions to various services, but another way to get them to your website is by posting links to your blog.
In 2014, I taught a social media workshop at the Florida Chiropractic Convention and asked how many doctors and CAs were blogging. Amazingly, only three out of 100 were actually utilizing blogs. I was amazed because a blog can quickly become the mega center for generating free traffic. Ultra-savvy marketers are also making blogs the mega centers of their list-building efforts.
Blogs are an easy way to publish educational and informational content, but more importantly, blogs are inherently loved by search engines. By using a few key search engine plug-ins, any WordPress site can be an even more powerful source of free traffic.
Here is the secret: Every single piece of content you post online should lead back to or support your blog in some way. In turn, every piece of content you post on your blog should also be used to support your promotional efforts on all your social sites, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and any other site you promote your practice and content on.
In Florida, when I asked why blogs were not being used, the most common response was they didn't know what to write about, how to set it up or how a blog post should be written. Blogs are very easy to create and use. You can even install one on most existing websites to supercharge your traffic-building efforts without changing your existing website.
You can also use a free blog hosted by companies like WordPress, Tumblr or Blogger.com. Be aware that there are some limitations to using this option, so I encourage you to set up your own blog on your own website first.
Capture – Maximizing Leads
Honestly, all of your online content should be leveraged and integrated into one huge synergy of traffic, so the primary focus is to feed your blog traffic. The No. 1 objective of any traffic-building strategy is to capture the visitors so you can engage with them and convert them into patients. To do so, you need to optimize your blog for leads. You do that by turning every single page and every single post on your blog into a traffic magnet for leads. Here's how to make that happen:
- Create a stand-alone opt-in page. Get away from the lonely, plain-vanilla "Join my mailing list" form in the sidebar. Instead, install an opt-in page to collect emails and drive all your blog visitors to that page. This way, you can capture 10-20 percent of your visitors into leads.
- Share why they should join your list. Use strong, compelling, benefit-rich headlines to entice visitors to want to find out more. Be sure to focus on the benefits and feature them in the headline and bullet points. Include benefits in the instructions on how to join your list. Finally, be sure to include a CTA (call to action) in the instructions and on the subscribe button.
- Test everything. Test all aspects of your page including your headlines, call to action, CTA buttons, text, background images, page design and layout, bullet points, text color (especially the headline), font styles, and colors of the action buttons. Always A/B test (also known as split test) all parts of your page, but only test one item at a time. If you try to test too many items at once, you won't be able to tell what works and what doesn't. Two recommended sites I like to use for creating split tests are www.optimizely.com and www.vwo.com.
- Talk about your stand-alone page on every page and post on your blog. Include a brief paragraph with the link at the bottom of your blog posts. Include text links in the header and sidebar of your website – be sure to include strong headlines and compelling images in your header and sidebar. Add banner ads on your site; these are great ways to test other headlines, images, and anything related to trying to get your visitors over to your opt-in page.
Remember to add links to your blog on your social media 3-4 times a week and add the link to your email signature. When you are speaking at live events, mention the blog benefit and link, tell your current patients about your blog, and get them to subscribe and share.
Once prospective patients have joined your email list, cultivate the relationship by continuing to provide relevant and valuable solutions to their most pressing problems; and by following a simple "give, give, give, ask" formula in your emails. This should help to get them to your office so you can convert them into patients.
Stephanie Beck is the owner of SRB Solutions, an online and social media marketing business. Contact her with questions, comments, and for more information at
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