In today's world, it is crucial that your practice has a chiropractic funnel to consistently produce new patients. A chiropractic funnel is a marketing strategy that makes offers consistent with the level of trust that you have built with a potential new patient. There are basically three steps to a successful chiropractic marketing and sales funnel.
They are...
In this article, we are going to take a look at each of the three steps and give you an understanding of the importance of each one and how they work together to build trust, credibility, and likability to produce the greatest number of new patients.
A lead magnet is the first step of an effective funnel. This is what's known as a top-of-the-funnel offer. The goal of a lead magnet is to create awareness of your practice and your ability to help possibly solve a person's problem. This applies in a variety of marketing situations. Let's take a look at a few different types of lead magnets you could use in different situations.
When interacting with people online via paid advertising, your website, social media, video content, or other awareness tools it's important that you have a next step that a person can take who is interested in your practice.
For instance, let's say someone googles migraine headaches in Charleston South Carolina, and finds a blog article on your chiropractic website that is discussing migraine headaches. If your only call to action is to schedule a consultation you are skipping a step in an effective chiropractic funnel. The best thing you can do at that level of trust is to offer a lead magnet. The lead magnet should be consistent with the information the person is viewing such as an e-book, video series, quiz, etc. that is focused on migraine headaches.
Here's an example of an online lead magnet that may interest you :-).
Spinal screenings have been a bit hard to come by recently but in some areas, they have returned and will continue to return over time. If you're creating awareness by having a booth where you are doing spinal screenings the spinal screening itself is a lead magnet. The goal is to offer the screening to passersby in order to build trust, credibility, and likability and then offer a consultation as a middle-of-the-funnel offer.
A community talk is another way that you can utilize a chiropractic funnel. At a community talk which can be a tremendous awareness opportunity whether it is in your community or in your office, you will have people who will invite others to the talk. This would include healthcare classes, lunch and learns, dinner with the Doc events, etc.
The talk itself is the lead magnet. Anyone who shows up is taking advantage of the lead magnet and then you have the opportunity to build trust, credibility, and likability as you do your presentation. You then offer the consultation as your middle-of-the-funnel offer.
These are just three examples of how to utilize lead magnets in chiropractic marketing, but there are many others. Basically, any type of marketing that you do should involve a lead magnet in some way shape, or form unless you built a significant amount of trust with the lead already and can skip the lead magnet and go directly to the middle of the funnel offer which we will discuss in the next section.
A consultation is the next step in an effective chiropractic funnel. This is what's known as a middle-of-the-funnel offer. You can only offer a complementary or paid consultation when you have built sufficient trust to be able to offer it effectively. Generally, a consultation offer is presented after someone has accepted your top-of-the-funnel offer (lead magnet). But there are situations where you would go directly to the middle of the funnel let's take a look at a few of those.
If you or a member of your staff have a personal connection with a person and can build effective trust through your existing relationship and conversation about their concern then it may be appropriate to just offer a consultation rather than a lead magnet. But if you are unsure if they are ready for a consultation or they are extremely skeptical a lead magnet can help build more trust. For instance, if you have a once-a-week healthcare class that you do for new and potential patients then you may want to invite a personal contact that you are having a conversation with to that class first.
A referral from an existing patient may also be a situation where a middle-of-the-funnel offer (consultation) would be more appropriate. If you are taking care of a wife and she wants to refer her husband you may want to have him come to your healthcare class first (lead magnet) or you may want to just give her a certificate for him so he can go directly to the middle of the funnel (consultation).
Another situation where it is almost always appropriate to go directly to the middle of the chiropractic funnel offer is a professional referral. The situation is unique because the other health professional has already built a level of trust, credibility, and likability with the patient that is being referred to you so when they refer for a consultation they are already further along in the process.
Once someone accepts the middle of the funnel offer (consultation) the last step of a successful chiropractic funnel is making a bottom of the funnel offer which is our next topic.
The last step in an effective chiropractic funnel is offering a care plan. This is a bottom-of-the-funnel offer and you must have built an abundance of trust, credibility, and likability for the person to accept this offer.
Now there may be an intermediary step between a consultation and a care plan when a person will pay for an exam, x-rays, or even a first adjustment and post-x-rays before being offered the bottom of the funnel offer (care plan). This is especially important if your middle-of-the-funnel offer is a complimentary consultation. Having the lead make a purchase prior to the care plan offer could be an important step. The lead magnet is typically a free offer, if the consultation is also free then it's important to turn the person into a buyer before offering them a full care plan. This is where the intermediary step becomes very important in a chiropractic funnel.
But regardless of whether or not an intermediary step is made the bottom of the chiropractic funnel offer is the care plan. Without offering a patient a plan of care and just asking them to pay visit by visit you are not really getting a commitment from the lead. A visit-by-visit practice is really just continuing to offer an intermediate step middle of the funnel type offer every single visit. The patient is truly never committed to the practice or to their care and this can lead to many issues with compliance, referrals, and results.
If you would like help putting together a chiropractic funnel that will consistently produce new patients from a variety of sources then I highly recommend you download our e-book 21 Keys to Build a Successful Chiropractic Practice in 2021 (yes that's a lead magnet :-)). In this terrific resource, you will get actionable information to help you build your practice this year using a variety of chiropractic funnels.
If you have been following us for years and love our approach to marketing then we would love to talk with you about your practice!
You can have a quick chat with us about your practice by calling 877-252-1230. Or join our next Upper Cervical Acceleration Group (middle of the funnel offer :-)).
It's time to take upper cervical to the world!
