(Pin this article to read later!)
This article may contain affiliate links.
5 Reasons Your Acupuncture Marketing Isn’t Working
Hi everyone! Welcome back. Today we’re talking about why your marketing efforts might be falling flat.
Trust me, we’ve all been there. You take a leap with a new marketing approach, and don’t get the results you were hoping for.
I’m here to tell you, it’s okay. This is normal – it happens sometimes!
One thing that I see with my marketing students pretty often is the desire to abandon marketing altogether if it doesn’t seem to work immediately.
This just breaks my heart, because marketing, like everything, takes a little time and practice.
We all have marketing efforts that don’t work out like we hoped, and that’s normal. You learn from it, and try again. Marketing is a reflexive learning experience. So don’t give up!
Here are five common reasons your marketing might not be working, and what to do about each one:
1) You haven’t identified your target market
Target market gets a bad reputation – sometimes my students tell me that they feel like identifying their target market seems like a purely theoretical exercise (i.e., a total waste of time) with no practical application.
Let me tell you why knowing your target market as well as your know your bestie is important:
The better you’ve identified the type of patient you want in your office, the easier it is to speak directly to that kind of patient in all of your marketing efforts.
If you’re not clear about who you’re talking to, then your message is likely to feel muddled and unclear to your audience. If your message is unclear, they aren’t going to take action, which means your marketing isn’t working.
There’s a common concept in marketing: “If you’re speaking to everyone, then you’re not speaking to anyone.” I completely agree.
Knowing your ideal patient will make your marketing A) easier, and B) more effective. This, in turn, makes your marketing more cost-effective because you’re not wasting dollars or effort.
Instead of blasting out a vague message that no one is listening to, get specific and talk to the right people.
How do you do this? Try these worksheets (target market worksheet 1 or target market worksheet 2) or considering jumping in on my online marketing course when enrollment opens in June. Inside the course are target market and ideal patient avatar worksheets created specifically for acupuncturists.
2) You don’t have a marketing plan.
The number one problem with not having a plan is that it makes you inconsistent with your marketing.
Consistency is crucial in marketing. If you’re regular with your marketing (which is 1000 times easier if you have a monthly plan), then the results (i.e., your patient influx) are likely to be regular as well.
On the flip side, inconsistent marketing makes for inconsistent patient flow. You know that feeling (“Where are all the patients this week?!”) and you don’t want it.
How can you create a super-easy marketing plan?
Pick three things you’re willing to do regularly for your marketing and add them into your patient schedule as recurring appointments.
That’s right. Prioritize your marketing at the same level you prioritize your patients. Don’t bump marketing from your schedule for anything else. Make space for it. Make time for it.
For example, let’s say the three marketing efforts you choose are: 1) blogging twice a month, 2) teaching about acupuncture at the local library once a month, and 3) posting (intentionally) on Instagram twice a week.
Add each of these items to your patient schedule weekly so you get a reminder to do them.
If you find that you have trouble actually completing your marketing tasks (even when you schedule them), then I recommend getting an accountability buddy.
It helps a ton to have someone check in with you about whether you’ve completed what you said you would for the week. I recommend choosing an acquaintance who’s willing to give you some tough love if you don’t follow through – not a family member who’s going to be nice to you about it say, “Oh well, there’s always next week.” You need someone who will truly keep you accountable.
Trust me – I know it sounds like a small thing, but when you commit to a marketing plan and are consistent with your efforts, you WILL see a change in your patient numbers!
3) You don’t share nearly often enough on social media.
Most acupuncturists I know feel like they’re “annoying” people with their social media posts.
This simply isn’t true. People choose to follow your business on social media for a reason – they want to hear from you! They’re expecting your posts and they want to learn what you have to teach them.
In an ideal world, you would post daily on Facebook and Instagram. I think a more realistic approach is 3-4 times per week for Facebook, and 2-3 times per week on Instagram.
Here’s the thing. None of us can really predict the algorithms that govern how our posts reach our audience on any social media platform. But it’s unlikely that posting only once a week is sufficient to get your posts seen by most of your audience. In fact, I would guess that most of your followers NEVER see that single post you put out per week. Unfortunate, but true.
The more you post, the more likely your content is to be seen by all the members of your audience. This is good news, because it means that you’re not spamming your audience or annoying them by posting daily – because chances are, the same person may not have seen your other posts from earlier in the week. For them, this could be the first message they’ve had from you all week.
This is why I recommend only selecting one or two social media platforms for your business (for example, Facebook and Instagram) and really focusing on them. Coming up with new social media posts regularly takes work – it can be quite the commitment!
If you try to post regularly on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn,and Snapchat, you’re likely to burn out.
Instead, just pick one or two social platforms and give them all you effort, by posting frequently and consistently.
4) You don’t give your marketing long enough to work before deciding it’s a failure.
This one is also really common. A general rule of thumb is that you should give a new marketing effort three months before you decide if it’s “working.”
This is true whether it’s an ad, networking, building a social media following, etc.
I know it’s unpopular to say this – lots of people are looking for the quick fix. Who can blame them? But in my experience, the kind of marketing approaches that gets lasting results are the ones you have to build over time.
In a lot of ways, marketing is like acupuncture – the results are cumulative. It takes 5-7 “touch points” on average before potential patients are ready to make an appointment. So all of your marketing efforts add up over time.
You can’t get results if you keep trying new things but abandon them before people have a chance to be exposed to them repeatedly.
Give your marketing at least three months before you declare whether it’s given you a good ROI or not.
5) You don’t want to spend any money on marketing.
Most acupuncturists I’ve talked to have no monthly marketing budget, and some (though not all) are resistant to laying down cash to help get the word out about their clinic.
Don’t get me wrong – most of the marketing I teach is free. I don’t think quality marketing has to empty your wallet. This kind of marketing (the free kind) requires your time and energy, as opposed to your money. There are lots of great options out there that don’t cost a dime.
Since marketing usually costs either your money or your time/effort, you might find yourself in a place where you simply don’t have the time for a long-term marketing approach that would be free (like networking, for example).
In that case, you might decide you’ve got to spend some cash to get your business in front a new audience. I often recommend spending money on things like an email platform (so you can send newsletters), and for the local chamber of commerce. Other ideas are sponsoring local sports teams, getting a bigger sign for the front of your building, purchasing postcards to do mailings, etc.
Whatever you choose, just make sure you plan for the total cost of the marketing effort for at least three months. I often see people try a paid marketing approach for one month, then quit because they run out of money.
Like we just discussed, if you’re doing to try something, it’s got to be at least three months. That means you need to budget to cover the cost of the marketing for at least three months. Otherwise, you really are throwing your money away.
Thank of marketing is an investment in the future of your clinic, in the health of your community, and in yourself as a business owner. We should look at marketing as a way to increase the longevity of our clinics. The more patients we reach, the more we build something meaningful in our community, and the longer it will last.
So if you have to lay out some cash for your marketing, consider it a sincere investment. Make sure you set aside enough money for at least three months in advance so you can get real value out of the effort.
Marketing requires consistency, repetition, and time in order to reach its full potential.
I hope each of these ideas helps you get your marketing on track to make it more efficient and effective!
Feel free to each out with questions or just to say hello. I’m always happy to chat with you – michelle@michellegrasek.com
Until next week!