iPhone mockup of Apple Podcasts app with the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast and the text, The Marketing That Really Worked to Grow My Acupuncture Practice in 2021.

Welcome to the final episode of 2021!

This week we’re talking about the marketing strategies that were most effective in bringing new patients to my acupuncture practice in the past year.

With each strategy I discuss why it was effective AND how I could improve upon it next year. Hopefully you feel inspired to adopt some of these for your own practice!

If you missed it, definitely listen to the previous episode as well – all the marketing strategies that did NOT work in 2021.

Coming up in the next few weeks, I’ll be re-releasing the top episodes of the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast. So even though I’m taking some time off for the holidays, the podcast will still be here with fresh inspiration for you.

And a big thank you to everyone who joined me for the live Acu Biz Planathon on Sunday, Dec. 5th!

It was an absolutely pleasure to spend a weekend morning with you, discussing your wins from 2021 and all the amazing plans you’re setting in motion for 2022. I had a blast, and I hope you did, too!

If you didn’t register for the Planathon earlier but you’re feeling the planning and goal-setting vibes at this point in the year, you’re welcome to watch the replay. Even though it’s not live, I think you’ll still feel really inspired and like part of the community from hearing everyone else’s successes, struggles, and amazing plans for the future.

Being a small business owner can feel a little isolating sometimes and I think the Planathon will help reunite you with how wonderful it is to be part of the acupuncture community.

I hope you enjoy this final episode of 2021! Thank you for being here. This podcast wouldn’t exist with you, and I can’t wait to see you again in 2022!

🎙️ Episode #26: The Marketing That Really Worked to Grow My Acupuncture Practice in 2021

Show Notes:

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Transcript:

Hey there, welcome! Today is episode number 26. It also happens to be the last episode of 2021 which absolutely blows my mind. Before we get into today’s episode, I wanted to take a moment to say thank you so much for being here with me, for tuning in and listening to this podcast. It really means a lot that you find it helpful enough to keep coming back. 

You know how much I love sharing new marketing ideas and perspectives. And of course, this podcast would not exist without you. 

And thank you to everyone who has left a review of the podcast. I’m so thrilled that this podcast is helping you get more confident with your marketing and feel inspired by new ideas to grow your own business. So whether you’ve been here this entire year or this is your first episode, I am very, very grateful to be here with you. I hope that it helps you reach more patients with this incredible medicine and have an even bigger impact in your community. So thank you one more time for being here. 

Today we’re talking about what marketing actually worked to help build my acupuncture practice in 2021. If you missed last episode, number 25, that was all about the marketing that did not work to build my practice. 

You know that I think about marketing as a grand experiment, that’s the approach I like to take. Part of this means that you don’t take the outcome personally. The outcome is just data. It’s information for you to use to improve your marketing in the future. And in addition, you know that I also really love marketing.

So those two things combined means that I tried a lot of different marketing in 2021. If you missed last episode, I definitely recommend tuning in to listen to my marketing fails because, of course, along with those failures came a lot of insights on what I could have done to make those things a success. As well as what I would recommend if you’re going to try those things in your own practice. I’m happy to make the mistakes, so that you don’t have to. 

The last thing I want to say before we jump in today is a quick thank you to everybody who attended the Acu Biz Planathon last Sunday, December 5. It was an absolute pleasure to hang out with you on a Sunday morning and talk about what went right in 2021, what you want to carry forward into 2022, and all your big, exciting plans for this upcoming year with your practice. 

I loved hearing how many people remodeled in their office, how many people moved to an entirely new office and how many people started a brand new practice last year. So it was inspirational for me to be there with you. I’m so grateful for everybody who showed up and engaged. 

If you missed the Acu Biz Planathon, I just released the replay, it’s $47 and you can go through it at your own pace. If you weren’t in a planning mood earlier this month but you’re feeling ready now, I definitely recommend purchasing the replay. I hope you love it. Even though it’s not live, I think you’ll still feel like you’re participating with all the other acupuncturists. You’ll hear what they’re working on, what their successes and failures were, what they would do differently, and their big plans for the next year.

I know it’s easy for us to get isolated as solorpreneurs in our offices, and one of the best parts of the Planathon is realizing that you’re not alone in your struggles, your successes, and in the goals that you have. Just being reminded that you’re part of such a wonderful, warm community as an acupuncturist.

I will put the link in the show notes and thank you again to everyone who showed up last weekend.

Okay, let’s talk about the five marketing avenues that genuinely helped to grow my practice 2021. 

I’ve actually been taking notes for this episode and thinking about it for over two months. I kept coming back to the same question: Where did my new patients actually come from this year? 

Often marketing can look successful from the outside, for example, a marketing campaign can get a lot of engagement, particularly on social media. Or maybe you have emails with a lot of click throughs, so that is one metric for success. 

But the question at the end of the day is always going to be, did you get patients? 

I think it’s also important to remember when you’re assessing your marketing, that most marketing requires three months of consistency before you can really say, is this working or is it not working? Most marketing requires a little bit of time to mature, to really get rooted, before it reveals whether it’s a success or not. 

So that’s why I’m excited to do this review of my entire year because turning around and looking back I feel like I can see the bigger picture of what worked to bring in patients over the long term and what didn’t. 

I’m excited to share these things with you. One last thing I want to add for clarity is that I’ll really be assessing 2021 up through November of this year. In episode 23, I talked about my Instagram marketing strategy for November and December of this year. I’m publishing every single day on Instagram through the end of the year. Because I’m still in the middle of that, I won’t actually be including the results of that in this episode. 

I’ll share my thoughts on that marketing strategy in late January 2022 or even early February. 

Okay – what are the five marketing approaches that worked best to bring in new patients in 2021? 

I want to start out with the most basic marketing and then lead up to the number one thing that worked the best. 

So the first thing is, of course, referrals. I think most acupuncturists get the majority of their new patients from referrals, so this is probably no surprise. But it’s a valid marketing avenue and I can’t leave it out. Interestingly, I would say that in 2021 I was really getting referrals from health care providers that I had established relationships with in 2019 and 2020. 

If you’re new here you might not know this, or if you’ve been around awhile you might have missed me talk about this, but I started a brand new practice, in a new location, from scratch in March of 2019. So in 2019 I did a lot of work to build relationships with other healthcare providers in my community, and I worked on it in early 2020, and then since then it hasn’t been on my radar to actively build a lot of new relationships. Both from COVID and the difficulty of meeting new people face to face in 2020, and because my practice became a lot busier in 2021 and I had less time. 

But despite that, I still get regular referrals from a chiropractor, a couple of massage therapists and a couple of therapists who have private practices near my office. And I refer regularly to them as well. My point here is that if you establish a strong foundation for any kind of marketing in the beginning, it’s very likely to still provide a return for you later on when you don’t have as much time to invest in it. Does that make sense? So even though I haven’t actively been seeking new referrals, and I’m just maintaining the status quo with the referral partnerships I have, they are still one of the best ways I get new patients.

One thing that I would like to improve in 2022 is taking the time to introduce myself and get to know other health care providers in my area because there are plenty. Kind of doing outreach to email and visit as any chiropractors, massage therapists, nutritionists, and therapists as I can. Making it strategic again to really increase the volume of referrals. 

And here’s how I like to approach this, and I think it helps a lot if you’re introducing yourself to new people in your community. Either other business owners or healthcare providers. 

Let’s say you’re introducing yourself via email. Focus on what’s in it for them and why they should care to make an effort to get to know you. The angle that I recommend is introducing yourself briefly and then saying, how can I support you and your clients? How can we support our community together?

Of course we all know the goal here is referrals. But not asking for the referral right away. I find that response from people is warmer and stronger if you OFFER them something before you ask for something. Let them know that supporting them, their business, and their patients is top of mind for you.

You could say, this is my specialty, I would love to know – what are the kinds of patients that you love to treat, so that I can send them your way? So that I recognize them when I see them in my own practice and I know they’re a great fit for you. And then you can say, I’d love to stop by and meet you at your office, pick up some of your business cards. And then it naturally becomes reciprocal, right? They’re going to ask you for your business cards and you have a chance to talk about what kind of patients you’re looking for or are a great fit for your practice. 

The idea here is that you are primarily there to support them and that’s how you’re starting this professional relationship. 

The second thing that brought in new patients this year was Instagram. Now, I just said I’m not going to talk about my most recent Instagram marketing campaign in November in December because it’s not quite done yet. But, I can see, looking back, that Instagram has been a source of new patients throughout the year, before this November-December campaign. 

I have not showed up quite as often on Instagram as I would have liked in 2021, but because I established some really strong Instagram marketing in 2019 and 2020 for this new practice, that has really carried me through. Just like the referrals, it’s continued to generate dividends. I get new followers regularly and that translates to new patients. 

The primary type of patients that I get from Instagram are cosmetic acupuncture and anxiety. On my Instagram account, I focus on talking about natural skincare and how that leads into cosmetic acupuncture. And I also talk about acupuncture for anxiety, pain, and digestion a fair amount on my Instagram account. 

I feel like people start to follow me initially, because of their interest in natural skincare. And this is a good time to mention that skincare does really well on Instagram. It’s beautiful, like visually appealing, and that goes a long way on Instagram. I talk about natural skincare products and I share beautiful amethyst guasha tools, jade rollers, and my favorite face serum with Chinese herbs in it, my favorite masks with Chinese herbs for skincare, etc. That kind of content does well on Instagram. It grabs people’s attention. And I think that’s one reason I get new cosmetic patients from Instagram. Plus spending the time teaching people about it, over and over, to help them understand what cosmetic acupuncture entails, so they can self-select and decide if it’s a good fit for them, and also to get them excited about it. 

This kind of content just does really well on Instagram because Instagram is so visual.

So, as I said, I think people start following my account for their interest in natural skincare, and if they stick around they also learn that acupuncture can also treat anxiety, digestion, pain, etc. So if they don’t to for cosmetic acupuncture, people from Instagram mostly come for anxiety.

The next thing that worked really well to grow my practice was sending email newsletters. Every time I sent an email newsletter, I would get patients on the schedule. Sometimes it was new patients and sometimes it was reactivating old patients. 

Here’s one thing to consider: In 2021, I did not actively grow my email subscriber list. I planned to, but I redid my website twice this year, which I do not recommend. I did a rebrand at the same time. First I paid someone a minimal amount, and wasn’t happy with it, so I decided to scrap it all and do it on my own and I have been slowly updating the website this year. And I’m quite happy with how it’s turning out. But that means that this year, I wasn’t able to really build my email newsletter list because most of those links were broken. 

I have a lead magnet – a free ebook that lists my favorite natural skincare products, how to choose clean beauty and what ingredients to avoid. I had that pop up on my website geared towards my ideal patients – people interested in natural skincare. But I had that turned off for most of the year because while I was redoing my website, the links were basically broken. 

So my point is this: that I had success in marketing to my email newsletter subscribers, but I didn’t have a lot of new people on that list. Even if you are not actively collecting new emails, you still need to send regular emails to your current and former patients so that you can reactivate people and basically remind them how wonderful you are, how wonderful acupuncture is and that they need to make an appointment. It is effective. From the research, it’s seven to eight times easier to reactivate old clients than it is to convince someone new to become your patient. So do not underestimate the power of simple basic email newsletters.

And I’d add that in 2022 my focus is going to be growing my email list with local followers who are interested in natural skincare so that I can put them through an email funnel that teaches them all about cosmetic acupuncture. I have this funnel all built out since 2020, it just needs to be hooked up again and turned back on. 

The next thing that worked really well for building my practice this year was something that I talked about in depth in episode 19: the simple marketing campaign that I launched in July that made August my highest revenue month ever at my practice. I offered $20 off a cosmetic acupuncture facial – I have this signature service at my office that I call the Acupuncture Glow Facial, and I offered a discount for the first time ever, so that is what the marketing campaign was all about. 

I won’t talk a ton about it right now in this episode because episode #19 is super detailed â€“ I share every aspect of this marketing campaign and what I did to make it a success. 

That was essentially a flash sale, and it was one of the few instances where the marketing all happened within a few weeks, and then increased my revenue right away, the following month. I saw results within four weeks of the end of that sale as opposed to typically having to wait for that three months cycle to see if something was effective. 

AND it was super low cost – out of pocket was only $50. So don’t miss that episode, #19.

And I’ve saved the best for last. The most important thing I did this year to bring new patients in the door was to consistently ask happy patients for Google reviews.

Now, I have some interesting thoughts to share on this. Because I know it sounds basic, right? Kind of like getting referrals? But that’s a good thing, because that means that it’s easy to implement in your practice, as long as you live in a country where you can use testimonials to market your practice. And that’s ideal, right? To have the MOST effective marketing effort also be the most straightforward? Talk about serious bang for your buck. A huge return for your effort. 

I have about 45, 46 five-star Google reviews for my practice right now, and I know for a fact that I have patients who drive an hour to see me because of my Google reviews. They chose me because they realized I had a lot more Google reviews than other practices, and once they started reading the reviews they were convinced they had to come see me. 

Now. My friend. I am not special. I am not an exceptional acupuncturist. I do not have any special gift that you do not have. I do not have any special gifts that the other acupuncturists near me don’t have. But what I do have is a lot of Google reviews, and that makes me look like a special acupuncturist. Google reviews matter. They are an important piece, sometimes the most important piece of the decision making process for a lot of new patients. 

So people are willing to drive to see me, even though they could find someone who’s a good fit for them, probably like only 20 minutes away from their house. They know there’s other acupuncturist near them, but they choose to come see me instead and make the drive because of the Google reviews. 

Okay, so let’s talk about this. I have some tough love to share, for me and for you. I already really shared the tough love for me – and that is, that I’m not special. There are many acupuncturists in my area who I KNOW are more gifted practitioners than myself. Who have more experience. Who may get better results. BUT. Google reviews are making it look like I might be the better choice. 

And that’s the tough love for you, if you’re not actively, regularly asking for Google reviews from your patients. If you’re not, then the acupuncturist down the road, who might not be as good as you, is getting the new patients simply because they’re willing to ask for reviews and be visible in that way. Don’t let that person take all the patients! You’re so good at what you do! And no one does it quite like you. Your ideal patients deserve to be able to find you. And Google reviews are one of the number one ways to stand out online in a crowded market, okay. 

So take a look at the number of reviews that nearby acupuncturists have. And know that if you start consistently asking for reviews right now, you’re probably going to be surprised at how fast it builds. And you’re probably pretty quickly going to outpace your competition in your total number of Google reviews. Compared to people who are NOT actively asking their patients, you’re going to get more reviews than they are, long-term, and it often happens pretty quickly. 

People underestimate how many patients are willing to leave a great review, if you just ask them. When you ask, make sure you include the link directly to your review page on your Google business profile; that’s essential because you want to make it as little work for them as humanly possible.  

I have a whole episode on how to ask for Google reviews, how to get started and how to start growing them rapidly. Definitely tune in to that, it’s episode #12. 

I hope this episode gives you lots of great ideas for marketing in 2022. Maybe take some time this month to process how you want to show up, how you want to get visible, and where you want to put your energy with your marketing in 2022. Think about what works well for your practice, your community, and what your ideal patients respond to. And then start crafting a marketing plan that you can be consistent with.

Again, I invite you to download the replay of the Acu Biz Planathon to help you review your own marketing in 2021, get your plans organized and have fun doing it. 

If you need help with setting up your plan to reach your big goals in 2022, I think you’ll really enjoy it. 

I will put the link in the show notes, as always. 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here with me. I love talking about marketing with you. I hope to see you in 2022. Whatever the rest of the year brings for you, I hope you have the opportunity to rest and have some downtime with the people and the pets that you love, and to celebrate in whatever ways really fill you up. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. I will see you in 2022.