iPhone mockup of Acupuncture Marketing School Podcast open in the iTunes app with the text, Eight springtime marketing ideas for your acupuncture practice.

It’s not too late for spring-themed marketing at your acupuncture practice!

Today I’m sharing eight spring marketing ideas to help you get visible in your community and get more patients on your schedule.

Of course, this time of year I encourage you to incorporate themes like revitalization, the opportunity for a reset or a fresh start, spring cleaning, and even tax season (!) into your marketing.

I hope you put one of these light, cheerful marketing ideas into action at your office.

Enjoy!

🎙️Episode #35: Eight Springtime Marketing Ideas for Your Acupuncture Practice

Show Notes:

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Transcript:

Hey there, welcome back. This week we’re talking about fresh ideas for springtime marketing for your acupuncture practice. 

The big themes this time of year are spring cleaning, the ideas of renewal, revitalization, feeling refreshed after a long winter, getting outside in the fresh air again, etc. 

In your marketing, I encourage you to lean into these ideas of renewal and revitalization. 

I have eight springtime marketing ideas to share with you today. 

Before we get into that, I want you to think of your marketing in a slightly different way. Or maybe you think about your marketing like this already, but in case you don’t, I think it’s really helpful. Especially when we are deciding what kind of marketing campaign to launch for a new season. So think about your marketing as simply coming up with a reason to get in front of your audience. 

We’re creating marketing campaigns so that we have something to talk about with our followers, with our email subscribers, something to generate excitement about, and a reason to show up more often, on social media and via email. 

I’m going to share a bunch of ideas with you today but there are tons of great marketing ideas out there. You just need to pick one of these reasons to get out in front of your audience more often, to remind them that you and your practice exist, to educate them about acupuncture, etc. That’s our goal with creating a fun, splashy marketing campaign. A lot of times we get mired down in “what to do next” or “what’s the best, most perfect next step.” What you choose to promote is not as important as getting in front of your audience. Pick one of these marketing ideas this spring and just run with it. Don’t overthink it. Have fun with it. Spring is a season of fun and lightness. Let’s put that into our marketing. 

Okay, so let’s get into it – eight springtime marketing ideas for your acupuncture practice. 

The first idea is to structure a marketing campaign – a special event, a sale, a discount, etc., around a specific springtime holiday. So let’s talk about all the many options, all the special days you have this time of year. There are lots. I’m going to list them to get your creative juices flowing for what’s coming up and you can just pick one, or more than one if you want, and run with it.

And these dates are all for the US.

Okay, starting in April. Earth Day is April 22nd. Of course, Cinco Demayo is May 5th. Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 8th, Memorial Day is May 30th, Father’s Day is June 19th.

So thinking about how much lead time do you need in advance of big marketing campaign. Do you need 6 weeks to put together your emails or your social media? Do you only need 2 weeks? It really depends on how much content you are trying to create and whether you have help, like a virtual assistant or an admin at your office. But pick your holidays based on how much time you need in advance to prepare. 

Don’t forget you can always look up lesser known holidays for inspiration, especially if you need ideas for posting on Instagram or other social media. For example, April 5th is Deep Dish Pizza Day, the 7th is National Burrito Day, the 11th is National Pet Day and apparently, April 17th is both Herbalists Day and National Haiku Poetry Day. Okay, also very exciting. I did not know this April 20th  is Chinese Language Day.

And then big picture, April is Stress Awareness Month, and May is Asian American Month. 

Lots of exciting ideas that you can use as educational opportunities to communicate and connect with your audience or to put together a marketing promotion or sale of some kind. Probably the most popular promo that we see this time of year is offering a discount on products or services for Mother’s Day. I think Mother’s Day really gets the bulk of our attention this time of year. Because it’s so well advertised, people are prepared to spend money on Mother’s Day and of course, you want them to spend it with you.

I think a wonderful campaign would be setting up a series of emails and social media posts promoting your gift certificates for Mother’s Day. The gift of relaxation, better sleep, the opportunity to take a midday nap, etc. Lean into whatever your specialty is and connect it to how it can benefit moms and mother-types, everyone who relates to being a mother-figure. You can spin that and help people realize that that’s the kind of certificate they want to get their mom figure this time of year. 

Marketing idea number two is two-fold and it’s about spring-cleaning your marketing and your business: The first is to do a spring cleaning of your own marketing. Review each page on your website, and review the bio of your Instagram account. Check your website for broken links, fix typos, and update anything that has been changed or doesn’t reflect your target market anymore or the way that you practice. 

If you haven’t made any edits to your website in over a year I can almost guarantee there are things that need to be updated to freshen up and make it more accurate and more relevant for this year. 

You also want to check in and make sure that you are still speaking to your desired target market with the copy on your website. I find that as we grow as practitioners, the conditions and symptoms we like to treat, or the way we approach treatment, changes over time. That’s normal. I feel like, our practices and patients evolve with us. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that as well. 

But if this is the case, the marketing message that you set up a couple of years ago on your website might not be an accurate reflection of the way you practice or the patients you love to treat anymore. Check-in with yourself – who is your target market now? Is that the same as when you put together your website? Could the copy on your website use an update?

So it’s important to go back through and do an audit or a review of, at the very least, your website. If not your social media as well. 

And the second part of this “internal spring cleaning for your business” is that you can clean out any products that are taking up space in your office. Products that you don’t focus on anymore, that you don’t sell often. Items that are taking up space. Put them on sale to move them out and at least make your money back from purchasing them. I love this idea from Ivana Taylor of the DIY Marketers blog.

Once those products are moved out, you’ve made some money and your office space is fresh, organized, and not cluttered. You can leave it that way or use the revenue and space to wholesale purchase some new products that are a better fit for your patients right now. Totally up to you but it feels amazing to do this and watch those dusty old products fly off the shelves and also have some extra cash in your pocket.

Marketing idea number three for springtime is to lean into the energy of spring cleaning. How can you help your patients feel fresh and renewed after a long winter? How can you help them reset their minds or bodies, or both?

Brainstorm and ask yourself, what do you love to treat or what do you specialize in, and how can you connect it to this energy of renewal, this idea of a reset or a fresh start for your patients? 

For example, if you enjoy nutrition you can walk your patients through a spring dietary cleanse like Lindsey Thompson of Thompson Family Acupuncture in Walla Walla, Washington.  I’m not sure if she is still hosting her TCM Spring Cleanse, but I love the way she markets it on her social media and her email. I also really appreciate that she puts a spin on the traditional liver cleanse and really draws her patients into understanding TCM dietetics and does it in a very gentle way. And she also goes through it with them and provides lots of advice and feedback, so it’s very individualized. I will link her social media below this. You can see how she approaches this Spring Cleanse marketing. 

You could create a marketing campaign where you ask patients to revisit their New Year’s resolutions, touching base on how that’s going and whether their goals have shifted and changed since January. Do they need help getting back on track or maintaining their results?

You could create a campaign for the weekend warriors if they’re in your target market. Think about how much more active people are going to be this time of year because they can spend time outdoors. The weekend warriors who might be playing sports on the weekends – how can you support them, help them heal faster from injuries, or better yet, prevent injury so that they can make the most of the warm weather that’s coming up. So they don’t have to have any downtime away from their favorite sports or activities due to injury.

There are a lot of different ways that you can apply this idea of a reset or a fresh start for your patients centered around the conditions and patients that you love to treat.

And a lot of times we think about “creating a marketing campaign” and assume that means we have to be offering a discount on products or services. This is a question I get all the time: How can I create a special event or a big marketing campaign without offering a discount on my services? And how can you do that right now, create a campaign that focuses on springtime and that energy of renewable, without offering discounts?

As always, I love this question. Let’s take the example of a spring reset for digestion. Okay, so not necessarily a cleanse, but a spring reset for digestion, Instead of offering a discount on acupuncture or a package with a discount on acupuncture, the special offer could be that patients sign up for a package of six to eight treatments, and get a free product or an upgrade of some kind. 

So think about a supplement or something else that you usually recommend to people during a course of treatment for this specific symptom or condition. For digestive patients, if you find that you are typically recommending a bone broth supplement or a probiotic all the time, then the bonus or the upgrade could a free bottle of probiotics when they schedule all 8 treatments or pay in advance.

If you do cosmetic acupuncture, the spring campaign could be “Refresh your skin with cosmetic acupuncture,” and for the month of April, if they sign up for a full series of treatments they get a free collagen supplement, or gua sha tool, or face serum, whatever it is that you’re always recommending to your cosmetic patients. 

Marketing idea number four is to host a clothing or canned food drive at your office and relate it to spring cleaning. People are doing a lot of cleaning out their closets in their cupboards this time of year. Your office could be a collection point for either food or clothing for a few weeks, that you donate to the local food pantry or to Goodwill. 

You would simply share this info, that you are a collection point for these items, with your audience as your marketing campaign. As your reason for getting in front of them.  And of course, it’s a wonderful way to give back to your community and get your patients to participate with you. 

And in this case, you are not giving anything away. You don’t have a special offer or promotion. You’re not giving a discount. It’s really just about generating goodwill and having a reason to get more visible in front of your audience. 

Marketing idea number five is to use the good weather to host outdoor events or classes. I know this might vary based on what country or area you’re in and the COVID regulations right now. But if you’re in an area where it’s possible and you feel comfortable, teaching an outdoor class is a great reason to show up with your marketing. 

For example, I will be teaching a couple of outdoor facial guasha classes. With the nice weather coming up, I am really looking forward to partnering with some other local businesses in my area to teach these classes.

One class will be at a medical spa in a nearby city. She’s on the 10th floor of a beautiful building and they have a rooftop patio which is amazing. So we are setting aside some time in May for me to teach a Chinese Medicine skincare class at her location. And of course, this kind of thing is mutually beneficial, because it allows each of us to be exposed to the audience and followers of the other person so we can each grow our own lists and talk about what we do with these other people who happen to be a great fit for our business as well.

So it’s win-win. And I’m also hoping to partner with some local wineries to teach facial gua sha classes and their locations. I was trying to think of places I could host an outdoor class that has a covered but open pavilion in case of rain, and realized that most wineries in this area have them, typically used for weddings or other special events. You could also look around for pavilions at local parks. Sometimes you have to pay a fee to rent them, sometimes not.

But I am looking forward to hosting some guasha classes in partnership with local and other small businesses outdoors. 

Definitely capitalize on the marketing power of teaming up with other local businesses. Ask yourself, how can you use a springtime theme to partner with other local businesses, so you can both grow your audiences?

Okay, idea number six is to host a spring-themed contest or giveaway on Instagram. Think about those themes of springtime renewal, feeling refreshed, having a reset, and ask yourself what kind of product or service can you give away.

Use the giveaway or promotion as a way to get new followers on your social media accounts. 

Whenever I do a giveaway on Instagram, here’s my very strategic approach:

I publish the giveaway post and the requirements to enter the giveaway are that they have to (1) follow my account, (2) like the post, and (3) comment on the post and tag two friends who might also be interested in the giveaway.

When you’re tagging two friends, they’re going to get a little notification that says, “So and so tagged you in a post” and they’re going to go look at it, and then they might also decide like, “oh, I want to be entered for this thing”. And then they’re going to follow you like the post and tag two more friends. You could also give them bonus entries for sharing the post on their Instagram story. 

What’s happening is you’re getting massive engagement for this post, you’re growing your follower list, and you’re getting in front of all of these new people who are actually quite a good fit to begin following you and later become your patients. 

Think about what you might give away again, if you know you do cosmetic acupuncture, I think this one is easy. You could give away a washer tool or a serum or a collagen supplement, whatever it is that you have at your office, people get really excited about those things.

If you’re a fertility specialist you could give away your favorite book. There are so many great books out there that are written for patients about TCM lifestyle and diet recommendations for fertility. So if you have a favorite you could do a book giveaway and talk about why it’s your favorite and how much it has impacted you and your patients. Okay, so lots of ideas out there. Really leaning into that theme of renewal in your giveaway. 

The last suggestion, number eight, is to focus on tax season. Your marketing campaign could simply be reminding your patients and followers about their tax refund and suggesting that they use their refund to invest in their wellness with acupuncture. And you can also tie this in to invest in your wellness with acupuncture so that they really feel great in the warm weather. 

Think about that weekend warrior idea that we talked about earlier. A lot of people are going to be outside exercising a lot more than usual because they can get back to all of their favorite outdoor activities. Whether it’s hiking or playing softball or joining a running club, kayaking, whatever it is. Just being outdoors more often and being more physical. 

You could encourage them to buy a package with their tax refund as an investment in their health so they can have the best summer ever and continue doing all the outdoor things that they love.

And with this, I would emphasize that it’s not just for injury recovery, but for prevention. So they don’t have to stop enjoying the great outdoors and get slowed down by an injury. 

I don’t know about you but where I live in upstate New York, it feels like good weather where you can be outside comfortably is very short and people want to spend as much time as possible. It’s a huge motivator and you can create an excellent marketing campaign about helping them to show up consistently at their best so they can enjoy the great weather as much as possible. 

And whether you tie it in with tax season or not, that’s optional, but just think about the fact that around April 15, at least in the US, a lot of people have extra spending cash and you want them to spend it with you. You can help them have a really great spring and summer season if they do that. 

Okay. Regardless of which of these springtime marketing ideas you decide to try, remember that your goal is just to get visible more often and remind your audience you and your practice exist. Remind them of your special event, discount, special offer, what’s happening at your office, how you’re working to serve your community, and how you can help them. Any of these ideas are likely to get results if you lean into them and show up repeatedly.

Thank you again to everyone who has sent me your positive feedback about the email the year of email newsletter templates for acupuncturists, I’m so glad they’re working well for you. So glad that they are getting the attention of your patients and generating lots of questions and getting more patients on your schedule. 

I will drop a link to that in the show notes as well. 

If you have any questions, you’re always welcome to email me,  Michelle@MichelleGrasek.com 

Thank you for being here with me, good luck with your springtime marketing and I can’t wait to talk to you next week.