If your marketing feels like it’s plateaued, it doesn’t mean your strategy is broken—it might just be out of balance.

In this episode, I’m sharing a simple but powerful way to inject new energy into your marketing by shifting your focus for your acupuncture practice. I walk through why digital marketing and in-person visibility work best together (not separately), and how you can start showing up in your community in a way that feels doable—even if you’re an introvert.

I also share real examples from my own acupuncture clinic and coaching clients so you can see exactly how this plays out in real life.

In this Episode:

• Why your marketing might feel “stuck” even if you’re doing everything right
• How balancing digital and in-person visibility creates momentum
• Simple, introvert-friendly ways to build trust and referrals in your community

Find It Quickly

02:32 – Digital Versus In Person

04:50 – Ecosystem Balance Boost

06:07 – Introvert Visibility Wins

08:17 – Networking That Compounds

13:17 – Beyond Mixer Events

14:23 – Community Groups And Clubs

15:34 – Talks That Convert

18:26 – One Meeting Builds Trust

20:19 – Three Month Action Plan

🎙️ Listen to Episode #123: The Marketing Balance That Brings More Patients to Your Acupuncture Practice (Even If You’re an Introvert)

💚 This episode is sponsored by Faire Wholesale.

Increase your average per patient income with beautiful retail products that are aligned with your values and your business—without the upfront risk. Faire makes it easy to get started with over 100,000 independent brands and low or no order minimums. 

Even better? You get free returns for 60 days on the first order you place with any brand, so you can feel confident trying out new products online. Try new items in your clinic, and if something doesn’t sell, just send it back for a refund. 

Plus, you can filter by your values—like AAPI-owned, Black-owned, organic, handmade, or not sold on Amazon. 

Increase your income with curated retail offerings today. Click here to learn more about Faire. Use my code AMS10 to save an extra 10% on your first order if you order more than $400.

Subscribe to the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

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Transcript:

 Hi there. Welcome back. In today’s episode, we are talking about what to do when your marketing feels like it has hit a bit of a plateau. I’ll share a simple way to inject new energy into your marketing by shifting your focus. Why digital marketing and in-person visibility tend to work best to together.

And some practical ideas for showing up in your community, in person, in ways that still feel comfortable, even if you’re an introvert.

Welcome to the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Grassic, and I’m here to help you get visible in your community. Take marketing action with confidence and get more patients in your practice and more money in your pocket every week. We both know you’re a talented, passionate acupuncturist and that acupuncture has the power to change lives.

So let’s dive right into this episode and talk about how you can reach more patients.

And today’s episode is sponsored by Fair Wholesale. If you’ve ever thought about adding retail to your acupuncture clinic fair makes it incredibly easy to get started. It’s a wholesale marketplace with over a hundred thousand independent brands, and you can stock beautiful retail products that align with your clinic values without taking on a lot of upfront risk.

One of the reasons I decided to try retail in my own clinic was because of Fair. Last year we brought in just over $4,000 in retail sales, and many of those products came from fair. Really most of them. And what made it feel safe to experiment with is that many brands on Fair offer low or no order minimums, and you get free returns for 60 days on your first order with any brand.

So if something doesn’t. Sell, you can simply send it back for a refund. I also really appreciate that you can filter by your values when you’re browsing for products on fair, like minority owned brands, handmade products, eco-friendly items or products not sold on Amazon, which makes it easier to stock the things that are truly a good fit for your clinic.

If you’d like to explore retail for your own practice, click on the link in the show notes to learn more about Fair, and you can also use my code AMS 10 to save 10% on your first order, over $400. Of course, you don’t have to spend nearly that much on your first order. You can even spend under a hundred, but if you do, that code is there for you.

I’ll put the link and the code in the show notes for you. All right, let’s get into this episode. Recently I was speaking to a marketing coaching client about why his marketing might feel a little stuck right now. And one of the things I brought up is that he is doing a ton of digital marketing, but very little in person marketing or visibility out in his real life community.

And I find that when people hit a bit of a plateau where they feel like their marketing has become less effective for their efforts, it can really help to. Inject a boost of new energy into their marketing by shifting their efforts towards the other side. So if they’re mostly focused on digital marketing, going out in the community and building some real life relationships with other business owners, for example, or if they are always out doing networking, volunteering.

You know, teaching classes, they’re at community events as their main marketing strategy, then they can shift over towards doing more digital marketing for even better results, right? So we can go either way, but the goal really is for your in-person presence in the community to be supported by your digital presence and that your digital presence is.

Backed up by your in-person presence. Okay, so this would be people actually knowing you personally in order to drive referrals. That’s what I ultimately mean by your in-person presence. And this marketing client that I was referring to earlier, he does really well with his digital marketing. He has organized and consistent regular social media posts, writing blog posts and articles for SEO on his website, updating his Google Business profile regularly.

All the things that we often talk about he on the podcast, but he mentioned that he has very little in-person visibility in his community right now. So if you feel like. You know, your marketing is working, but it could be bringing in more patients for your efforts. The problem might be this imbalance, so it’s not that this marketing client is doing anything wrong with his digital marketing, as I mentioned, that’s not true.

It’s quite good, but to shake things up a bit and get in front of a new audience, it can help to shift that balance towards in-person marketing. His case. So if you think about your marketing as an ecosystem, your digital presence and your real life presence are each half of your ecosystem. Okay? So there are people who like to spend time online.

In that half of the ecosystem and people who prefer in-person interactions like meetings or events, and that’s the other half of the ecosystem. And in this case, I’m not talking about you necessarily. I’m talking about the people that you are trying to reach for them to become patients, right? So some people prefer online, some people are in-person people, for lack of a better phrase.

So if you shift the balance of your marketing. From what you usually do to the other side, you are naturally going to start reaching a new audience that you might otherwise be missing, and that is where this injection of new energy can come from in your marketing. You’re literally. In front of new people, and ultimately the goal is to let both sides support each other.

Like I mentioned earlier, your online presence reinforces your real world visibility and vice versa. Okay? So when these two things work together, your marketing tends to have more momentum. So one other thing that this marketing client asked me about was whether I think it’s worth the effort to be out in the community as a marketing strategy, as an introvert, because we know that it takes more energy for introverts to go to networking events, for example.

Typically compared to extroverts. So I said yes, in my experience as a clinic owner and an introvert, and in my experience as a marketing strategist and marketing coach, I do think it is worth that extra effort. So let’s talk about that and why that is, and how you can make that more comfortable slash less painful.

So first of all, don’t get me wrong, digital marketing is effective. But alone, it can sometimes feel slow. To build and gain momentum because it relies on trust that builds very gradually in the online space. On the other hand, in-person visibility typically builds trust quickly. People can meet you. They get the opportunity to ask questions, and they can decide in a few minutes.

Whether you seem knowledgeable and approachable, right? They’re sort of processing like, would I see this person for acupuncture? And when someone both sees your website and has met you in person, that trust forms much faster. So the next question is, how can we show up in our communities as introverts with a finite amount of social energy to spend?

And as I mentioned earlier, I am also an introvert, so networking events are not my favorite activity. I will admit, I usually have to kind of gear up and mentally prepare myself before I go, but I do go and. I wanna share briefly how I found networking meetings like Chamber of Commerce networking mixers to be useful, and then I’ll offer some other ideas about how you can be visible in your community without going to that very traditional kind of mixer event if you don’t wanna do those.

So I find these networking meetings useful because the relationships with fellow small business owners that I have built. Have led to referrals and opportunities that would not have happened otherwise. And you know, this isn’t necessarily related to getting new patients, but I strongly believe that it can be very lonely as an entrepreneur, and I can’t overstate the importance of making friends with other small business owners in your community.

Because you ultimately find out that even people in different industries are also experiencing some similar troubles, like with marketing, for example, and having their support and feedback and hearing what they’re going through at the same time is, uh, is I think very helpful in preventing burnout as an entrepreneur.

Right? So you’re basically making business friends and that is good for your mental health. Okay, so I. That is also important. Even though it may not directly bring you a patient this week, it is important long term for your business. Okay, so one of the ways that I made networking easier in the beginning was.

By volunteering with my local Chamber of Commerce to start with, and I’ve talked about this many times before, so I’ll keep it brief for you, but I started out by emailing the director of the chamber and offering to volunteer during a fundraiser, and after volunteering everyone at the chamber, now they know me, so they recognize me at future networking meetings.

So that. Made it much more comfortable to go to those meetings because I knew I would have someone to talk to and they often went out of their way to introduce me to other people. I don’t mind telling people that I’m an introvert, so I tell the director of the chamber, you know, I’m an introvert and I appreciate help with introductions.

It’s not my strength most. Most networking organizers are natural extroverts, and they’re very happy to do that for you. So what I noticed over time is that these relationships that I have built through. Various type of networking meetings or events in the community have compounded, and you do have to go regularly for this to happen.

The whole point is to build a relationship, to talk to people and get to know them and find out how you can support them while they are also getting to know you and how they can support you. So that just takes time and showing up consistently. And I’ll add that this is rarely a one-to-one exchange where you attend one event and then you can expect to get one patient or something like that.

So here’s what it might look like instead. And this happened to me very recently. This is just one example. Okay. A woman I know through networking works at a nonprofit and every year they have a health and wellness fair. And this year, because I know her, I got an invitation, but I only know her through the chamber.

Right? This event is limited space. It’s a big event for the community. It’s in a swanky venue and it’s only three hours, so I am willing to go to health fairs that are less than three hours, and I will use some of my very specific strategies for making. Fair worth it. But my point is that I would never even know that this opportunity existed and she couldn’t offer it to me if I didn’t meet her and see her regularly through these Chamber of Commerce meetings.

Okay, so ultimately the people that you see repeatedly in the community begin to remember you, and they think of you as the acupuncturist that they know personally. They’ve had conversations with you. This means they trust you enough to refer you to other people they know, and you come to mind first in any conversation that they have about acupuncture while they’re going about their own work and their daily life.

So something else to think about is that people often say to me, I don’t like to go to traditional networking meetings because they’re just filled with realtors and bankers. So yes, that is true. However, realtors and bankers do need acupuncture, and they know people who need acupuncture and. Realtors and bankers talk to so many people in the community.

Their job is nonstop talking to people. So they are very well connected and those are the kind of people that you want to know and have on your side, right? Those are the cheerleaders that you want are the extroverts who are out there talking to clients day in and day out. Okay? So there are actually.

Really great people to know. Alright, so there are other ways outside of traditional networking meetings to build some real world visibility. So let’s chat about those. Anywhere that you show up regularly in your community can create the same effect. Taking a quick break to thank today’s sponsor Fair Wholesale.

If you’ve ever thought about adding retail to your acupuncture clinic fair makes it really easy to get started. It’s a wholesale marketplace with over a hundred thousand independent brands and many offer, low or no order minimums so you can test products without a big upfront investment. This is actually how I started retail in my own clinic, and last year we brought in just over $4,000 in retail sales.

One thing I really appreciated when getting started is that you get free returns for 60 days on your first order with any brand. So if something doesn’t sell, you can send it back for a refund. If you’d like to explore retail for your clinic, check out the link in the show notes, and you can use my code a MS 10 to save 10% if your first order happens to be over $400.

All right, let’s get back to the episode. For example. Volunteering consistently in your community can lead to meaningful relationships over time. Another example might be. Joining. It’s any, any group that meets regularly, right? So a book club, for example, tends to be pretty comfortable for introverts. I attend a monthly book club, and over time the members have learned what I do for a living.

I am their go-to person for answering questions about acupuncture. Like if they have a question about acupuncture, yes, they’re gonna Google it, but I know that when I sit down for that meeting, someone’s gonna come over and say. Oh, hey, I had this question about acupuncture because they want to hear it from a real life person, okay?

And for many of them, I’m the only acupuncturist that they know I am top of mind, right? So as I mentioned, anywhere that you show up regularly in your community can create the same effect as going to traditional networking meetings. Okay? So you get to choose. Where you spend your time and energy, and hopefully you can find something that meets regularly where you get to meet new people that you actually enjoy and want to go to.

So another idea is to give short educational presentations at other businesses in your community. So some practitioners really prefer this because it’s a more structured approach. For example, if your ideal patients are athletes, you could go to a CrossFit gym and offer a short talk about, you know, how to prevent.

I don’t know. What kind of injuries do CrossFit athletes get? Clearly I’m not one of them. Uh, hip injuries or shoulder injuries. Right. And give them some stretches and explain how you would approach this if someone came into your office with hip pain from CrossFit. Right. Or if you. Love treating runners.

You could find a running club. The goal is to figure out where are your ideal patients spending time in real life, and who do you have to speak to to get in front of them on a regular basis? So maybe this is like, uh, a monthly talk that you give at the gym, and it’s only 20 minutes. Maybe you are just explaining common injuries and how to prevent them, and you let people know I’m gonna stay after the talk to answer your questions, because that’s really where the gold is going to come from, right?

People are going to think about their elbow pain or their wrist pain, and they’re gonna wait and hold their questions so they can speak to you afterwards. And that is incredibly trust building and. People who attend these kind of events probably already have a symptom that they want help with, right? So they are very, very close to becoming patients and that’s why these presentations can be very useful.

So if you are going to do those, the only other thing I recommend is make sure you have a sign in sheet where you collect the name and the email of everyone who comes to the presentation and you put them on your email list so that you can continue marketing to them through your email newsletter. That is very important.

Okay. It’s not just about the trust that you’re building in person, in case people aren’t ready to make an appointment. You are also building trust through your digital email marketing later on. Okay. And I find that this format of short educational presentations tends to work well, even for introverts because it’s usually small groups and there is one-on-one conversation afterwards, which we tend to be very good at.

Okay, so these are not meant to be like high pressure presentations in front of 40 people. It’s more like six or seven people who come for a talk about hip pain after CrossFit. You don’t need 40 people because you have a very specific audience, right, who are primed to become patients after they learn about your expertise and they get to meet you and speak to you.

Okay. The other thing I wanted to add is that sometimes even just getting out in your community and meeting you one time. Can make a difference. So I’m, I’m always a huge proponent of if you’re gonna do any marketing strategy, if you’re gonna do a new one and take it seriously, you need to do it consistently for at least three months to see if you’re getting any results from it.

But I wanna put a thought into your brain in favor of just getting out in the community in general, if you tend to be a digital marketing heavy person. So several years ago I interviewed acupuncturist Ellie Cole. She has several interviews here on the podcast whose doctoral research focus on physician referrals to acupuncture.

And she asked medical doctors what they needed in order to feel comfortable referring to patients. And most of them said something surprisingly simple. They just needed to meet the practitioner. They wanted to see that the person seemed. Reasonable and kind and professional, right? Like pretty basic. And once they had that impression, then they felt comfortable sending patients there.

So this principle can apply to many different. Referral sources, right? Gym owners, yoga instructors, other business owners, et cetera. They often just want to know who you are so that they can feel good and confident about saying to other community members, you know, I know of an acupuncturist you could talk to.

They might even say, well, I’ve never had acupuncture with Michelle, but I met her once and she seemed nice. I think you could talk to her about this. That is hugely trust building. It’s. Essentially trust being passed from one community member to the next. Okay? So I really hope that you will consider this and let both sides of your marketing support each other because when your digital presence and your community visibility work together.

I really think your marketing becomes more powerful. It becomes more effective. Each experience reinforces the other. So if your marketing has started to feel stuck or a little bit slower than it used to, it does not mean that your strategy is failing. It might simply mean that your marketing ecosystem has become a little unbalanced.

Take a look at where most of your energy has been going lately. If you have been living almost entirely online with your marketing, try showing up in your community for the next three months. As I said, try to give it three months, and if you have been focused mostly on in-person networking and events, spend some time at least three months.

Also strengthening your digital presence, it doesn’t mean that you have to stop doing what you were doing before. Instead, try to add in some of the other side of the coin, okay? Because when these two sides support each other, trust really builds faster. Okay? I hope this is a helpful new perspective, both on injecting some new energy into your marketing and also on why in-person efforts are worth it, even for introverts.

Alright? As always, thank you for being here. I can’t wait to talk to you soon. Before we wrap up, one more thank you to today’s sponsor Fair Wholesale. If you’d like to explore adding retail to your clinic, you can browse over a hundred thousand independent brands with low order minimums and low risk.

Check the link in the show notes and you can use my code a MS 10 to save 10% if your first order happens to be over $400. Thank you again. Talk to you soon.