This week weā€™re talking all about marketing budgets for your acupuncture practice.

A few weeks ago, I gave a guest lecture at the Seattle Institute of East Asian Medicine about digital marketing.

After the class, one of the students asked a fantastic question: ā€œWhat is your average monthly marketing budget?ā€

And my really quick answer to that student was that I try not to spend too much money on marketing in terms of advertising. I really prefer organic marketing and the long-term marketing approaches that tend to be free but take more time and effort.

Basically, I made it sound like I donā€™t spend any money on marketing. šŸ˜³ Which is incorrect!

And thatā€™s what inspired this episode.

It was a quick and dirty answer, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized itā€™s a little misleading. Plus I think itā€™s really helpful to know:  What exactly do I spend money on for marketing my practice?

So today I’m sharing a detailed review of my marketing budget from 2021.

Everything I spent to get my practice more visible last year.

I’ll be sharing the numbers, including my total annual spend and what that works out to on a monthly basis.

Let’s get it going!

šŸŽ™ļøEpisode #36: My Marketing Budget for My Acupuncture Practice in 2021

Show Notes:

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Transcript:

Hey there, welcome back! This week weā€™re talking all about marketing budgets for your acupuncture practice. 

A few weeks ago, I gave a guest lecture at the Seattle Institute of East Asian Medicine all about digital marketing. 

And after the class, one of the students had such a good question, and that was, ā€œWhat is your average monthly marketing budget?ā€ 

And my really quick answer to that student was that I try not to spend too much money on marketing in terms of advertising and that I really prefer organic marketing and the long-term marketing approaches that tend to be free but take more time and effort. Basically, I made it sound like, I donā€™t spend any money on marketing. 

Which is not really true, and thatā€™s what inspired this episode. It was a quick and dirty answer, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized itā€™s a little misleading and I think itā€™s really helpful to know exactly what DO I spend money on for marketing? 

So, of course, I do spend money on marketing, but itā€™s not necessarily a straightforward recurring monthly cost, which is often what we think of when we ask about someoneā€™s monthly marketing budget. So thatā€™s what I want to share with you today, a detailed review of my marketing budget from 2021. Everything I spent to get my practice more visible last year. And at the end, I will finally break it down into a monthly amount, dividing the total annual spend by 12 months, if that figure is helpful for you. 

Okay, letā€™s get right into this. I always think about marketing from this perspective, in terms of spending money or not spending money: 

Marketing always costs something. It either costs your time and your energy, or your cold hard cash. 

So if you have extra time where you’re not treating patients during your week, you’re still building and growing your practice, then I really recommend leaning into any of the free marketing avenues that you enjoy that you have time and energy for. 

Often these are things like content creation, social media, writing email newsletters, writing blog posts, working on your website, improving the search engine optimization of your website, getting out in your community in person, introducing yourself to other small business owners near your practice, as well as, if you’re up for it, attending networking meetings like the local Chamber of Commerce, etc.

And on the flip side of that, typically, is when youā€™re slightly too busy with patients to put so much time and energy into your marketing, BUT youā€™re not quite where you want to be in terms of patients numbers. Youā€™d like to grow more, maybe a lot more, but your time is really divided between marketing and patient care. In this case, paid marketing avenues start to become something you might want to think about. This could mean paid ads, like Facebook ads or Google ads, or paying someone to help you with your marketing, like a social media manager, or just do your marketing for you. Because youā€™re at that tipping point where you have money, but less free time. So then you would think about it as youā€™re literally paying someone to help you show up consistently and get your marketing done, but still have time to treat all of your patients.

So you can either put in your own time and effort and do the marketing yourself, or you can put money into your marketing and have it work for you, have someone else manage it or at least help you. 

Okay, letā€™s talk about this marketing budget of mine from 2021.

Now, as I told the student, my honest-to-goodness approach is to try to keep my spending minimal, but for me, that means avoiding paid advertisements. It means leaning into organic growth methods for my Instagram and FB followings and my email subscriber list. Setting up email funnels, regularly sending email newsletters, and actively collecting Google reviews.

But to do many of those things, I do spend money on marketing tools that have allowed me to create systems to make my marketing more effective and easier. And I think these tools, these marketing platforms, really need to count as part of the marketing budget.

One reason that its kind of hard to say that I spend ā€œxā€ amount of dollars per month on marketing that I have a marketing budget of ā€œxā€ amount set aside per month is that a lot of the systems and platforms that Iā€™m purchasing are billed annually, like Constant Contact, the email marketing platform I use. 

Okay, letā€™s dig into these details. Letā€™s start out with expenses related to my website in 2021. Obviously, your website is marketing. It helps you get visible and helps new people find you. So anything that helped me build or update my website is counts as marketing in my budget. 

In 2021, I spent $116 on domain hosting for my website. So this is paying to own and maintain my domain, senecafallsacupuncture.com, and have it hosted by BlueHost. There are many different hosts out there, this is just the one that I have always used. And by the way, Iā€™ll put links to all these marketing platforms and resources in the show notes so you can take a look if youā€™d like. 

I spent $350 on professional photos for my website. And I spent $116 on a new website theme. 

I use WordPress, so if you’re familiar with WordPress, you know that you have to buy a theme or basically a design that you plug into your WordPress website. And that theme or design is like the structure of your site. And you go in and add your own photos, text, your branding colors, logo, etc. So if you want a totally new design, in WordPress, you can have a professional design something for you from scratch, of course, like any website, OR you can purchase a pretty theme that you like, and then customize it and make it match your brand. So that is something I spent a lot of time on last year, editing this theme to make it match my new branding. But the idea is that I decided to spend less money, instead of having someone customize it for me, and did it myself. You can always flip that around or you can find the sweet spot that works best for you. I like working inside my website, itā€™s something I really enjoy. But if you hate it, then it might be a good investment to have someone else update the theme for you or design something from scratch. 

And Iā€™ll link to this in the show notes, but I really love BluChic WordPress themes. If you use WordPress, I highly recommend these. They’re really beautiful for small business owners and they have MANY to choose from. If youā€™re comfortable working inside your website in WordPress and making your own updates, I canā€™t recommend them enough. Their helpdesk is also awesome. 

So that was $557 total on my website last year. And of course, the professional photos and new WordPress theme are not repeating expenses, right? But the $116 for domain hosting is a recurring annual expense.

The next expense was paying to be a member of two chambers of commerce locally. One chamber is $180 per year and the other is $250 per year. So both really pretty reasonable. Even though Iā€™m an introvert and I find networking meetings difficult if not impossible, yes you heard me say that, I do still think theyā€™re important to get me in front of my community and help people meet me. And the value the chambers provide is a really good bang for your buck. 

They have frequent events and they do a lot to support their members and help you spread the word if you are hosting something like a special event or sale. 

And last year I spent an extra $50 with one of the chambers of commerce to send out two email blasts to the other chamber members. I was having a sale on cosmetic acupuncture and I wanted to let the other chamber members know what was happening. There are almost 300 local businesses on their email list so $50 for two email blasts was really a steal. And if you listened to Episode #27, you know that I used those email blasts as part of a very successful July marketing campaign last year that made August my best month ever at my practice. So if you havenā€™t listened to episode 27, itā€™s out there for you. Iā€™ll put a link in the show notes. And this $50 for two email blasts played a part in the success of that campaign but is also a very reasonable cost.

But I encourage you to ask your chamber of commerce, what are the benefits of joining and whether they might be able to offer you email blasts like this, either included in the cost of your annual membership or at a really discounted rate because you’re a member.

Another marketing expense that I think we often overlook is an email marketing platform. I use Constant Contact, and I have an upgraded account because that allows me to set up email automations or funnels.

So as far as I know, here in 2022, you can always schedule your emails in advance using Constant Contacts. That would be like writing an email newsletter and telling it to send it out two weeks from now, on Tuesday at 7 am. 

But if you want to create an automated email funnel with a trigger, then you have to upgrade. At least in Constant Contact, maybe not be true in other email platforms. An email funnel trigger is, for example, when someone opts into your email lead magnet when they give you their email in exchange for an educational pdf that you created. That is the trigger to send them a series of, weā€™ll say, maybe 8-10 emails, that go out maybe every 4-6 days. 

So I pay $450 annually for Constant Contact and then the upgrade was another $270 a year. Even as Iā€™m saying that Iā€™m thinking to myself that it wouldnā€™t hurt to research cheaper options. Constant Contact is solid, and I have no complaints, but thatā€™s a significant marketing investment, right?

At the very least, itā€™s a good way to make sure I’m sending emails regularly because I know that if I’m not sending emails to my list, then that investment is a waste of money, and I canā€™t have that. I pay for a good email service, I should be using it.

Another expense – and this one is actually a monthly expense – is my Canva Pro account. If you’re not familiar, Canva.com is a free graphic design website. Itā€™s very easy to use. You can create all sorts of beautiful social media graphics and even print materials using Canva. You can design pretty much anything you want, even on their free account. Itā€™s really, really good. Iā€™ll put a link in the show notes. Using Canva for graphic design, especially for social media post creation, is actually something I teach inside Acupuncture Marketing School, itā€™s that fantastic. 

But if you upgrade to Canva Pro for $13 a month, then you basically get more design options, more design features, and many more design templates. I find it worth it to pay $13 for pre-created social media templates, like Instagram stories, because the Pro version templates are really beautiful and it makes my social media marketing so much easier because everything is created for you, you just change the text. And I want to toss in here that I do have acupuncture specific social media templates that use acupuncture and moxa and cupping images. I do want to let you know those exist and Iā€™ll put a link in the show notes if you would like to purchase them if you want because even though Canva provides really beautiful graphic designs and social media templates, they are not acupuncture specific, they do not have acupuncture images in them. 

Plus if you upgrade to Pro, you can download images as PNGs, which is a file type, with a transparent background. Now, this is most important if youā€™re, for example, designing your own logo. You want to be able to download your logo with a transparent background because A) thatā€™s much more professional than a white background, and B) that allows you to layer it over other graphics if youā€™re putting together a brochure or other marketing materials. 

Thatā€™s also something I teach in Acupuncture Marketing School, designing your own logo in Canva and using the free 2-week trial of Canva Pro to download your logo with a transparent background.

So that works out to $156 per month for Canva Pro and I think itā€™s very worth it. 

And then last year, I spent about $225 on stationery and printed materials. So this includes business cards, brochures, printed gift cards, and holiday greeting cards. 

And in 2021 I also spent almost $50 on postage to mail the holiday cards. I think I sent 40 holiday seasonal cards to specific patients. I know itā€™s kind of corny but Iā€™m a paper-letter-in-the-mail kind of person, and I love writing holiday cards for my patients each year. Obviously, I have to be selective because this is time-consuming, I handwrite each one, so I try to do 40 or less. I pick patients who have been coming consistently and who I feel particularly grateful for that year.  And of course, I consider that marketing as well. It gets me in front of them, and reminds them of me and my business, even if thatā€™s not my primary intent. 

And last year I did spend a really small amount, about $115 on Google ads, that for me were just a flop. Generally, I like Google ads and I think that they can be a great return on your investment.  Early in the year, I decided to give it a try, and it was kind of a disaster because of COVID cases in my area spiking. So I ran those ads for cosmetic acupuncture for one month and then decided to turn them off because people in my area were just not ready to take their masks off for cosmetic acupuncture in Feb. 2021. 

Iā€™m tempted to try Google ads again this year. I know I said I try to avoid spending on ads, but I also just love marketing and the experimental, trial-and-error nature of paid ads. And Iā€™ll say that typically for Google ads, I would be prepared to commit at least $200 a month, if not more, for a minimum of three months. And the cost of Google ads in your area depends on various factors, including how many other people are also paying for Google ads, vying for that top spot on the page for certain keywords. Only one or two acupuncturists in my area are doing them regularly, so it may be worth a try. But regardless, last year was not a good time to launch those ads. 

And then lastly, I signed up for the paid version of Later app, which is $150 annually and works out to $12.50 a month. Later app is a social media app focused on Instagram, although you can do FB and Pinterest and more on Later as well. But it allows you to schedule your posts and stories in advance, and autopublish them. The reason I decided to upgrade to the paid version is that the free version doesnā€™t allow you to autopublish stories or carousel posts, and I really wanted that. For $12.50 a month it makes my life MUCH easier because I donā€™t have to remember to get on Instagram stories on a regular basis. I can schedule them in advance and it sends a reminder to my phone, and then I just post the image that I save in the app earlier. As they say, easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. It also allows you to upload your images so you have an image library easily accessible inside the app, and you can get a visual of what youā€™re posting and when, and how it all looks and fits together. I have an affiliate link for Later app that Iā€™ll put in the show notes ā€“ and full disclosure it is an affiliate link, so if you sign up for Later app using that link, youā€™ll get free extra posts every month. Itā€™s a great little upgrade. And in return, I also get a few extra posts per month or credits towards my account. So yeehaw, happy to recommend something I really love that makes my life, and the life of my social media manager, much easier. 

So overall I spent $2,295 dollars on my marketing in 2021. And if you divide that by 12, that’s $191 per month. If that feels like a big number, remember, investing in marketing is investing in the visibility of your practice in your community, and getting your name out there more often, so you can build faster and help more people. Help more people find you. So donā€™t panic if that feels like a big number. Of course, you want to think about what works for you and your finances and the stage that your practice is at right now. This is a normal amount for me, based on my overall income and as a percentage of my overhead. So take a look at your numbers and see what feels reasonable for you and your practice and how fast youā€™d like to grow. 

I hope this detailed review of my marketing spending from last year is really helpful for you. And I am so curious, I’d love to start a conversation about this on Instagram. 

I’d love to know if you have a marketing budget? Do you set aside for your business either monthly or annually? And what that is if you’re willing to share or even just how you think about spending money for marketing for your practice. 

So hop on over and join me on Instagram @michellegrasek. I’ll include a link in the show notes. Look for the post about this episode, number 36, All About Marketing Budgets, and let me know. Join the conversation.  

Again, links to everything that I mentioned today are all in the show notes. 

And before I sign off today, I wanted to let you know that the scholarship competition for Acupuncture Marketing School is coming up in about five weeks. More information about that is forthcoming, but in a nutshell, Acu Marketing School is my Foundations of Marketing online course for our profession. It comes with 15 NCCAOM PDA credits and we cover a LOT of marketing ground in that course. It will set you up with a really strong foundation for your marketing. And each year I offer a scholarship competition where we give away two seats totally free inside Acupuncture Marketing School ā€“ one to a practicing acupuncturist or a graduated acupuncturist, and one to an acupuncture student. So stay tuned! Details on how to enter are coming up soon. In May Iā€™m also offering an awesome new bonus for anyone who enrolls in Acupuncture Marketing School, including my best marketing templates ā€“ more info on that, too. Okay, exciting things coming up this Spring! I love the fresh new energy of spring and Iā€™m excited to share it with you. 

All right. Thank you for being here. I can’t wait to talk to you next time. Have a great week.