This week is Part 2 of last week’s episode, all about what marketing worked and what didn’t to grow my acupuncture practice in 2024.
You know I approach all of my marketing as an experiment, which means I accept that not every strategy will be a huge win.
The benefit? You get to learn from my mistakes! I hope these insights make your marketing even more effective and efficient.
I talk outline what marketing I plan to carry forward into 2025, based on this review of what worked, what didn’t, what took too much energy, etc.
If you missed last week’s episode, #91: What Marketing Worked to Grow My Acupuncture Practice in 2024, click here to listen.
In this episode, I talk about:
- How landing a segment on local television wasn’t the silver bullet I hoped for
- What I could have done differently to make that local TV segment more successful
- Why a recent postcard marketing campaign was a bust
- What it takes, generally, for postcard marketing to succeed
- Which marketing strategy worked well last year but left me feeling burnt out—and is now on pause for 2025
- Why repetition and consistency are always necessary for successful marketing
- My marketing plan for 2025
🎙️ Listen to Episode #92: What Marketing Didn’t Work to Grow My Acupuncture Practice in 2024
Show Notes:
💜 Today’s episode is sponsored by The Pelvic Acu, Dr. Krystal Couture.
Dr. Couture specializes in teaching acupuncturists how to effectively treat pelvic pain and dysfunction through both online and in-person classes.
Did you know that 32% of women and 16% of men experience pelvic pain or dysfunction? Unfortunately, many are only offered pharmaceutical solutions that mask symptoms without addressing the root cause.
As an acupuncturist, your expertise lies in identifying the source of dysfunction and crafting a treatment plan that brings true, holistic healing—not just symptom relief.
Dr. Couture offers a range of pelvic care classes, from introductory sessions to advanced training, including a comprehensive pelvic care certificate program. You’ll learn pelvic anatomy, pathology, needling techniques, draping, and so much more.
In 2025, she’s hosting five in-person training weekends. And if travel isn’t an option, there are over a dozen online classes available, so you can start offering pelvic care acupuncture in your practice right away.
Her courses are NCCAOM, Florida, and California approved, and she even offers a free 1-PDA credit class—an introduction to pelvic care for acupuncturists.
Click here to view her courses and start transforming how you treat pelvic health today!
Subscribe to the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
💖 Love the podcast? Help other acupuncturists find the podcast by leaving a review here.
Transcript:
[MICHELLE GRASEK] (00:05):
Welcome to the Acupuncture Marketing School Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Grasek, 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.
[MICHELLE] (00:34):
Welcome back. This is part two, a continuation of my review of marketing that worked and did not work to help build my practice in 2024. Today we’re discussing what didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, and what marketing I plan to focus on and carry forward into 2025. If you missed part one, what did work to help grow my practice last year, that’s episode 91, I will share the link in the show notes. I recommend taking a listen. I also talk about what I learned from those various marketing efforts last year.
[DR. KRYSTAL COUTURE] (01:08):
Before we get into today’s episode, discussing the marketing that did not work as well as I’d hoped in 2024, a quick note from our sponsor. Today’s episode is brought to you by the The Pelvic Acu, Dr. Krystal Couture. Dr. Couture is a physical therapist and a licensed acupuncturist. She specializes in teaching acupuncturists how to effectively treat pelvic pain and dysfunction through both online and in-person classes. Did you know that 32% of women and 16% of men experience pelvic pain or dysfunction? Unfortunately, many are offered pharmaceutical solutions that mask symptoms without addressing the root cause. As an acupuncturist, your expertise lies in identifying the source of dysfunction and creating a treatment plan that brings true holistic healing, not just symptom relief. Dr. Couture offers a range of pelvic care classes from introductory sessions to advanced training, including a comprehensive pelvic care certificate program. You’ll learn pelvic anatomy, pathology, needling techniques, draping, and so much more.
(02:15):
In 2025, she’s hosting five in-person training weekends, and if travel isn’t an option, there are over a dozen online classes available, so you can start offering pelvic care acupuncture in your practice right away. Her courses are N-C-C-A-O-M, Florida and California approved, and she even offers a free one credit PDA class, an Introduction to Pelvic Care for Acupuncturists. Find all the links in the show notes and start transforming how you treat pelvic health today.
[MICHELLE] (02:43):
So let’s dive into it. What marketing did not work as well as I’d hoped? Well, this one, honestly, I am still not sure what category to put it in. It’s media exposure, specifically large-scale media exposure. This had some distinct pros and cons, and I learned a ton. So let me explain. I was on local television and I did cosmetic acupuncture live on a local morning show, and this did not work as smashingly well as I imagined it would for bringing in new patients, and now I know why that is. So this live local morning show aired out of a nearby city, and it’s called Bridge Street. I took my time, I did a ton of research and I wrote up a media pitch. I researched who to send it to at the news station. I even had a colleague who’s in the media read it over and make some suggestions, and I finally hit send and three weeks later they responded and said, yes, they were interested in having me come on the show and do cosmetic acupuncture live.
(03:49):
So I was blown away that the media pitch was successful. You sort of submit it into a void and you’re not sure, you know, is it good timing? Would the public be interested in this? Will the news station be interested, et cetera. So I was invited to do a four-minute live segment where I demonstrated cosmetic acupuncture while the hosts of the show asked me questions, and I really thought this was going to be our ticket to fame, LOL, because this morning show has a huge audience. It’s very popular, it’s been around a long time, but I did a ton to prepare for this four-minute interview. I memorized all of my answers to the questions because I was allowed to submit the questions to them that I wanted them to ask me. I had to pack up all of my equipment to bring to the studio to sort of set up a treatment room in the studio. I spent way too much time picking out an outfit that I thought was sufficient for television that I would be comfortable in, but that would look nice on camera.
(04:51):
And let me tell you, I don’t think I’ve ever, ever been that nervous in my life. On the day of, my nerves were so lit up, I probably could have powered a light bulb or even an oven, maybe my whole house, but it went off without a hitch, and it went well enough that the studio invited me to come back and do subsequent interviews with them, which I was so grateful for. I mean, it was a humbling experience. I was really amazed that they offered this to me. But we got zero patients from that, and at the time it was pretty disappointing. As I said, now, I’m pretty sure I know the reason for that, and that is like any marketing, being on local television requires repetition to build trust. So let me back up a second. Why did I want to do this in the first place? Do you remember Roxanne Francis interview from early last year? If not, it is a really good interview. I will put a link to it in the show notes.
(05:57):
Roxanne inspired me to get on local TV. She is featured regularly on a Canadian live morning show out of Toronto. She’s a therapist and she shares insights on the show with the hosts about a variety of topics related to remaining emotionally balanced in difficult times with therapy related topics. And as a result, she does get new patients to her practice. Why is this? Because she is seen as an expert. She is the expert because she’s on there repeatedly. And this new station, the one that I worked with, basically told me the same thing. If I wanted to maximize the benefit of my time on air, I actually need to be a repeated guest, if not a regular guest. So then people will view me as the go-to expert and be willing to drive from all over to see me. And I knew they were right, but honestly, my nervous system, I didn’t think I could take it on a regular basis. The thought of doing the prep and going live once a month, for example, filled me with dread.
(07:05):
So I politely declined their incredible offer and have put the idea on hold. So maybe someday in the future, it will feel like a fun challenge instead of just a challenge. But my point here is that I really don’t want to scare you away from this. If you are interested in submitting your own media pitch and being on local TV, I can see that some people have personalities that are a great fit for this. And I do think that it would get easier to be on TV every time you do it. So I recommend if you are feeling bold or this feels interesting, maybe it feels scary, but like exciting, scary, just submit your media pitch, go and do it one time. See how it feels. Do the best, most outstanding job you possibly can, which I have no doubt that you would do, so that the studio invites you back and then you have options. Then you can decide if this is a good fit for you, if something you want to continue. Because you might like it and if you do it more than once, I really think it will position you as an expert in your area and it will be successful in bringing in new patients.
[MICHELLE] (08:16):
So I will add on a positive note from this experience. Even just going on one time did improve my credibility and now I can say on my website, “as seen on Bridge Street” and local people know what that is. For lack of a better word, people are impressed when they see that. And that’s a little uncomfortable to say. I’m not really interested in people being impressed with me, but it builds trust and that is what I care about. I care about what will help visitors to my website or people searching on Google choose my practice over the competition. And being on TV, local TV builds trust and credibility and really does help people pick our practice. So even if you just get media exposure like this one time, I do think it’s worth it and then you can decide if you want to be a repeat guest.
(09:10):
I will add that I am putting together a lesson on how to submit a media pitch where I share the exact pitch that got me on television so you can use it as a template. And I walk you through the process of how I landed this spot on local TV. Because people ask me about this all the time, and as we’ve discussed, it can be an incredible opportunity. So I’ll be adding that class to Acupuncture Marketing School, so students will be able to view it in January. But if you are interested in that as a standalone class, if you’re not a student in Acupuncture Marketing School, please let me know. Send me an email. If enough people are interested, then I can always sell the class separately or teach it live, et cetera. So my email is michelle@michellegrasek.com. Just let me know your interest level.
[MICHELLE] (09:59):
And I want to add that smaller hyper-local media exposure can work even better than this local television spot. So I forgot to mention this in last week’s episode because I would consider this marketing that did work. Melody and I did two interviews on a local, they call it a radio show, but it’s actually a live YouTube stream. Or they call it a podcast sometimes, but it’s live on YouTube and it’s very local. I did a demonstration of acupuncture on a patient while Melody answered questions from the host, and this was 30-minute segments, so we did it twice and we did get noticed by new people, and we did get patients from those interviews.
(10:47):
So I could, when I say we got noticed, I could tell that a lot of people watch this local show because I would go to the library to pick up a book and the girl at the counter would say, “Hey, were you on, what’s it called, Finger Lakes 1? Were you on that the other day?” So a surprising number of people mentioned that they had seen it and it was successful in getting patients. So if you feel like being on proper television, “proper,” isn’t a good fit for you, I do recommend looking for smaller, hyperlocal, privately owned radio and YouTube channels and sending them your media pitch.
[MICHELLE] (11:26):
Okay, back to what did not really work. I actually only have one more thing for you. I mentioned in the previous episode that smaller, more intimate open house at my office in December was the one that worked really well. One of the things I did to advertise was to try my hand at sending postcards to local residents within a mile of my office. So again, that hyper, hyper-local. I used Vistaprint. Well, first I designed some invitations to the open house in Canva, a postcard size, the smallest size available, so they’d be less expensive. I loaded the design into VistaPrint and I selected VistaPrint’s option to do a postcard mailing called Direct Mail, which is where you get to define your parameters for the recipients and Vistaprint does all the work. They generate the address list, they print the postcard, they label them with the addresses, they stamp them, and they mail them.
(12:21):
So even though my business coach told me to focus my efforts on my current patients, she said she felt that would be most effective, I could not resist trying this. I love messing around with postcards, I love designing them. This is really where my love of marketing gets me in trouble sometimes. I just want to try everything. So I asked VistaPrint to make a mailing list of people living within a one-mile radius of my practice who make over $50,000 and had a bachelor’s degree or above. I live in a lower cost of living area, and I’m looking for people who can afford 10 sessions of cosmetic acupuncture. That was my goal. So 50,000 may sound very low to you depending on where you live. To give you an idea, I think the average home value in my town is $130,000. So maybe you live somewhere that is just much more expensive, of course, than you would want to, if that’s what you’re looking for, you can raise the bar for the income level.
(13:21):
So VistaPrint sent out about 200 of these postcards, and not a single person who came to open house said that they came because they got a postcard. If you had a chance to listen to last week’s episode, you’ll recall that I had 15 people attend this December open house, and most of them I knew from networking or through current patients or professional referrals, but no one at all came from postcards. So I’ll admit I was very disappointed because I love designing postcards. I love snail mail. Even though it’s against my better judgment and I should be saving trees. I just want the postcard marketing to work, but I have never been able to nail it. And usually when I try, I’ll get at least one response from it, but this time, zip. So I should have listened to Ildi, my business coach and save myself that money. Here’s the thing, just like being on TV, I know that postcards need to be repeated to be effective.
[MICHELLE] (14:22):
Now, would I call the postcard experiment a total loss? No, because at least now those 200 people know that my business exists. They may not have come to open house, but it counts as a touch point, and that matters. So in the future, if I try postcard marketing again, which you know, I will, I am committed to doing a series of themed postcards over several months because that seems to be be what’s required to make them effective. Like most marketing approaches, they are not a one and done miracle. They are just touchpoints like everything else, and they need repetition and consistency to be effective. So I learned my lesson for the dozen time, and I can’t wait to design some postcards in the future.
[MICHELLE] (15:10):
Alright, so those are two things I can think of that just did not give the results I anticipated. And now that we’ve talked about what worked and what didn’t, what took energy, what I learned, let’s talk about the marketing. I plan to continue in 2025, and these are in no particular order. I definitely plan to continue my volunteering with the Chamber of Commerce and attending networking events monthly. This relationship building takes time and effort, but it really has been working. And I like the idea of building up my sense of community. It matters to me very much. As an introvert, building a sense of community does take intention, and I’m committed to that effort because it works. And at the end of the day, it is a marketing that feels really good. I do plan to host another December open house and follow the same blueprint as the one that I did this past year. We will offer the gift certificates with a bonus of 10% and I’ll do a cosmetic demonstration. These two things were a big draw. They got people to spend money, they got us new and returning patients on the schedule for cosmetic acupuncture. So if you missed last episode, 91, I believe, definitely check it out. I shared lots of details and my reasons for structuring it the way I did, why I decided to offer 10% on gift cards sold at the event, why that was worth it, et cetera. So definitely tune into that episode if you missed it.
(16:41):
And in doing that open house last year, I realized something, I don’t actually have to host a formal open house to do a cosmetic acupuncture demonstration and invite people to my office. And the demonstration is really what transitioned people into making appointments. They got to see, it’s not scary. It’s not like Botox, and in fact, it is relaxing. And they got to have their questions answered in person. So this was a big trust building event. So I do plan to host at least two cosmetic acupuncture demonstrations in my office this year, but without all the bells and whistles of an open house, I will just let people know I’m doing a cosmetic acupuncture demonstration at 6:00 PM. We’ll have coffee and tea. I’ll probably make a gluten-free snack because I love snacks, but that’s it. No major preparation the way that I have done in the past for an open house. I’ll do the demonstration. You get to ask your questions, we all go home.
(17:47):
And I also plan to ask a few businesses, mostly yoga studios, if they would be open to me doing cosmetic acupuncture demonstrations in their offices and sharing those events with their audiences. So this is a way to get in front of new local audiences and build trust rapidly. It’s very similar to my approach for AcuYoga, which brings me to my next item. I probably will not be doing much AcuYoga this year. Yes, it works, especially when you are strategic about it. You collect everyone’s emails, you add them to your newsletter list, et cetera, and it does build trust rapidly because it’s in person. But I did a lot of these in 2023 and a fair number in 2024, and I’m honestly a little burnt out. I was also driving up to an hour to get into new studios. And yes, we did get patients who were willing to drive an hour for cosmetic acupuncture especially, but it was a lot, and I feel like the cosmetic acupuncture demonstrations, I am enjoying them a bit more right now possibly because I’m not burnt out about them. So I plan to really focus on those this year instead.
(19:01):
What’s next, of course, I plan to continue sending sort of regular email newsletters. I don’t send them exactly every two weeks, but I do try to send on average two per month. So whenever I have the chance to write something, or if I feel inspired to play around with chatGPT, or I need to make an announcement or invite people to an event, I will send an email. So don’t put a ton of pressure on yourself about it, just try to do one or two a month when you have something to share. I also plan to do another interview on that local YouTube channel that I mentioned on the live stream. So this is not the live local TV on Bridge Street, but this is the hyperlocal YouTube stream that I was talking about. Melody, and I will be doing another cosmetic acupuncture demo live on his show. It got a lot of views last time, and I reached out to the host to ask if he’d be interested in doing again. I was pretty thrilled that he said yes.
(19:59):
But here’s the thing, how did all this come about? I just sent an email. I submitted a media pitch, I got my foot in the door, and comfortable asking if we could return when it feels appropriate. I just feel like local people are supportive. They want to see you thrive. In my experience, they’re willing to work with you to make it something that you both benefit from and or benefits the community at large. So I feel very lucky to have made contact with the host of this show. And as I said, it all started with an email pitch. And of course, I plan to continue doing all the usual things to boost my SEO of my practice’s website and my Google Business profile. I will try to continue blogging one to two times a month, regularly request reviews from my happy patients. That is actually a marketing strategy that goes on my calendar so it doesn’t get forgotten. I will continue sharing posts on My Google Business profile once or twice a month, and just learning more about SEO in general because it’s always evolving.
[MICHELLE] (21:09):
Okay, so what am I not continuing at 2025? I think I answered this. You know the answer already, not pursuing the local television spot right now, not doing AcuYoga, or at least taking a break in favor of cosmetic acupuncture demonstrations. And as I mentioned last episode, I recently stopped Google Ads and don’t plan to resume them in 2025. I was breaking even with those ads, and I felt positive about it because they were bringing in new patients. They had good experiences, they wrote reviews, they referred our business to other people. So big picture, the ads did expand our presence in the community, but ads are a little expensive, and I wanted to challenge myself to get the same results in terms of numbers of new patients through free or low-cost methods like those I’ve outlined here.
(22:02):
The very last thing I’ll mention is a recommendation for improving your marketing and making it easier to manage in 2025, especially if you are doing content creation. Learn to use chatGPT. I have been using it and teaching it about my practice, and it is the most helpful brainstorming companion I have ever had. It’s not perfect, of course. If you use it to write content, you still need to do edits, and you do have to teach it about your practice, your target market, your ideal patients, et cetera. But it can really save you so much time and provide inspiration. It can also help a lot if you feel burnt out from marketing and content creation. I think I published 26 blog posts last year, and I sent 28 email newsletters and chatGPT helped me in one way or another for at least 60% of that content. It contributed something, even if it was an outline or a list of blog topics. So try to think of AI as a smart assistant who genuinely wants to be helpful, ask it questions, use it to brainstorm, et cetera. Just let it help you and make your marketing and, therefore, your life much easier.
(23:17):
Okay, that is everything. Thank you so much for being here. As always, if you have questions, you are always welcome to email me at michelle@michellegrasek.com. Enjoy your week and I will talk to you soon.
(23:40):
Don’t forget to check out our sponsor, The Pelvic Acu, Dr. Krystal Couture. The easiest way to get started with her coursework is to sign up for her free PDA credit class, an Introduction to Pelvic Care for Acupuncturists. The link is in the show notes for you. Have a great week.