The Evolution of Digital Marketing
MARKETING
Bryan Hawley
As a fellow chiropractor who has worked and straggled in the trenches and built several highend clinics, believe me when I tell you that I understand the importance of marketing. I am also aware that I am not alone in understanding its importance. After traveling the country and speaking to audiences on both a national and international level, I have discovered that most business people understand the importance of marketing. However, understanding the importance of marketing is vastly different than understanding the principles of marketing, and riding the evolutionary wave it is undergoing takes some skillsets.
In the past, I have had marketing budgets ranging from a few hundred dollars a month to more than $50,000 per month. I went from fighting for the back cover of the Yellow Pages phone book,
"Cow with digital marketing, you can not only place a call-to-action ad and go fishing for new patients, but you also can strategically put yourself in front of the people who are looking for you and your services. J J
to radio, television, mailings, billboards, to shnple print. Now with the advantage of hindsight, I see definite patterns emerging and an ever-changing evolution of marketing. The days ofYellow Pages and banners are slipping away. Heck, even the old standby newspaper is slowly slipping. Now I see the emergence of a new platform, and offices that are making a big digital footprint are reaping the rewards.
We used to try and cast a wide net using the traditional triplethreat approach—newspaper, TV, and phone book. The goal was to try to target the clinic’s “ideal patient” and draw those people in with an ad of service or a time-based offer. Now with digital marketing, you can not only place a call-to-action ad and go fishing for new patients, but you also can strategically put yourself in front of the people who are looking for you and your services. This new aspect of getting in front of the people who actually are looking for you tends to put a whole different vibe on the patient profile. With digital marketing, we no longer are looking and chasing after the potential patient. It’s the cuttingedge clinics that are strategically placing themselves in front of the people looking for them.
We personally used to try to target our ideal patients by placing an ad in different sections of newspapers, or on different days, or even using different colors and sizes. With digital marketing, you can literally put yourself in front of a 45-year-old female who is married with three children, has four open lines of credit, uses American Express, purchases vitamins, has an income of $50,000 to $70,000, has a four-year degree, and loves social hour, all within 25 miles of your practice. Now that’s getting specific!
It doesn’t end with placing one ad and marketing on social media. Carousel advertising on social media has also opened up a new genre of ads. Why show one selling point when you can show more in one swoop?
Say you want to explode your weight-loss services. With carousel advertising, you could dictate a series of scenarios.
• Tired and lethargic.
• Hitting plateau after plateau.
• Diet is a four-letter word.
• Images of men versus women.
• Working out.
^To be ahead of the curve and catch this wave, you really need to take a look at your digital footprint and utilize all the tools that are now available. JJ
Let them run for a few days for pennies (social media tends to be cheaper depending on the audience you are going for) and monitor which ones get the most conversions.
Once you identify your target patient, you can start running simple split ads for a few days and monitor die hits and calls. You can make simple changes in the ads on the fly, and even use ads that have different images (man, woman, parents, child, puppy, etc.) and target people in your area to see which ones make the phone ring.
We could never do that with traditional marketing, nor did we ever have the sniper targeting capabilities that we now possess. Remarketing has taken on a whole new sphere also. Just because your customers saw your ad or found you online today, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are ready to engage. Remarketing does exactly that, and by using clever “cookies” that attach to your visitors’ browsers, it gives you the ability to serve ads back to them, reminding them why you’re the best.
The clinics I have seen using this new approach are the ones setting themselves apart horn the competition and blazing the trails. It is no longer enough to just have a website and Facebook page. To be ahead of the curve and catch this wave, you really need to take a look at your digital footprint and utilize all the tools that are now available.
How is your office doing on making a big digital footprint?
Dr. Bryan Hawley has been in health care for more than two decades and owned and operated several high-end clinics. He is an international speaker, author, and coach. He is also CEO of SocialMediaDigimai'k, an online ad and marketing agency that specializes in helping doctors fill their practices and reach their goals. His partnering company, Brighthaus, is an international SEO agency with clients ranging from Oakley, Warner Bros., McDonald’s, and many more. For questions or consultations, Dr Hawley can be reached at [email protected].
