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As the owner of your own chiropractic practice, you’ve probably wondered if there is a way you can better understand your ideal patient to attract them to your clinic. 

Maybe you’ve experimented with targeted marketing or even shelled out thousands with other marketing or SEO agency with limited success. 

While every marketing strategy requires testing and fine-tuning to achieve its maximum effectiveness. The reality is that many approaches ignore the most important first step: identifying who your ideal patient is in the first place. 

In this article, we’re going to delve deeper into identifying your ideal patient and ‘aligning’ them with your business (pun fully intended!).

Who is the ideal patient for your Chiropractic practice?

When you think of your favourite patient, does someone immediately pop into your head? I’m guessing it’s someone who you genuinely wouldn’t mind seeing each day for an appointment.

Your ideal patient is completely subjective and unique to you. The chiropractic practice down the road may have a totally different ideal patient.

Put very simply, your ideal patient is the one that you enjoy consulting with on both a personal and professional level. You’ll often have something in common beyond just their need for treatment. This could be a commonality of interests (like a shared hobby) or another area of mutual connection (like the shared experience of parenting toddlers). 

As an extension of this, they often have a health need that aligns with their skills, professional knowledge, and career interests.

On a micro level, these patients are also likely to be the ones that are willing to pay, provide you with favourable word-of-mouth, treat your team respectfully, commit to appointments etc.

In the bigger scheme of things, these patients are the ones you connect well with personally and who you are able to help towards wellness through your chiropractic techniques.

The first and most important way to get through to these ideal patients is to identify who they are. When you understand your ideal patient it becomes easier to connect with them through your social media, search and paid marketing efforts.

Once you’ve ticked that box, you can work on getting through to them…

How Chiropractors can attract new patients online

1. Define your ideal patient for your Google Ad campaigns

The first step to attracting more patients to your chiropractic practice is identifying your ideal patients. Perhaps you’ve already identified that your ideal patients are mostly 65+. Or maybe they’re professional rugby players.  

This is a great starting point, as it tells you where a good portion of their attention will already be. 

For example, if your ideal patients are rugby players, consider creating a unique offering especially for them and sending it out to the local rugby clubs and advertising it on sports platforms.

If your ideal patients are the elderly, consider where they spend their time and the best method of positioning your marketing. Understanding your patients’ interests will help to optimise targeting. 

Not sure how you can maximise your marketing efforts as a Chiropractor? We are a social media and digital marketing agency that specialises in helping Chiropractors scale their businesses. Book a free review here to see how we can support you.

2. Research for SEO and Google Ads

Through purposeful messages and marketing creativity, you can tailor your advertising and offerings to your desired audience. Messages can be personalised to be highly relevant and practical for your ideal patients.  

These messages should consider important questions like:

• What excites your ideal patients?
• For example, are they concerned about being able to work, about their desired sporting achievements, or just keeping up their kids at home?
• What are their health concerns?
• Where do they spend their time?
• What do they read and watch?
• What do they talk about?
• Who do they ‘follow’ on social media platforms?
• What really matters to them?

Messaging and marketing should be written using images, videos and language that will resonate with them. Making use of the right keywords will help with your website SEO connect your Chiropractic practice with those who are actively searching online for pain relief.

3. Refine the marketing funnel to retain and attract new patients

Once you understand the desires of your ideal patient, you’ll have the ability to deliver treatments tailored to their problems.

How can a Chiropractor find more patients?You can provide incredible value and experiences when you understand what really matters to them. You can even look to package together treatments that collectively solve their problems.

For example, if your ideal patient is a rugby player, a treatment targeted at relieving the spinal dysfunction from past tackles may be just the ticket to attracting these ideal patients. 

This tailored approach will lead to increased patient retention and word-of-mouth referrals to other ideal patients. 

You’ll experience professional fulfilment when you can help people who need the skills and techniques that you offer.

By attracting your ideal chiropractic patients, you’ll be able to grow in a way that’s both sustainable and rewarding.

If you’re the owner of a Chiropractic practice, chances are that making people feel better is your passion. You just love the joy that comes from helping your patients discover a new, pain-free (or at least pain-reduced!) lease on life.

But as any good healthcare professional knows, to make people feel better, you need to get them through the door in the first place.

Discovering effective marketing strategies is vital to grow your client base and build a loyal following of patients who sing your praises.

Here’s how to make sure that your practice has a constant flow of new patients walking through its doors:

1. Provide outstanding service

Superb care and service will only lead to more business – and with any luck, this is something you are already doing.

In addition to being empathetic, punctual, and always ready to listen, the best chiropractors keep their existing patients connected by creating programs that revolve around ongoing preventative care.

If you’re delivering this impressive level of service, your loyal following will likely be providing you with valuable word-of-mouth referrals and driving more patients through your open doors.

2. Understand the ins and outs of online marketing

Social Media, EDM’s, Digital Content. There’s a lot of hefty words being thrown around with online marketing, but, in short, they’re the tools to let people know who you are, and what you can do.

The more accessible your practice is, the more people will view you as a trusted business as opposed to some back-alley operation.

Using email marketing and a social media presence can be a great way to keep in touch with existing patients and to recruit new ones.

Keep in mind that the content of these emails or posts doesn’t need to be a sales pitch. It can just as easily be an educational email that gives informative content and positions you as an expert in the eyes of your existing or future patients. 

Don’t be afraid to give away too much content – the more you give the more you’ll receive.

3. Get positive reviews on Google Maps

 Google is a treasure trove for any professional practice.

If your chiropractic centre isn’t already on Google Maps, you are missing out on a prime opportunity to get free visibility.

If you haven’t, create yourself an account with Google My Business and verify your practice. Users will now be able to leave reviews about your service. According to a recent survey, 92% of consumers read reviews when looking for a local business.

It’s worth noting that having a good number of reviews on Google increases the chances that the search engine will recognise your business and include it at the top of the listings on Google Maps when someone searches for “chiropractor”.

To manage your reputation and ensure you’re attracting patients rather than pushing them away, we would suggest these tips:

• Asking your customers to write reviews

• Offer discounts or incentives

• Respond to negative reviews to show users that you care about your patients and

their experiences.

4. Improve your website’s on-page SEO (Search Engine OptimiSation)

How many times do we find ourselves entering “best fish and chip shop” or “hairdresser near me” into Google, hoping to be connected with the latest and greatest in our neighbourhood?

Most of the time we click through to the first options that Google offers up. So, what happens if your practice isn’t being displayed on the first few pages of a Google search?

How does SEO work?

To understand the importance of a good performance of SEO and how you can attract more new patients, you first need to know how search engines operate.

Search engines like Google use a method where bots scan the web looking for new content or updating content on old pages. They identify the data, capture that content, and then register the links found in their database. 

The page is then indexed in the search engine and can be located by any user. Using keywords (like we mentioned “best fish and chip shop”) the search engine presents a page using suggested results.

How can I improve my on-page SEO?

 “So how do I apply this to my practice?” you ask. Good question. By having great on-page SEO.

Without going into crazy detail, this can be done by making sure your content, titles and images are all relevant and interacting seamlessly.

At the very least, your page titles should be applicable, attractive and eye-catching, your overview should provide a clear and interesting explanation of the service you offer, and your website URL should ideally have a keyword in it (i.e., chiropractor!).

Meta descriptions and headers also boost SEO and there’s no substitute for good content. Trustworthy, up to date, high-quality content will do wonders for improving your ranking.

5. Attract ‘new old’ patients

There are many reasons why a client may become inactive. Perhaps they had a poor experience, or their circumstances changed. Either way, these patients may be open to the possibility of returning to your practice.

Studies show that it’s three times more likely you can reactivate an old client than sign up for a new one. And research has shown that a whopping 50-60% of inactive patients can be reactivated through simple strategies such as a letter, an email, or a phone call, focusing on them and their wellbeing.

Ask them questions about how they are, if they have any feedback, and most importantly, why they stopped coming. You could even offer a complimentary appointment to remind them why they enjoyed coming to you in the first place – after all, it’s getting them through the door!