Chiropractor

Chiropractor:

Background…A chiropractic office was referred to Authentic Marketing to get some advice on new patient acquisition.

The Problem…The client was spending a significant amount of money on local advertising methods, consisting of print ads in newspaper, clipper/val-pak, newspaper inserts, and direct mail.  There were two main problems:      1.  He had no idea which methods were working and which ones were not.  He didn’t feel any of it was working very well.  2.  All of the ads were what we call “me too” ads…meaning he was not distinguishing himself in any way from other chiropractors in the area.

The Solution…  During the discovery process we discovered that approximately 68% of his clients came from 5 specific occupation types.  This discovery led us to use a strategy that has been very successful for us in the past, especially when working with service businesses.  It is referred to as the “tearsheet” method.  A tearsheet is direct mail piece with three critical design elements; if any one of these elements are missed or not created properly the response decreases drastically…we have tested every element. 

Element one is the envelope.  If you don’t get the envelope opened it won’t be read so we made sure we created an envelope that gets opened.  We use a small thank you card size envelope, handwritten, no return address, and a crooked real stamp.  No one can resist opening an envelope that appears to have come from a friend.

The second element is the positioning of the contents of the envelope.  If the envelope appears to have come from a friend you need to make sure that when they pull out the contents it maintains that “position”.  So we use a handwritten sticky note with 5 specific words, that communicate: “This is important and you will like it.”.

The third element is the design of the direct mail “piece” itself.  Keeping with the “my friend sent me something important to read” theme, we can’t use a fancy ad.  Instead we use a particular piece created to replicate a magazine or newspaper article.  These tearsheet articles will educate (and sell…contain a call to action) when written properly.   In this case we used a magazine article that was in an interview format with the Chiropractor that showcased his expertise in diminishing/eliminating pain and improving flexibility.

The bonus element is who you send the direct mail piece.  A big mistake we see is the when someone spends a great amount of time and money designing the perfect marketing piece, only to send it to the wrong audience.  This element is just as critical if not more critical than the piece itself.  So for this project we made sure we purchased a list that was specifically targeted to the characteristics of the Chiropractors most profitable clients within a 5 mile radius of his office.  Although the list was small, it was very effective.

The Results… We did two mailings to the list of 725 most likely prospects.  The first mailing pulled a 17% response rate which is huge for direct mail.  The response was so large the client delayed the second mailing in order to better manage the appointments from the first mailing. However, when the second piece was mailed to the same list it pulled in an additional 6% response.  The lifetime value of these clients represents a significant increase in sales and profit.  In addition when the client is ready we plan to expand the target market for further growth.