Acupuncture Marketing and the Web

Perhaps you’ve heard about how “great” the web is for acupuncture marketing but you didn’t quite understand why?  After all – what’s all the fuss about the web?  Why is the web such a great way to market your acupuncture practice?

First – remember that marketing is simply letting people know what you do and how you can help.

In order to understand how revolutionary the web is for marketing, you first have to understand how marketing used to be done in “the good old days”.

Way back in the 1980′s – as teenaged girls roamed local malls with their hair perfectly feathered wearing stirrup pants to try to entice the boys wearing ripped jeans and sporting mullets – business owners had to adopt a “spray and pray” mentality around their marketing and advertising efforts.  By spray and pray – I mean that a business owner would decide “Hey -let’s try this -” and would then invest money to see if his (or her) idea for promoting the business would work.  (Forgive me as I use the masculine pronoun from here on out to make it easier to read and to write.)

Cha-ching.

First, our aspiring business owner would pay to get the idea produced-    Whether it was a television ad, a billboard, a newspaper ad or a radio ad – unless it was a very basic idea for newspaper or radio – he had to pay to have his great marketing idea brought to life.

Cha-ching.

Next, our aspiring business owner would pay to have the ad air.

Cha-ching.

Not just a single time – but in some cases for as long as 13 weeks.

Cha-ching.

Finally – after paying, and paying and paying – our aspiring business owner would finally learn if his “great” marketing idea had struck a nerve with his target audience.

If it did – he was happy.  If not – well – that’s probably where the phrase originated, “If at first you don’t succeed – try, try again!”

Marketing was not for the faint of heart back in those days and it was common for business owners to literally drive themselves out of business as they struggled to hit upon the right way to market their business.

See – an essential part of marketing is to get inside your prospective patient’s mind.  Once you know WHY patients are wanting acupuncture – then you can customize your marketing message to literally reach out and grab prospective patients.

This is where the web is an AMAZING tool for marketing your acupuncture practice – because when people search for acupuncture on the web = they often use the exact words for what they’re seeking.  The search engines record and catalog these searches so you – as an acupuncturist – can simply log on to your blog and click on a link and SEE what words prospective patients are using to find acupuncture information on the web.

For example, one very popular search is  “acupuncture for fertility”.  Another very popular search is “acupuncture for back pain”.

With just a click of a button in your blog – you can gain access to this valuable market research.  Even ten years ago – this kind of marketing research information wasn’t readily available for small business owners.  As a result – small business owners had to resort to the “ca-ching” method of market research and testing.

Today – all you need is a blog.  Access these essential keywords and begin writing posts about these popular topics.  Before you know it, your blog posts will be seen by people searching for just those terms – terms you already KNEW they were using thanks to the handy dandy blog tools.

If you’re interested in learning more – pick up a copy of Acupuncture Practice Marketing.  It provides the easy step by step guide for accessing and using these powerful marketing tools to promote your acupunture practice.