The other day I sat down with another chiropractor and colleague to discuss ways he could attract new patients through the Internet.
Before I arrived at his office, I did a quick Google search to determine the ranking of his website and get a feel for his overall web presence.I typed in the most obvious keywords and hit ‘enter’ on my keyboard.
I refreshed the browser.
I refreshed it again.
Then I double-checked to make sure I correctly entered his city and state within Google. Yep! No error there.
I was floored.
This guy was wanting to pick my brain about Internet marketing strategies but didn’t even have a website! I guess that confirms a recent stat I read — less than half of all small businesses have a website.
I still don’t get that!
If it was 1995, then yes, that’d make more sense. But it’s 2015. I guess they just don’t realize how important one is toward building their business and brand! Or, they’re simply too concerned about their Facebook Page to focus on building their own platform.
Yes, social media is nice but it is only a tool — one that you have to pay to play nowadays and definitely don’t control. Owning your own website is where smart entrepreneurs invest. It literally is an asset you own and grow!
No one can take it away from you. No one can control who sees its content. No one can force you to pay them in order for your content to be seen!
But I digress…
So obviously my main focus during our time together was to encourage him to get a website. Once done, we could then sit down and start building a game plan from there.
I then shifted our focus to determine if there were things we could do that would give his practice an instant boost of patient activity.
After prodding, I discovered he had around 2000 inactive files.
And guess what? There were email addresses attached to those files!
BOOM!
We were in business!
You see, Internet marketers have a phrase they use incessantly. And it’s correct!
That phrase states ‘the money is in the list’.
What that means is if you have an email list you have the ability to drive additional business your way through using it.
Since this doctor was smart enough to capture email addresses on his new patient intake forms, we now had a way to market to them (even without having a website). 😉
How?
Through utilizing an email marketing service provider like MailChimp.
NOTE: MailChimp is a web-based application that works in most web browsers, which means you don’t need to download or install any new software on your computer.
All I needed to do now was to upload a simple CSV file that was exported from his patient management system and we could start working on a reactivation campaign immediately.
And, like I told this doctor, the cool thing is is that MailChimp will allow you to send 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers absolutely FREE.
Yes, you read that right.
Their Entrepreneur plan is free for life — no contracts, no credit card at signup. It’s simply free forever.
So how can you use MailChimp to do the same?
Let me show you how…
Step #1: Visit MailChimp.com, then click on the Sign Up Free button
Step #2: Fill out the fields provided, then click Create My Account
Step #3: Login to MailChimp’s Dashboard, then click on Create A List
Step #4: Click on Create List again
Step #5: Fill out the fields provided, then click Save
Step #6: Click on Import subscribers
Step #7: Click on Import from a CSV or TXT File
Step #8: Upload your CSV via the Browse button, then click Upload List
Step #9: Either match the columns or simply click Skip all
Step #10: Wait as MailChimp imports your list
Step #11: Or have MailChimp email you once the import has completed
Step #12: Find your list under the Lists menu
Step #13: Build your reactivation campaign by clicking on Campaigns, then Create Campaign
Step #14: Send out your email campaign to reactivate those former patients!
Congratulations! You’re one step closer to engaging former patients and reactivating them back into your practice!
Patrick MacNamara, D.C., is the Founder of Blogging Chiropractors, Chiropractic Marketing Websites and DCRank. He also teaches chiropractors how to successfully use the Internet to market their practices through his blog found over at http://www.nextgenerationchiropractor.com/.
