Chiropractic Marketing During a Recession: Less is More

The worst thing to do during a recession is to stop advertising right? Well the answer is not so clear cut. In stark contrast to what your local yellow pages rep may be telling you, pulling some advertising may actually be the best thing you can do for the economic health of your practice.

Chiropractic practice marketing during a recession can be a challenge. Even for a successful chiropractic practice, every dollar counts during tough economic times. A slow economy brings out the conservative side of every business owner, and the aggressive side of every salesman! With that in mind, let's briefly look at why you shouldn't believe everything your local advertising rep tells you.

I know what you're thinking, "Doc we've always been told the worst thing to do during a recession is to stop advertising!" This is only partially true. This statement is usually uttered by a pressured advertising rep or salesman who's worried you will end your advertising or choose not to advertise with him. While stopping ALL advertising is ill advised, pulling some or even much advertising could actually be a great idea for your chiropractic practice.

During a slow economy a Doctor of Chiropractic needs to examine which advertising methods are working well and which are simply not producting enough of a return on investment. You probably have a lot of paid chirorpactic marketing and advertising that simply isn't producing much in the way of new patients. When times are good it's easy to hold on to the "what if" marketing philosophy. "What if" that ad I've been running brings a new patient to me next week?

I present this question: "what if" you pull funding from that low production ad and put the funds toward your marketing that is working? What if you took that great display ad to a second or third print publication? What if you increased your social media or pay per click campaign? Doesn't it make sense to invest in what is working and pull funding from what is not? Although this is common sense it is so easy to forget when we get caught up in sales pitches, pressure, and economic worries.

I totally agree that a recession is not the time to stop all of your advertising. However, a slow economy is an absolutely ideal time to take a critical look at your chiropractic marketing and advertising plan and budget. If something isn't producing new chiropractic patients it needs to go. Pull the money from that non-productive advertising and do something else with it! Beef up your marketing that IS effective, keep it for cash on hand, or try something new.

While you might argue a slow economy is not the time to try new advertising I'd disagree. It is better to do something different than to continue to waste money on advertising that has consistenly shown poor return on investment. We've all heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It's true! If the advertising wasn't very effective in a good economy and poor during a recession, what makes you think it's going to be different next month? To continue to dump money into worthless marketing is throwing your hard earned money away.

Use tough economic times to take a critical look at your advertising spending. Trimming your marketing budget may be exactly what is needed for a struggling chiropractic practice to survive an economic downturn. Trust me when I say, your local ad representative is never going to tell you this!