Did you know that the acupuncture industry in the United States is valued around $664 million? Approximately 3 million adults receive acupuncture treatment each year and that number continues to grow as more people turn to holistic healthcare and alternative medicines.
How can your acupuncture practice attract and retain clients in this growing market? Your marketing strategy is essential to your enduring success and sustainable growth as a holistic practice – acquiring new patients is as valuable as retaining current clients, and everyone benefits from an effective marketing strategy. However, this can be a challenging endeavor and you might be looking for some holistic practice marketing tips.
In this article, we’ll cover the budgeting basics of a marketing strategy and review best practices for some important marketing elements, such as your social media and website. Keep reading to learn more marketing tips!
How Much Should You Budget for Marketing Your Acupuncture Practice?
Before you do anything with your acupuncture practice, you probably ask yourself a variety of questions regarding cost: how much something will cost, how can you be sure it’s worth it, how much effort will it take you to execute, etc. are all valid questions to have. Marketing efforts are no exception, of course, and this is the foundation for any discussion about marketing tips.
If you’re looking to maintain the current size of your acupuncture practice, it’s recommended that you spend about 5% of your gross revenue on marketing. On the other hand, if you’re looking to expand and scale your practice, then you’d want to spend between 7% and 15% of your gross revenue.
For example, if your gross revenue is $5,000 per month then you should put aside $250 for marketing initiatives. Of course, marketing budgets can change over time and other factors come into play, so these numbers are all relative to your particular acupuncture practice and short- or long-term goals.
Holistic Marketing Tips #1: Calculate Your Customer’s Lifetime Value for Deeper Marketing Budgeting Insight
If you want to dive a little deeper into how much you should expect to budget for marketing your acupuncture practice, let’s talk about a customer’s lifetime value.
This metric, abbreviated to CLV, estimates the financial gains your practice earns from each patient and is the ace up your sleeve when it comes to marketing your practice. The formula is simple and can apply to almost any healthcare or service field:
Average Annual Value x Relationship Years + Patient Referral Value
= Customer Lifetime Value
For example, if you have a client who visits your acupuncture practice once a month and each visit costs $100, then the total revenue generated from that one client is $1,200 over the course of that year. Factor in a 20% profit margin and your Average Annual Value of that client is then $240.
Let’s say this same client continues to visit your practice for 5 years before moving to another state, then the CLV would calculate out to this:
AAV ($240) x Relationship (5 years) = $1,200
When you start consistently tracking this metric at your acupuncture practice, you can better leverage marketing tips and strategies that are appropriately budgeted in order to reduce costs and boost your profits. For example, if you know that an average CLV at your acupuncture practice is about $500, then you wouldn’t want to exceed that figure for your marketing budget.
After all, knowledge is power–when you know what to financially anticipate from a typical patient over the course of their relationship with your practice, you can make better informed decisions about how you engage with them via marketing.
Holistic Marketing Tips #2: Leverage Social Media Accounts to Create Community
If creating a social media account for your acupuncture practice seems frivolous or intimidating, we understand. However, if you have a business – in any industry – then it behooves you to tap into social media for marketing purposes and there are plenty of statistics to back it up:
- According to 90% of marketers, their social media marketing efforts have increased the exposure of their business, and 75% say they’ve increased traffic
- 71% of consumers who have had a good social media experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others
- 74% of consumers share video content from brands on social media
- 80% of social marketers say their key strategy is to increase engagement across social channels
- There are more than 50 million small businesses using Facebook Pages to connect with customers
Don’t worry about trying to go viral or trying to fit into a niche that doesn’t feel authentic to you and your practice – instead, focus on putting out content that you care about and that reflects your acupuncture practice. For example, you could do a series where you briefly explain pressure points one at a time and how each one affects the body.
Or if you have a cat at your practice, you can make a video about a day in the life of an acupuncture practice cat. The content you produce for social media doesn’t have to be serious, it can be fun! There is magic in the mundane of your industry that people who aren’t in it might not know about, so don’t be afraid to try new ideas.
Social media is a great way to build rapport with your audience and further illustrate who you are and what your practice stands for so be sure to include it in your marketing strategy.
Holistic Marketing Tips #3: Update and Expand Your Practice’s Website
With so many free, easy-to-use, and customizable website resources on the internet, there’s no reason why your acupuncture practice doesn’t have a professional website. Potential clients can find your site when searching for acupuncturists in your area and existing clients can stay up to date on your practice so it’s a win-win. Plus, a nice website can help distinguish you from the competition!
In addition to ensuring that your site is optimized for mobile users, which is a feature in most DIY website building platforms, consider including the following on your acupuncture practice’s website:
- A section that outlines your background and the values that guide your practice
- Your mission statement
- Contact information, hours of operation, location details, and more
- A place for announcements or specials
- Social media links
- A blog where you demonstrate your expertise and interests through engaging articles
- Link to leave a review on Google and other rating sites
- And more!
Personalizing your site will help clients, both new and existing, learn more about you; building that relationship is critical to long-term success!
Holistic Marketing Tips #4: Partner with a Medical Billing Firm
Does the thought of coming up with creative social media content overwhelm you because who has the time? Are you already swamped with mountains of paperwork that hardly seem to go away even after you spend hours each week tackling it? Would you say that treating patients is the best part of your job, yet it seems that you spend the least amount of time with them?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then you should partner with a medical billing firm!
How does this relate to marketing your acupuncture practice? When your time is consumed by the tedious and complicated medical coding and billing process, it leaves little time for much else. By letting a trusted firm, like Holistic Billing Services, handle the medical billing burden, your time, energy, and creativity is freed up to focus more on what matters most: your patients.
The friendly experts at HBS have decades of experience and are eager to help you succeed! Contact us today to get started building a custom solution that suits your acupuncture practice needs and goals.
Do you know the value of your holistic practice’s online reputation? Research shows that 63% of patients choose one provider over another based on a strong online presence – that’s a major win for those who capitalize on these opportunities.
As patients leverage the internet to discover and research different holistic providers, appealing to your online audience is more important than ever, even if you’re not currently accepting new patients.
Let’s dive into a cornerstone of your practice’s online reputation: your website.
Why Does Your Holistic Practice Need a Website?
A website demonstrates authority and validates your presence, both online and your physical existence within your community. Your practice’s website is where you can further drive patient engagement, distinguish yourself from the competition, and empower patients to learn more about you. It’s a tremendous resource to leverage!
How Does Your Website Impact Your Online Reputation?
The truth is that your online reputation is being shaped whether you’re managing it or not, so it behooves you and your practice to steer the digital ship. Your website is your comprehensive path into the digital buzz around your practice and can help communicate important information to your patients and those shopping around for the best care.
You always want to put your best foot forward, right? Creating and maintaining your holistic practice’s website is a surefire way to do that. Since the possibilities are endless, there are countless ideas and methods to use when crafting your site, but the most important thing is to put forth your best representation of who you are and what your practice strives to do.
5 Things to Feature on Your Holistic Practice Website
Your options are nearly limitless, but here’s where we recommend you start with including on your practice’s site:
Mission Statement, Guiding Principles, and Other Foundational Writings
Your holistic practice’s mission statement is a core piece of writing that should absolutely be featured on your website. But why stop there? Consider including a section or page that features your practice’s foundational writings so that patients can reference them. This will help distinguish you from the competition and shape a meaningful online reputation.
About Us
Everyone loves a good origin story; share yours with the world on your holistic practice’s website! Potential patients in the research phase will connect well with learning more about you, how you got started, and what drives you – and current patients will build a deeper connection to your practice, too. Your “About Us” page is a core element of shaping your practice’s online reputation.
Links to Social Media Accounts or Other Platforms
If your holistic practice isn’t utilizing at least one social media platform, then you could be missing connections with a multitude of patients. Your practice’s website and social media accounts are perfect complements to each other which means you should link them together when possible. Point website visitors to your social media accounts and vice versa to further affirm your practice’s online reputation.
Contact Us, Location Details, Hours of Operation
Your patients finding you online is awesome, but at some point, they’ll need to visit your practice in-person. Be sure to include pertinent details to make this happen, including contact information, location details, hours of operation, and more.
Blogs or Articles Relevant to Your Specialty and Interests
Sharing your thoughts on new developments within your specialty, writing a response to other thought leaders in the industry, spreading the news about upcoming events and why they matter to you are just a few things you can write about for a blog on your website. You don’t have to be a great writer to get started – just taking a few minutes to write can help you further connect with your patients and start a conversation with them!
Want More Time to Refine Your Online Reputation? Partner with Holistic Billing Services!
We know all too well that a huge burden for holistic practices is the medical coding and billing process. It’s cumbersome, complicated, and can lead to a multitude of issues with your revenue cycle if not properly managed. None of these features bode well for your goals of developing a website and distinguished online reputation.
That’s where the friendly, knowledgeable experts at Holistic Billing Services come in! We have decades of experience and expertise in your specialty, so rest assured that we know how to handle your revenue cycle. Ditch the mountain of paperwork and frustration with rejected claims – we’ve got it all covered!
Let us take on the burden of medical billing so you can focus on what matters most: your patients.
Did you know that the US chiropractic industry is worth around $15 billion? Chiropractors treat approximately 35 million Americans annually and that figure is only growing as people continue to turn towards holistic treatments to help their ailments.
If you’re wondering how your chiropractic practice can attract new patients while retaining current ones, then your marketing strategy is one of the core features of your operations to evaluate and refine.
From leveraging word of mouth referrals to encouraging your patients to leave reviews, we’ll dive into a few top marketing tips for chiropractors that can help promote your practice in a sustainable manner.
Keep reading to learn more!
How Much Should You Budget for Advertising Your Chiropractic Practice?
One of the immediate questions you likely have for any facet of your practice is about cost: how much something will cost, how can you be sure it’s worth it, how much effort will it take you to execute, etc. are all valid queries. Marketing efforts are no exception, of course.
It’s recommended that you spend around 5% of your gross revenue on marketing efforts if you want to maintain your practice and somewhere between 7% and 15% of your gross revenue if you’re wanting to expand and scale your practice.
For example, if your gross revenue is $10,000 per month then you should put aside $500 for marketing initiatives. Of course, marketing budgets can change over time and other factors come into play, so these numbers are all relative to your particular practice and goals.
What Is a Customer’s Lifetime Value + How Does It Impact Your Marketing Efforts?
Your patients are how you keep the doors open–or rather, the profits you garner from delivering great chiropractic care to them are how you keep the doors open. But how can you estimate the financial gains your practice will earn from each patient?
That’s where knowing a customer’s lifetime value is the ace up your sleeve. Abbreviated as CLV, this formula helps you anticipate the total financial worth of a patient at your chiropractic office. This math can be applied to any industry and is especially helpful to those working in the healthcare and service fields.
A customer’s lifetime value can be calculated in the following way:
Average Annual Value x Relationship Years + Patient Referral Value
= Customer Lifetime Value
Let’s put this into practice and say you have a patient who visits your chiropractic practice once a month and each visit costs $100. The total revenue generated is $1,200 and you factor in a 20% profit margin, so the Average Annual Value of that patient is $240.
Let’s say this patient continues to visit your practice for 5 years before moving to another state; the math would shake out to this:
AAV ($240) x Relationship (5 years) = $1,200
When you start consistently tracking this metric at your chiropractic practice, you can leverage marketing tactics and strategies around pricing, sales, patient referrals, patient retention, and more in order to reduce costs and boost your profits.
After all, knowledge is power–when you know what to financially anticipate from a typical patient over the course of their relationship with your practice, you can make better informed decisions about how you engage them.
For example, if you know that an average CLV at your chiropractic practice is about $500, then you wouldn’t want to exceed that figure for your marketing budget.
Take a Crack at These Marketing Tips for Chiropractic Practices
Ready to revamp or ramp up your marketing efforts to maintain or scale your chiropractic office? Check out these marketing tips:
Keep Your Website Updated and Accessible for Mobile Users
Everything and everyone are online these days, so it’s imperative that your practice has a solid website that looks professional. Potential patients will find your website while searching for chiropractors to check out, so having a nice website that reflects you and your practice can help distinguish you from the competition.
In addition to ensuring that your site is optimized for mobile users, which is a feature in most DIY website building platforms, consider including the following:
- A section that outlines your background and the values that guide your practice
- Your mission statement
- Contact information, hours of operation, location details, and more
- A place for announcements or specials
- Social media links
- A blog where you demonstrate your expertise and interests through engaging articles
- Link to leave a review on Google and other rating sites
- And more!
Personalizing your site will help clients, both new and existing, learn more about you; building that relationship is critical to long-term success!
Get Engaged with Your Community
Engaging with your community can take form in a multitude of ways, ranging from hosting an open house to sponsoring a little league team or offering discounts for first responders and veterans. Whatever you’re passionate about, see if there’s an existing event or organization you can connect with–or start your own initiative to spread the word! This demonstrates your care for those in your community and helps raise awareness of your practice and values.
Don’t Ignore Social Media Platforms
Just about anything can go viral these days–why not a montage of your crunchiest chiropractic cracks? Or maybe you have a charming parakeet in your waiting room that the internet would love to meet. Regardless of the potential to go viral, utilizing social media platforms is a no-brainer to connect with your patients and keep them informed of what you have going on each month.
Wish You Had More Time to Get Creative with Marketing Strategies? Partner with Holistic Billing Services!
Marketing efforts can take creativity to ideate, time to execute, and energy to maintain and track–if you’re swamped with your medical billing and coding processes, then you already don’t have the bandwidth to pursue this important component of your practice!
Your friendly experts here at Holistic Billing Services completely understand where you’re coming from, and we have the experience you need to support your revenue cycle. From accurate coding and prompt submission of claims to answering your questions and keeping up with healthcare legislation, we’re here to help you succeed!
Take a minute to reflect on your holistic practice’s current marketing strategy; where are your efforts being directed? How frequently do you check in on the performance of your marketing efforts? How can you tell if they’re effective or if they need refining?
Marketing is an essential element of nearly every business or organization, of course, but the number of metrics at your fingertips can be overwhelming. Or, if you haven’t invested a lot of energy into your marketing strategy, then you might be unsure where to start or how to approach it.
In this article, we’ll tackle how marketing impacts your holistic practice and which metrics to track for success.
How Does Marketing Impact Your Holistic Practice?
Marketing entails a whole host of efforts and initiatives that impact your practice in a few manners:
Attract New Patients
Your patients won’t know you exist without some type of marketing strategy. Whether that’s word of mouth from current clients, search results advertisements, setting up a table at a local event, or something else, your holistic practice needs to market itself in order to make your community aware of your services.
Plus, if your marketing efforts are the first time a future client has ever heard of you, you’re able to make a great impression and lead with your best foot forward!
Keep Patients Informed of New Initiatives
Marketing is also great for your current clients to retain them and inform them of any new initiatives that you’re developing. For example, you might be moving to a bigger location and bringing on another practitioner. You can make a great marketing campaign around this, which is both engaging and informative!
This is important to take into consideration when building out your marketing strategy ideas because retaining a client is cheaper than attracting a new one; be sure your branding speaks to your current clients and keeps them in the loop with your practice.
Build Your Reputation
Beyond attracting and retaining your clients, marketing is how you build and refine your holistic practice’s reputation. Do you have decades of experience within your community? Do you make a point of volunteering in your community? Cater specifically to veterans in your area? Whatever makes your practice special is what you should convey in your marketing efforts.
This helps build rapport with clients, both current and potential, and establishes your practice in your community.
Marketing Metrics: What to Track
Now that we’ve addressed how marketing can be a powerful tool to leverage and have a significant impact on your holistic practice, let’s look into three key marketing metrics to track along the way:
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
This metric calculates the total amount spent on a marketing campaign and divides it by the number of leads your holistic practice got as a result:
Cost of Campaign / Number of Leads = Cost Per Lead
For example, if you spent $1000 on a campaign and you got 50 leads from it, then the cost per lead would be $20. On the other hand, if you spent $1000 but only received 10 leads, then the CPL is $100.
It’s important to note that the only way you can effectively calculate this metric is if you know the specific origin of a new lead. That’s why it’s helpful to ask your new leads how they heard about you; did they see an advertisement on social media? Hear about you from a friend? Tracking these origins is great to know where new leads are coming from.
Patient Acquisition Cost (PAC)
Patient acquisition cost provides you with the number of paying patients your holistic practice earns from a particular marketing campaign:
Cost of Campaign / Number of Paying Patients = Patient Acquisition Cost
This marketing metric helps you understand the more real, tangible cost of bringing in new revenue to your holistic practice. Following the same example, if 10 leads of the pool of 50 turns into actual paying clients, then the PAC is $100.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Figuring the ROI on a marketing campaign involves just a little more math and looks something like this:
Income Derived / Cost of Campaign X 100 = ROI
This first factor, the total income earned, involves you calculating the lifetime value of a patient. Let’s say each of the 10 new patients you acquired spends around $800 over the course of their relationship with your practice. That total amount would be $8,000.
$8,000 / $1,000 X 100 = 800%
This metric is helpful for monitoring the overall revenue generated from a particular marketing effort. This perspective is helpful for determining if a marketing campaign was “successful” depending on your holistic practice’s expectations or if something should be tweaked in the future.
Let Holistic Billing Services Streamline Your Healthcare Revenue Cycle!
Wish you had more time to spend refining your marketing efforts and engaging with the patients in your holistic practice? Find yourself overwhelmed and frustrated trying to figure out new billing regulations? Tired of dealing with rejected medical claims or medical coding inaccuracies that bring your healthcare revenue cycle to a stop? Partner with Holistic Billing Services to handle all your medical coding and billing needs!
Our team of experts has decades of experience and expertise in your specialty, so you know you’re in good hands. We know you just want to get back to what matters most: your patients. We’re eager to help, so contact us today!
The goal of your holistic practice, no matter the specialty you offer, is to deliver quality care and effective treatment to the patients in your community. Complementary treatments like massage therapy or acupuncture are proven methods for managing ailments such as chronic pain and are valid avenues to reduce widespread opioid usage.
One method for attracting new patients to your holistic practice is to network with medical practices in your community. These physicians—who likely have patients living with pain or other ailments—would be a great source for patients getting referrals for holistic treatments instead of prescription medications.
Networking in healthcare can feel intimidating if you’re not sure what to do or where to start; however, with just a few tips, your holistic practice can enjoy the benefits of networking and delivering great care to your community! Let’s explore some benefits of networking and how to get referrals from medical practices in your area.
5 Benefits of Networking in Healthcare
Networking, which is another word for professionally mingling, can provide a few benefits to your holistic practice and revenue cycle when it comes to making new connections and strengthening partnerships with other healthcare professionals.
Some benefits of networking for your holistic practice include:
Develop Business Connections In Your Area
Networking is about sharing information and resources with other healthcare professionals in your community. What naturally happens as part of this exchange is building and fortifying relationships within your city or town. Meeting and connecting with fellow healthcare providers can lead to a more engaged network, which leads to partnerships and opportunities in the future.
Get Inspired with New Ideas for Your Holistic Practice
With each venture into the realm of networking in healthcare, you’re likely to see new perspectives or creative marketing techniques as implemented by other healthcare professionals. Maybe it’s a catchy slogan, appealing graphic design scheme, or inventive manner for capturing information via QR code or raffle drawing. Alternatively, if you see the same monotonous patterns of the presentation then maybe your lightbulb moment is working out how to distinguish your practice from others.
Learn What’s Available in Your Community
They say knowledge is power and that you don’t know what you don’t know. Networking in healthcare helps you learn what practices, resources, people, and programs are available to your community. This information can be pivotal to share with your patients and can help inform you and your staff of other professionals in your community. Exploring what your community has to offer can help you empower your patients and, in some cases, help you see what might be missing.
Put Your Name Out There
A cornerstone of networking and building relationships within your community is simply showing up. When you put yourself and your holistic practice out there, other practices and professionals will take notice! Don’t underestimate the power of a conversation or the opportunity to meet new people in the healthcare field.
Boost Your Healthcare Revenue Cycle
There’s no doubt that networking in healthcare has the potential to grow your business and attract new patients to your holistic practice! From this perspective, networking is a huge resource to boost your healthcare revenue cycle management strategy and enable you to boost revenue with new customers.
3 Tips for Networking with Medical Practices
Ready to reap the aforementioned benefits of networking in healthcare and connect with medical practices in your community? Start with these 3 tips for networking in healthcare, which include:
Connect on Social Media
Networking doesn’t have to be accomplished in-person—social media platforms are a wealth of information and have a ton of resources that can help you connect with medical practices in your city.
Consider making a business account for your holistic practice on Instagram or Facebook and share helpful content for your followers and patients. This is a great resource for you to also engage with the medical practices who also utilize Facebook or Instagram—you can Like, Comment, and Share their posts, when relevant, which results in them noticing your profile and connecting with you.
Another method for connecting on social media is to leverage LinkedIn; use your profile to interact with other healthcare professionals and share useful content on the site. This is an effective way to keep you and your holistic practice top of mind when medical practices and their physicians are looking to refer patients to complementary providers.
Leverage Your Patients’ Word of Mouth
The patients who visit you for holistic treatments likely have a traditional medical provider that they see—therefore, they’re a perfect bridge for connecting you and the medical practices in your area! When appropriate, asking about their physician can lead to the perfect networking opportunity and help you gauge where your patients are coming from. This information can help you target specific medical practices in addition to broad networking efforts with other healthcare professionals in your community.
Organize an Open House
Instead of—or, in addition to—networking efforts that take you out of your holistic practice, consider hosting an open house or networking event at your office!
Bringing other healthcare professionals and potential patients into your space gives you a chance to demonstrate how clean and comfortable your practice is; plus, it can help them geographically place your holistic practice in relation to their home, practice, gym, and other spots that they frequently visit. You can entice people to visit and participate in your networking event by offering a raffle or drawing for a gift card.
Wish You Had More Time for Networking? Let Holistic Billing Services Handle Your Revenue Cycle!
Marketing efforts, organizing events, traveling to professional events, and more all take time, energy, and creativity. These resources can be strained if you’re constantly dealing with mountains of paperwork or having to rework rejected claims that cost your holistic practice money.
Partner with Holistic Billing Services to handle your medical coding and billing needs so you can focus more on what matters most: delivering great holistic care to your community! Our experts have extensive experience in whatever your specialty is and we’re eager to help your practice thrive.
Contact us today to learn more!
Referrals are a fantastic method for gaining new patients at your massage therapy practice, but you can’t rely solely on them as a sustainable marketing strategy. Part of your future growth and success depends upon having a comprehensive advertising approach that can target a few different audiences across a variety of platforms. Keep reading to learn more about leveraging marketing to sustain a successful massage therapy practice!
Why Are Marketing and Advertising Important Avenues of Growth For Your Massage Therapy Practice?
Running a successful massage therapy practice means you’re marketing and advertising your services to the community you serve. After all, marketing and advertising are how you attract new customers, outline the services you provide and maintain relevance in your target market. Without utilizing strategies that promote your massage therapy practice, what are the odds of someone stumbling across it? Word of mouth is just one component of a comprehensive marketing strategy—there are several other avenues to take advantage of!
Marketing your massage therapy practice in the community you serve, explaining who you are and what your story is, and providing blurbs of meaningful content are all great manners to get noticed and attract your most loyal patients. After all, your massage therapy practice can’t grow if you don’t show it off!
How Much Should You Budget For Massage Therapy Advertising?
A good rule of thumb is to invest approximately 5% of your gross revenue on marketing activities if you want to maintain the size of your massage therapy practice. For example, if you collect $10,000 per month you should be budget around $500 per month on marketing and advertising tactics.
On the other hand, if you’re ramping up to grow your massage practice, it’s recommended that you spend between 7% and 15% of your gross revenue on marketing—depending on your goals and available budget for growth. It’s also understandable if your marketing budget changes a little bit over time; it should be somewhat flexible to account for the status and potential growth of your massage therapy practice.
What Is A Customer’s Lifetime Value?
As the name suggests, a customer’s lifetime value (CLV) is a prediction of the total financial worth of a patient to your massage therapy practice. CLV can be applied to any industry, but it’s incredibly practical to calculate it for the healthcare and service fields.
A Customer’s Lifetime Value can be measured in the following way:
Average Annual Value x Relationship Years + Patient Referral Value
= Customer Lifetime Value
First, we determine how much the average patient generates per year. For example, if you have a patient who visits your massage therapy practice once per month and each visit costs $100, then the total revenue generated is $1200. Factor in a 20% profit margin and the Average Annual Value of a massage therapy patient is $240.
Let’s say this patient continues going to your massage therapy practice for 10 years before moving to another state:
AAV ($240) x Relationship (10 years) = $2,400.
Patient Referral Value is the amount of additional revenue the original patient brings into your massage therapy practice by spreading the word about your services. If a patient refers two additional clients to your practice, and the total Average Annual Value for those patients combined is $480—which is $4,800 over 10 years—then the original patient’s official lifetime value is $7,200.
How Does CLV Impact Your Holistic Practice?
The lifetime value of a patient is equated to the anticipated total amount they’ll spend at your massage therapy practice. Knowing this figure for each of your patients is essential for planning your financial future and determining how much to invest in acquiring new patients or retaining current ones. Overall, CLV is directly connected to the profit level attached to each customer relationship; if you estimate a patient’s CLV to be $500, you wouldn’t want to spend more than that number to maintain the relationship since it wouldn’t be profitable to your massage therapy practice.
Once you start consistently measuring customer lifetime value, you can begin to implement specific strategies around pricing, sales, advertising, and patient retention with the goal of reducing costs and boosting profit. After all, when you know what to financially expect from a typical patient over the course of their relationship with your massage therapy practice, you can make educated spending decisions to ensure you maximize profitability and continue to attract the right types of customers.
5 Massage Therapy Marketing Ideas
When outlining an advertising plan for your massage therapy, keep these tips in mind:
Network with the Health Practitioners in Your Area
Whether you’re an experienced massage therapist or new to the industry—or your community—a great way to gain reliable patient referrals is through the doctors, naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, physiotherapists, and other holistic practitioners in your area. These providers work with clients who might desire a holistic approach to take care of their wellbeing, in addition to medical services. Plus, patients who are referred to you in this manner have a high probability of following through and becoming long-term, paying clients.
Invest in the Patient Experience
Patient experience entails every instance of connection between your patients and your massage therapy practice’s brand, including visits to your practice, phone calls to your front desk, engagement with your online presence, and even their exposure to advertising and social media. Optimizing the patient experience is a practice-wide effort that’s a process of monitoring, listening, and incorporating feedback from patients that add up to a continuous improvement of your massage therapy practice.
Leverage the Power of Social Media
Social media is ever more essential for patient communication and for potential patients to learn more about your massage therapy practice. Your overall online presence will affect the opinion a potential patient has of your brand moving forward, so be sure to take social media accounts, mentions, and responses into your customer experience strategy.
Start a Loyalty Program
A loyalty program incentivizes patients to continue visiting your massage therapy practice by offering discounts or benefits in return; it might take the form of a punch card or a points system that patients acquire with each visit. Although it’s not intended to be the sole method of retaining patients, a loyalty program can yield great results when it’s well done and implemented smoothly.
Facilitate Word of Mouth Marketing
Word of mouth marketing is a cornerstone of any massage therapy practice’s advertising plan. Potential clients who hear wonderful things about your practice from current patients are more likely to trust those reviews than almost any web presence or standalone marketing plan. Social media and other online review sites are excellent avenues to encourage your patients to talk about your massage therapy practice.
Massage Therapy Advertising Examples
- Massage Envy’s website boasts a holiday incentive program that promotes giving the gift of self-care to a loved one—a form of word of mouth marketing—yet treats the buyer with a $20 gift card in return. Plus, their site includes headers for the services offered—massage, stretch, and facials—so clients can easily navigate to what they’re looking for.
- Massage Studio, a local practice in Tampa, Florida, utilizes imagery to convey the goal of relaxation at their practice. Headers make it easy for clients to make appointments and a featured Etiquette page lets hesitant clients know what to expect, which helps break down trepidation about getting a massage. Promoting pertinent information on the homepage helps the site’s visitors feel that the practice is trustworthy, which benefits the brand’s image.
- CityTouch Massage Therapy, based in New York City, appeals to clients by proclaiming they now accept insurance. This can help make massage therapy more accessible to potential patients who might not explore massage options if not covered by their insurance plan.
Holistic Billing Services Supports Your Massage Therapy Practice’s Growth!
With these tips for marketing your massage therapy practice, we’re sure you’ll see sustainable growth! You can’t expand the community you serve unless your audience knows about how great your massage therapy services are—and part of ensuring the success of your practice entails having a streamlined medical billing strategy that minimizes errors while maximizing profits.
Partner with Holistic Billing Services to help grow your massage therapy practice in a variety of ways, including medical billing and coding, and facilitate the growth of your practice. Trusted since 1999, we’re here to help you put more time and attention back into your day of delivering quality care to patients.
Contact us today and let us help your massage therapy practice reach its potential!
As demands for holistic medicine increase from people seeking relief from a variety of conditions, more research is conducted to determine and affirm how effective these treatments can be. These studies are important both for validating the effectiveness of holistic medicine and quantifying how alternative treatments can be used. For example, acupuncture is often incorporated into a wellness plan relating to a variety of ailments and new research examines just how this practice affects patients with certain chronic illnesses.
3 Common Types of Acupuncture
Originating from traditional Chinese medicine practices, acupuncture entails inserting thin needles, through a patient’s skin, at strategic points along the body at various depths, which interrupts pain signals throughout the body and thus delivers relief.
There are several types of common acupuncture treatments, including:
Cupping Acupuncture
Cupping involves utilizing special suction cups on the patient’s skin to stimulate blood flow under the cup, which provides relief for a wide array of symptoms ranging from muscle inflammation to arthritis. While cupping alone doesn’t actually involve the use of needles, it’s often used in tandem with needles to deliver deep relief.
Scalp Acupuncture
This particular form of acupuncture is self-explanatory in that it involves specifically placing needles along the patient’s scalp at certain points and has been known to manage spinal and motor-impairment issues.
Body Acupuncture
Body acupuncture entails—you guessed it—placing needles all along a patient’s body to supply relief in an all-over manner that can be used to treat a plethora of conditions as well as deliver stress relief.
Benefits of Acupuncture
Since acupuncture treatments can be entirely customized to each patient, there are several benefits inherent to the practice, such as:
Proven Alternative to Opioid Drug Usage
While almost two-thirds of Americans have been prescribed an opioid for pain issues, 49% reported knowing someone who has been addicted to prescription opioids; in other words, opioids are not to be taken lightly.
What’s a healthy and effective alternative? Acupuncture. One meta-analysis of almost 18,000 patients across 29 randomized controlled trials found that licensed, precise acupuncture treatments were significantly more effective than the absence of the holistic approach. Acupuncture is a great alternative to such traditional, pharmacological methods of treatment because it’s minimally invasive and doesn’t have any damaging side effects.
Pain Relief
As mentioned earlier in this article, acupuncture treatments are becoming complementary—if not primary—approaches to treating chronic or acute pain. In fact, according to the National Institute of Health (NIH), several studies have found that such holistic treatments were proven to reduce pain for a variety of conditions and even manage constant pain such as low-back pain, neck pain, and osteoarthritis/knee pain.
Furthermore, in 2017, the American College of Physicians issued recommendations for treating patients who live with enduring lower back pain, including acupuncture as an effective drug-free treatment plan. As providers reduce prescribing opioid drugs to manage pain, patients are directed to therapies like acupuncture as a holistic alternative that maintains an effective pain management quality.
Overall Health Benefits
While the NCCIH notes that acupuncture treatments have been proven to help treat lower back pain, neck pain, osteoarthritis, knee pain, and chronic migraines, the Acupuncture Evidence Project reviewed the effectiveness of acupuncture for 122 treatments over 14 clinical areas and have found some evidence of effect for 117 conditions. These include:
- High or low blood pressure
- Chemotherapy side effects and symptoms associated with it
- Facial pain
- Morning sickness due to pregnancy
- Dental pain
New Acupuncture Research On the Effects on Chronic Illnesses
It’s important to conduct research on holistic treatments like acupuncture in order to objectively determine how effective it can be on certain chronic illnesses. Check out these recent studies on a variety of chronic illnesses in relation to acupuncture treatments:
Meniere’s Disease
Researchers recently conducted a study on 30 patients regarding the effects of acupuncture in treating Meniere’s Disease. Results demonstrated that Meniere’s symptoms, including dizziness, tinnitus, and hearing loss, were significantly reduced in all patients with the use of the warm-promotion needling method wherein acupuncturists manipulated needles in a methodical technique to induce desired effects.
Gout
From a sample size of 120 patients, researchers found that combined auricular acupuncture—treatments performed on the patient’s ears—with warm needle acupuncture significantly enhances the efficacy of drug therapy in relieving gout pain, boosting the 82 percent effective rate to 95 percent effective.
TMJ Pain
Research conducted on 60 patients determined that warm needle acupuncture was 93.3 percent effective while standard manual acupuncture was 86.7 percent effective in reducing pain associated with TMJ.
COPD
Acupuncture was proven an effective treatment for patients living with COPD after a study of 62 patients determined this holistic plan reduces small airway obstructions, increases breathing volume, ventilation, overall respiratory function, and exercise tolerance.
Stroke
In a recent study of 60 patients, traditional treatments for stroke patients were found to be more effective in conjunction with acupuncture treatments than without them because acupuncture “increases the thrombolytic effect of urokinase for the treatment of acute cerebral infarction.”
How Educating Prospective Patients Increases Holistic Practice Acquisition
In 2019, the US National Health Council approximated that 133 million Americans were dealing with a “generally incurable and ongoing” chronic illness; of this group, about 40 million were “limited in their usual activities due to one or more chronic health conditions.” Imagine how many individuals in your community are part of these statistics and could benefit from treatment at your holistic practice!
But first, your patients have to have an awareness of your practice and how it can specifically benefit their overall health. That’s why keeping up on recent studies pertaining to acupuncture’s effectiveness on chronic illnesses can be a vital tool in connecting you with your community and speaking directly to prospective patients.
You can spend more time, energy, and resources on staying current on research, educating your community, and ultimately treating patients by taking one easy step: partner with a medical billing firm to manage your revenue cycle!
At Holistic Billing Services, we deal exclusively with holistic healthcare practices that deliver acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic treatments to communities around the country. Whether you have questions on acupuncture insurance billing or other methods to enhance your revenue cycle management, feel free to contact our team today and let us know how we can help your acupuncture practice.
Your patients are your business. But it’s not how many patients your holistic practice schedules that matters – it’s the profit that those patients generate that will be the difference between a successful practice and one that is closing its doors. In order to set an advertising budget, you need to understand the value of your patients, and to do that you need to understand your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
At Holistic Billing (HBS), we focus on billing insurance for acupuncture services allowing us to use last year’s data to analyze the CLV specifically for an acupuncture insurance patient. However, we encourage you to go through the exercise for your other types of patients as well.
Why Does Marketing Matter for Your Acupuncture Practice?
As with any business, marketing is how you attract your customers, explain your services and backstory to the community, and stay relevant to your audience. If you don’t market your holistic practice, what are the chances someone will stumble across it? Of course, word of mouth is always helpful, but that can’t be the only marketing strategy your practice utilizes.
Marketing yourself to your community as a holistic practice, detailing who you are and what your story is, and offering snippets of relevant content is a great way to get noticed and attract your best patients. Your practice can’t grow if you don’t show it off!
How Much Should Acupuncture Practices Budget for Marketing?
A good rule of thumb is to spend 5% of your gross revenue on marketing activities if you want to maintain the size of your practice. So for instance, if you collect $30,000 per month you should be spending $1500 per month on marketing.
If you’re looking to grow your practice, it’s recommended that you spend between 7% and 15% of your gross revenues on marketing depending on your goals and how aggressively you want to pursue them. It’s also understandable if your marketing budget changes a little bit over time; it should be somewhat flexible to account for the status and potential growth of your holistic practice.
What Is Customer Lifetime Value?
Customer Lifetime Value is a prediction of the total worth of a patient to your practice. The CLV can be applied to any business, but it is particularly useful for healthcare and service sectors like your holistic practice.
The lifetime value of a customer, or customer lifetime value (CLV), represents the total amount of money a customer is expected to spend in your business, or on your products, during their lifetime. This is an essential figure to know because it helps you make decisions about how much money to invest in acquiring new customers or retaining existing ones.
In the big picture, CLV is an indicator of the profit associated with a particular customer relationship, which should guide how much you are willing to invest to maintain that relationship. For example, if you estimate one customer’s CLV to be $500, you wouldn’t spend more than that to try and keep the relationship as it wouldn’t be profitable to your holistic practice.
What Is the Lifetime Value of A Holistic Practice Patient?
No two practices are alike, thus lifetime value will vary depending on your location, the services you offer, and how long your patients stay with you. Here is how we calculate the CLV for your insurance patients:
Average Annual Value x Relationship Years + Patient Referral Value
= Customer Lifetime Value
Let’s look at the figures more closely.
First, we determine how much the average patient generates per year. For this exercise, we used acupuncture patient averages across our national claims database. This past year our clients saw their patients on average 11 times in the calendar year. The payment per visit averaged $175 for a total of $1,925 in revenue per patient. Then factor a 20% profit margin on that revenue. Therefore, the Average Annual Value of an insurance patient is $385.
Next, you will need to know the lifetime of an average acupuncture insurance patient. If you‘re not sure, use the healthcare industry average of ten years. Then, plug the number into the first part of our formula to get a patient‘s lifetime value of $3,850.
Average Annual Value ($385) x Relationship (10 Years) = $3,850
Now, this is when it gets interesting. Let’s say the average client provides referrals for two new patients during their relationship with your practice. Each additional patient is worth $3,850. So, for two patients, your Patient Referral Value is $7,700. Now, let‘s go back to the original formula:
Average Annual Value ($385) x Relationship (10 Years) +
Client Referral Value ($7,700) = Customer Lifetime Value ($11,550)
Why Does the Lifetime Value of a Customer Matter?
Once you understand the CLV for your practice you‘ll be able to make better decisions about when, where, and how much you should spend advertising on new patients. The rule of thumb is that you never want to spend more money on acquiring a new patient than your calculated Customer Lifetime Value.
Now that you are familiar with the CLV of insurance patients in acupuncture, apply the formula to your cash patients and clients using other services at your holistic practice. With this information, you can make more realistic marketing decisions that will direct you to the right type of patients and ensure your most successful practice yet.
Market Budget Basics
The first step in determining what a proper budget would be for advertising your acupuncture practice is to gather all the figures of your practice and create SMART goals:
Specific
The goal must be specific and well-defined. You and your team should be on the same page about where your holistic practice is currently at, and where you all want to see it go.
Measurable
Make sure you attach a metric to your specific goal. Of course, you want to grow your holistic practice, but by how much? Do you want to see 20 new patients over the next 6 months? Expand your practice by 20% by the end of the quarter? Calculating a number to aim for will keep you and your team on target.
Attainable
You certainly have big dreams for your holistic practice, but they won’t come to fruition overnight; your goals should be attainable for where your practice is currently. It wouldn’t be realistic to aim for 100 new clients in a week, but you could change that perspective and aim for 100 new patients in one year.
Results-focused
Ensure that your marketing budget is focused on the results that matter to you and your overall mission for your practice. Achieving a goal should be rewarding to you and your team, personally and professionally.
Time-dependent
This ties into every other facet of your SMART goals; tailor your marketing goals to a particular time frame to hold yourself accountable. This will once again affirm your holistic practice’s goals for yourself and your team, and keep everyone in alignment.
HBS recommends setting goals for patient visits, new patients, and collections, as a strategic starting point for your holistic practice. From there, you and your team should develop a month-by-month, week-by-week, and day-by-day marketing plan focused on achieving your goals.
Once you layout the marketing activities that you will be participating in both internally and externally, you can then begin to develop a budget to fund those activities.
Best Practices for Acupuncture Marketing
Now that we’ve discussed the importance and foundational basics of marketing, let’s dive into the best practices for holistic marketing:
Network with the Health Practitioners in Your Area
Whether you are an experienced practitioner or new to the industry, a sure-fire way to get solid client referrals is through the doctors, naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, physiotherapists, and other holistic practitioners in your area. These professionals work with patients who might desire a holistic approach to take care of their health, in addition to medical services. Patients who are referred to you in this manner have a high probability of following through and becoming long-term, paying clients.
Encourage Word of Mouth
Good old word of mouth is one of the best forms of flattery for any business, but especially a holistic practice. This method of marketing is one that potential clients trust the most, but few businesses have mastere
d it. It’s alright to ask for referrals or testimonials from your existing clients, colleagues, friends, and family.
Social media and other internet review sites are also excellent ways to encourage your patients to talk about you. Providing meaningful content and engaging with your followers can spread like wildfire and attract the right opportunities for your business.
Make Yourself as “Findable” as Possible
If they can’t find you, they won’t know you even exist! Creating an online presence via a professional website and social media profiles will demonstrate to your future patients that you want to create a consistent and welcoming impression. Potential clients will likely do some research before they put their trust in you. If they can’t look you up to research your credentials and experience, they may move on to another holistic practice with a stronger web presence.
Host or Participate in a Contest
Everyone loves to win free stuff! Whether you do an online contest or offer a drawing at an event, putting together a contest is an excellent way to collect the names of potential clients and grow your email list. You can offer a special prize or free services to the lucky winner and, hopefully, you just got yourself some great leads in the process. It’s a win-win.
With these steps and essential basics of marketing, we’re sure your holistic practice will take off! Holistic Billing Services is here to help you grow your practice in a variety of ways and has been facilitating the growth of holistic practices since 1999. Contact us today and let us help your holistic practice reach its potential!