“It's easier to go faster now than it is to go faster later.
This rule is true for any company that is growing.
If you're in a race, race now, because early leads and early gains compound, and because coordination issues in bigger organizations always slow you down”
- Seth Godin
Seth’s race applies to all aspects of your business, including your marketing efforts. Getting things right when you first start marketing your chiropractic business online, will make things far easier later on. And this is true no matter how big you intend your business to grow. Whether you just want additional clients, so that you can fill your diary, or you want to employ staff, or add additional complimentary services, it is important to systemize your marketing efforts.
Doing so makes it easier for you now, and it makes it easier later on when you begin to outsource most of your marketing.
But so many small businesses drop the ball from the word go. Their first marketing efforts bring them in more work, they focus on the work and they can’t keep up with the marketing. They’re exhausted from trying to juggle the marketing and the work, so they stop marketing. Then things suddenly grind to a halt, because they stopped marketing three months ago.
This doesn’t need to happen to you if you organise your marketing efforts from the word go and outsource them as soon as you need to. If it costs you less to pay someone else than you’re making in profits per hour, you should outsource it as soon as your cash flow allows you to.
So:
Test and measure your marketing efforts. This can be difficult in the first 3 months, as many of your online marketing will not bring in results straight away. Also, some of your clients will come from a combination of marketing efforts. But you need to get an idea of what is working and what isn’t. So keep a simple spread sheet that enables you to track of:
- Where your new clients are coming from/how they heard about you.
- The marketing costs of getting each new client.
- The profits each marketing activity brings you.
This will enable you to focus on the marketing activities that are working for you, and get rid of the ones that don’t.
- Keep a diary of marketing activities that need to be carried out each week, and the time each one takes. Toodledo is a great free online resource for doing this.
- Write down exactly what each activity involves, so it will make it easier to outsource it to someone else.
- Begin outsourcing each profitable marketing activity as soon as you can.
Like anything else, this may feel like too much additional work at a time when you don’t need it, but you will be glad that you did it as your chiropractic business grows.
