Chiropractors know a great deal about bones and human structure. Marketing, however is a separate skill-set. Nitsan Gaibel interviews Jump Start Jim Chianese, a marketer, on how chiropractors can jumpstart their marketing. Using traditional advertising means, chiropractors have fallen behind in the advertisement world. Jump Start Jim Chianese wants to change that. By working with hundreds of chiropractors and with a vast experience in helping them get ahead of the competition, he feels that he has the solution for any chiropractor who needs that extra boost.
Nitsan: What do you find in working with chiropractors?
Jim: Ultimately I get to literally adjust their marketing to a new way of thinking. Chiropractors have been sort of stuck in a rut for 30-40 years that I’ve been going to them as a patient. Talking to them about their marketing, they’re very traditional. They know that the struggles that they face are due to a lot of people feeling that they’re not a “real doctor.” Now, I feel that they are. I think that they have even more health training. So they have to overcome that objection from many people in the first place. Typically they’ve built their businesses through word of mouth, like many other medical practices. The challenge they face is:
1. An educational component. They’re not necessarily positioned as an authority even though they’re called a doctor but,
2. They do what it seems that everyone else is telling them to do. 20 years ago they would still be in the yellow pages. A lot of them do direct mail. A lot of them are starting to do stuff online.
Nitsan: How do you recommend chiropractors change the way they’re marketing?
Jim: They must jump start their marketing by positioning themselves as a celebrity. Giving them that leverage they need to be seen as an authority or an expert and allowing them to ultimately just overcome a lot of those objections. And boost that word of mouth, which is so important to them spread on a more natural basis.
Nitsan: Are you changing the way they’re marketing or are you augmenting it?
Jim: I’m putting it on steroids, actually. A lot of the things that they’re already doing can still work for them, it’s just that they’re not using the leverage that they could use because no one knows who they are. I’m doing a little bit of both. I’m allowing them to see that the written word has a lot of power. At one time when Oprah had her TV show, if you wrote a book and you ended up on Oprah, you’re an instant best-seller. There was leverage there. Well, the way you got on Oprah was typically to have a book in the first place. So one of the things I recommend is put yourself in a position where you’re writing something, especially if you can do a book. Have that coverage from a major media outlet. Oprah was the biggest. If you can do both of those, that’s going to give you not only the celebrity, but instant credibility.
Nitsan: How does a chiropractor begin with such a process?
Jim: A lot of chiropractors say, “It’s so hard to write a book or constantly write articles, and it’s a challenge because I’m busy running my business and I don’t know how I can do it. Where do I start?” Well, one of the best ways to start is to actually do an interview like you’re doing with me. You’re a marketing leader. You reached out to me and asked to set up an interview. Now, they can do an interview, they can get an article written about themselves or write an article for themselves, they can do things like a press release with a news-worthy announcement. Doing that and building up a small portfolio that way can even potentially allow them to end up with a book in a matter of sometimes a couple of weeks.
Nitsan: And chiropractors don’t usually do this?
Jim: A lot of them have, maybe, if they’ve gone to some of the cutting-edge marketing chiropractic conferences where they’re really teaching what’s working at a high level. A lot of them, no, they just don’t do it. Some of them have gone to those conferences, they’ve heard about it, but they didn’t know how to go about doing it. People mention it, but no one’s really guiding them on to take the steps and that’s where there are a lot of steps done for them. Our services are provided for you to get you that coverage; the press release coverage, or getting a book written for you. A lot of them might have heard it, but they’re so overwhelmed by the idea that they don’t ever take the next step to even learn, ‘well, how can I make it easy for me?’
Nitsan: What would be their first step if right now we wanted to give an instruction so they can begin immediately?
Jim: Write an article. Write an article that is, for instance, a health-related article. Not even necessarily related to chiropractic. I have a friend of mine who I helped write – actually, a chiropractor — who I helped write a book. He focused on his specific niche: running. Athletes like to run and chiropractic and his whole book is based around that. Well the first thing I told him to start doing was to write some articles and start getting those articles distributed into some major media outlets. Major media outlets could be NBC, ABC, CNN, news affiliates even. If you get those articles published and syndicated, it’s a huge way to get instant credibility nationwide, not just locally. Getting that first step, that first article written, and knowing how to get it out there, ultimately is going to give you just the biggest first step for them. That’s where a lot of them just don’t take that initial jump.
