Can you imagine how much money a company would lose if they chose not to open a store in the same mall their competitor was located? The same applies to chiropractic marketing.

I mean even if they were playing the odds and anchored their store on one end of the mall opposite the competing store, they could at least count on 50% of the mall traffic to park in the lot closest to their store and enter through their doors, walk through their isles to get to the mall interior. Chances are the customer will see something they like and buy it without ever making it to the other end of the mall where the competitor is located. This doesn’t even take into account that most stores have loyal customers that prefer to shop at a particular store.

Here’s another scenario; do you think the big companies like Walmart don’t put stores in towns that have a Target? After all if they can’t have all of the customers, why bother? I know of a town where there is a Home Depot on one side of the street and directly across the street is a Lowes. Both are thriving! Imagine that.

How about your chiropractic advertising? Would you consider not running an ad in the newspaper if a competing practice was running ads in the same paper? Are you satisfied knowing that the readers will not have the option of knowing where you are located and what services you offer? Many people may not be aware that they have a choice? Here’s the big picture; let us assume that Dr. A has a practice in the north part of largely populated area and Dr. B has a practice in the south part of the same largely populated area. This area has multiple suburbs mainly to the north and south. If you were a prospective patient in a suburb north of this area, would you prefer to drive clear across town to see a chiropractor when there is one closer? To make it more ridiculous the prospective patient would have to drive right by Dr. A’s practice to get to Dr. B. But what choice did the patient have? The patient didn’t even know that Dr. A’s practice was there because he chose not to advertise in the paper that Dr. B was advertising in.

As ridiculous as this sounds; it happens more than you know. This type of school yard mentality hurts more than the doctor and his practice, it hurts the community where the practice is located because people aren’t getting the information they need to make sound decisions.

What if the ads look the same? Why should that matter? There is still a market for each doctor to reach, but it’s up to you; if you want to give all of your patients over to the competition across town, I guess that’s your choice. Or, run your chiropractic ads, but maybe as inserts and choose the zones you want your newspaper inserts to be delivered. Same paper, but only targeted subscribers receive your chiropractic ad.

Still scratching your head and thinking this won’t do? Sit down and go through the newspaper you plan to advertise in and see how many competing companies run ads in the same paper. Yeah, Yeah…I know those companies have bigger advertising budgets; true, but there are other ways to use chiropractic ads; direct mail marketing, email marketing, and online marketing. Ads are not just for newspapers anymore. While newspapers are still very fertile advertising grounds, there are other ways to expand your chiropractic marketing and you should explore all of the options not just pout and toss all advertising aside because the competition is marketing too.