Features vs. Benefits in Chiropractic Marketing: What's the Difference? | Podcast Ep. 166

Foreign hello and welcome to the evidence based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. Today we are talking about a topic that can dramatically impact the results of your outreach and marketing in 2019 and beyond. We're going to break down the features versus benefits. What are the differences between the two, what can you focus on and what are some practical applications that you can utilize in all of your online and offline marketing to maximize its impact and to maximize your impact in your community. Additionally, tickets are on sale. Super early bird tickets for adjust your marketing. It's happening in Tampa June 7th through 9th. This is my intensive kind of one on one 20 doc in a room banging out content. We're filming video, we're writing copy, we're updating your website. I've been marketing within Chiropractic for quite a while and I've had a great opportunity to see and learn what works and what doesn't. So the weekend is gonna be all about what works. Small group mastermind with other docs looking to do the same thing. It's gonna be awesome. The tickets are on sale right now. You can check that out@the evidencebasedchiropractor.com events. But as I said at the top today we are features and benefits. I think this is where a lot of docs, people in general, but specifically within the chiropractic realm, many people get tripped up on the difference between features and benefits. And ultimately what sort of nudges somebody to pick up the phone and call your office compared to all the other things they could do. So first let's start right there. If somebody's going to pick up the phone and call your office for the first time, call your practice, they are looking for an answer to some question, right? Maybe they have pain, maybe they have performance issues, they have something in their life, they have some problem for which they are looking for a solution. So your job is to, when appropriate and when correct, position yourself as cleanly and easily as that answer. If there is questions about that, if there is confusion, that's called product friction and it's going to dramatically reduce your convers percentage. And quite frankly, I think when we look at chirophractic at large and we see how much efficacy we have in the musculoskeletal system, when we see how much expertise we have in terms of rehabilitation, in terms of obviously the clear adjustment itself and everything around it, quite frankly 15% utilization is just poor. So overall in the last hundred years, arguably we have as a profession not done as good of a job as we could or should have to build that farther equitable. The amount of value we bring to the table is disproportionate to our utilization. So what is that chasm? What's the gap? What's the challenge? Well, there are many facets to that, as you can imagine, but some of it does break down to the classic features versus benefits. So let's talk a little bit about that. What's a feature? Well, a feature is a factual statement about your product or service being promoted. Here's the catch. Which sounds good, right? It's like, okay, great, something factual about what I'm doing. Here's the catch. Features are not what get people to buy or pick up the phone. That is where a benefit comes into play. A benefit very cleanly, very clearly answers the question what's in it for me? So what, what meaning does the feature provide that the customer or patient is going to value? The. That is the key distinction. It's a big, big distinction when we talk about features of things. This is product set. I have a great new table. This wonder, you know, wonder apparatus. Does XYZ look at what we're able to do? It doesn't look at it from the realm of a patient. I see this a lot with story. Branding is exceptionally popular within chiropractic right now. It drives right to the same thing I talk about constantly. Content and put it in the proper context, right? Content is the research that's out there. And putting it in the proper context is so that it's engaging, it's entertaining and it's value laden for your audience or your patients. This is really. All of those are basically getting down and saying the same thing. It's about features and benefits and more specifically, it's about benefits. What is in it? Every time you put out something, I want you to start thinking about what's in it for the person reading this? What's in it for the person in my audience, for the person in my community. And benefits. You'll notice when you look at healthcare marketing on a large scale, when you look at hospital systems, when you look at people spending multiple millions of dollars advertising per month, and quite frankly, they're advertising to the same people you are. So we might not have that sort of volume in money to spend, but that's where getting creative counts. So so much they talk about benefits in terms of the person. Pharmaceuticals have done this for years, right? Benefits of quality of life. People are out golfing. What's that have to do with the drug? Well, nothing but they're selling the benefit, not the feature. They're not saying about the drug. Well, this one dissolves in 20 seconds and it has a, you know, a serotonin inhibitor that does this. No way. That's way over the head. And quite frankly, people don't care about that. What do they care about? They care about playing with their grandchildren, they care about getting back on the golf course, they care about not losing their job. They care about interpersonal relationships, they care about hobbies. They care about not being in pain because of the life effect that that pain challenges. So keep that in mind as you start to get out there with your marketing in 2019. Anytime that you're putting out a piece of content that goes more towards features and less towards benefits, just look at it and reframe it in terms of what's in it for me, meaning them, right? It's all about your audience. What are you showcasing to them that's going to matter to their life? How are you going to be able to improve their lifestyle? How are you going to be able to better enhance their quality of life? And framing it in that context can generate so much more interest for your business and your practice. It can generate so many more phone calls. It can generate so much more just sheer engagement with the post itself. And I've seen this time and time again. I'm not perfect with it by any stretch. With the evidence based chiropractor, we put out probably more content in my opinion than literally anybody else on planet earth. When you look at all the different platforms that is chiropractic specific. And with that there's many times where I love to talk about man, I'm so excited with the evidence based chiropractor. Our membership, we have this new aspect and I talk feature and almost nobody engages with it because what am I doing? I'm not telling it from the side of, well, why does that matter to you as a practicing doc in the field? What does this advancement with the evidence based chiropractor, how does it help you build or grow your practice? How does it open up more opportunities? Opportunities for you to grow. So this is a constant thing, right? Regardless of whether you're an experienced marketer, maybe you've been in practice 25 years and built a great practice. Maybe you're still a student perhaps right now, or you've been out just a couple months and are getting going. It's a constant work in progress. But I see all of the content, the contacts. You see people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cordone. I see. Story, brand. All of these are very wide in terms of how they discuss and talk about marketing. But ultimately, features and benefits are at the core of everything. So as you kind of work through that, always be thinking about what's in it for my audience, that's very, very important. A patient's perception of each feature results in what's gonna attract them to a product or service. So when people can understand, then the benefit, the features are gonna be attractive, but it's not going to be a true benefit. So don't hesitate to showcase a feature, but frame it in the way of here is. And now this is what it can do for you. Here's the new skillset that we've added on in our practice. But here's why it matters for you, right? So think. I just think instantly right now about soft tissue work. Let's say you've dove in, take some classes and you're jazzed about art or Croston or you're using rock blades and you're really psyched about the soft tissue work that you're doing in your office. Well, framing that in the way of, hey, we are so excited about the soft tissue work we've been doing because we have seen our athletes get back on the field faster. Right. That's not the best copywriting right there, but I think you can start to see where it always ties. The feature might be something you're excited about, but the benefit of that feature is what's going to get your audience engaged. The cleaner and clearer that you create that picture, the more clarity you have regarding the benefits of your service, the benefits of your product, and the more direct line, the people in your community, your audience, can see that you solve those issues. That is going to increase in the marketing world. What we call conversions, what that means to you is it's going to get more new patients picking up the phone calling and scheduling appointments in your practice. As chiropractors, we are super fortunate where we are not. You know, some of these medications, they have terrible side effects. They're generally ineffective. We look at other risky things in the medical world that are done every day and they're dangerous, sometimes ineffective. What we have within chiropractic is so safe and effective. It's cost effective, it's natural. The side effects are so low, we need to be framing this in the proper way. Showcase the benefits that that offers. Again, there are supreme benefits in having less side effects. There are supreme benefits in having better efficacy. There are supreme benefits and people getting back to doing what they love with the people they love. The more clear you tell that story, the more opportunity you are going to have to a sustainable practice that you can be proud of. And that's what today's episode has been all about. As I said at the top, here's a big benefit right not feature benefit benefit for you. If you're looking to build and grow your practice in 2019 and beyond, and you have found value in what we've done at the Evidence Based Chiropractor, I'd really encourage you and ask you head on over to the evidencebasedchiropractor.com events, pick up a ticket for Adjust yout Marketing. As I said, a lot of docs are, you know, super busy. You might not have that deep skillset in marketing. We're gonna put it all together that weekend for you working with me one on one. I want to look at your website and write copy. I want to help you with emails. I want to get your practice a lot better six months from now than it is today. If that interests you, then check out Adjust yout marketing, the evidencebasedchiropractor.com events. And I hope you have a fantastic week in practice and I will talk to you soon.

We appreciate you joining us for this episod of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. Learn more tips for explosive practice development@theevidencebasedchiropractor.com. you can also join the Premier MD monthly membership, enabling you to use what you just heard to maximize results in your office.