Why Your Practice’s Facebook Ads Are Not Working: Episode 237

Welcome to the Health and Wellness Practitioners Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Danielle Angela. In this show, I and my guest experts will talk about everything from getting your practice started to developing your clinical skills, growing your practice your way, and of course, dealing with the real stuff like burnout and work-life balance. Whether you've been practicing for decades or just started your journey, you'll find something here for you. So take a deep breath and enjoy the show.

Hey there and welcome to the Health and Wellness Practitioners Podcast, episode 237. I'm your host, Dr. Danielle Angela, and in today's episode, we are going to be talking about why Facebook ads are not bringing you your ideal patients or clients. It's just gonna be you and I chatting about this today on the podcast, similar to the last couple of episodes, but I am going to be having some new guests coming onto the podcast over the next few weeks and months, so just know that. you'll have some new people to hear from coming up soon.

In the meantime, I want to share with you more about how to get new patients or clients into your practice because I want you to be able to help more people. And that's the whole reason why I started my online business. Okay, maybe not the whole reason. I mean, part of the reason that I started my online business was because I saw so many health and wellness practitioners, specifically at that time, female chiropractors struggling to grow their practice. But I saw growing a practice and getting new patients as the easy parts and the work-life balance, if you will, as the hard parts. And it was my own struggle with work-life balance, as you probably know from listening to this podcast, that led me to taking time off from practice and being able to really reevaluate what my definition of success was in practice.

Well, long story short, one thing led to another. And here we are now. I help one of those practitioners who have grown busy businesses and who are feeling burned out to regain some control over their lives and take back their time and their energy. I help health and wellness practitioners get more new clients and new patients into their practices without screenings, health fairs, and ads. And I help them, wellness practitioners, start brand new practices.

Why Facebook ads are not bringing in the ideal patients or clients

Okay, so in today's episode, we're going to talk specifically about why Facebook ads are not working for you. And when I say not working for you, I don't mean like Facebook's not approving your ad, but more so that they're not working for you. A couple of other things are happening. The ads are running and you're getting new patients or clients, but it's not working out so well or they're just not coming at all.

So let's talk more about why that is happening, okay? Listen, I am not a Facebook ads expert, so I have to give you that disclaimer. I am not saying to never use Facebook ads either in this conversation, but I am just showing you the other side of the story, showing you what, you know, someone that wants to sell you Facebook ads, management is probably not telling you.

The truth is that for most people who are running Facebook ads to get new patients or clients, one of two things are happening. They're either getting new patients or clients booked for an initial exam or a consultation, whatever that first appointment is. And they're getting quite a few bookings, maybe 20, 30 or more a month, but very, very few of those people are actually showing up for that initial appointment.

Or, like I said before, they're just not converting. In other words, the ads are not actually getting new clients or patients booked. So, if your Facebook ads are actually getting new client or patient booked I want to propose to you this idea that...They are actually working, even if very few of the people show up. Because what happens when you run Facebook ads. and you're inviting people to schedule a consultation or a new patient appointment or whatever that first visit is with you. You're playing a numbers game.

And the beauty of this is that, you know, the whole reason that people are attracted to Facebook ads to begin with is that you can automate your marketing, right? That's our hope at least. You can automate your marketing so then you don't have to do it. And so many health and wellness practitioners don't actually want to have to do that part of running a business, so it's very attractive to set up Facebook ads and get them running for you.

So if your Facebook ads are bringing in or getting booked, a lot of new patients or clients for that first visit, the first appointment, but very few of them are showing up, that's just the nature of the game. It's just how the numbers work. So you might get, like I said, 20 to 30 bookings for each month and maybe only three to four of them actually show up out of that 30. That's about 10%.

That generally means that it's working pretty reasonably. I don't want to say it's working well, but it's working somewhat as expected.

Now, of course, yes, in the ideal scenario, you can be running ads and getting that many bookings and also improving the show up rate of people coming to those first appointments.

But it can really take some testing and some tweaking to make that happen, which also means continuing to spend money on the ads to get that to happen. So if you've got a lot of money to invest or in other words, waste on Facebook ads, go for it. Keep testing them. Keep running the ads, keep getting the bookings and keep figuring out what needs to change to improve the show up rates.

But if you don't have the money to spend or usually waste on Facebook ads when you're only getting maybe three to four people to actually show up to their first appointment, then stop running the ads, stop wasting your money.

I never want to see someone put themselves in a position where they are hurting because they're holding on to things that are not working. Hurting meaning like you're not able to pay rent because you're running Facebook ads instead. That's not a healthy situation for you to be in. And ironically, I was just looking back at some of my reels for the last couple of years today. And I saw one from maybe 2021 or 2022 where I said, never need the patient more than they need you.

And what I mean by that is never put yourself in a situation where you're so desperate for money to pay your bills that you need people to need you. It's not a healthy relationship. And those of you that study relationship dynamics, you know it's codependency. So let's not do that if we can avoid it. If you find yourself in that situation right now, my heart goes out to you. I know how hard it is. I have talked to hundreds of people over the last 15 years who have been in that situation. But you've got to figure out a way to make changes so that you don't need people more than they need the service that you provide. Never need the money more than they need you, okay?

All right, so if the ads are running and you're getting plenty of bookings, but only maybe 10% of those people are actually showing up for the appointments, they're working as expected. But as you and I both know, it's really annoying to have all those cancellations and no shows. It's really annoying because it leaves so many gaps in your schedule. It creates a lot of context switching. In other words, like multitasking where you're like, okay, I'm going to have this new client and then you're sitting and waiting for them to show up and they don't. So you've wasted time or now you've got to switch to another task to utilize the time that you would have been giving to that new client and they're not there.

So what do we do? Then try to work on improving the show up rates, improving the no-show rates, decreasing the no-show rates. But if your ads are simply not getting bookings at all, I want to tell you it's probably not your fault. It's probably just, here's the thing. The words that you use in marketing on social media are so nuanced and you can change just one or two words in a sentence and that can change the way that your ad converts. Significantly.

So you may not be saying something wrong or have the wrong marketing message in the content of the ad itself, but you might need to change the copy. You might need to change out the image or put a video with that caption or who knows, right? You have to be willing to keep testing to figure out what works. Overall, if your ads are not getting bookings, it's not your fault.

The Numbers Game

Ultimately, we're playing a numbers game. Okay, so the more money you spend on ads, the more visibility you create, the more people may see whatever it is that you were asking them to take action on in the ad itself. And if you want more people to take action, such as booking a new patient or new client consultation, then you've just gotta increase the ad spend. Again, if you don't have money to increase the ad spend, that's not an option for you.

So what if the ads are not working? What if the ads are working, but just not getting enough people to actually show up after the bookings, right? And you're just tired of it all. and you want a different approach. I want to ask you, how solid is your network? 

A lot of people come to me saying my Facebook ads are not working or I'm spending thousands of dollars a month in Facebook ads and I'm just not seeing the return on my investment and I can't keep spending this much money, what else can I do? And when I ask them, well, what else have you been doing for marketing, they say nothing. Oof, that's a really tough position to put yourself in, put your business in, because if you start running ads and you don't know that they'll predictably bring you new patients or clients, but you're not doing anything else to bring in new patients or clients, it's a very risky place for your business. You've gotta have a steady stream of people who are interested in what it is that you do and how you serve, right? What it is that you do so that they know they want to work with you.

How To Build Your Network in Real Life

So if you've skipped this phase that I'm about to share with you, you've got to go back to the drawing board. And this doesn't necessarily mean just ditching your social media ads, completely abandoning ship, and going all in with this other approach. But it might. That's really your call as a business owner. You can, of course, layer these two things in together. So that you're working on this other strategy I'm about to share with you and your ads are continuing to run and you're figuring out how to improve the processes with those ads or the conversion rates with those ads.

The other thing, or what I should say as the most important thing that you can and should be doing as a business owner is developing relationships in real life with people in your community. And yeah, this is not online, it's not on social media, it's not on Google. But here's the thing. We've gotten so distracted by all of that stuff. We've gotten so distracted by Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google AdWords, SEO, websites, TikTok, Snapchat, the list just goes on and on. Email marketing, et cetera, et cetera, that we've forgotten that what we do is an in-person service and people need to know you, like you, and trust you in order to become a new patient or client in your practice. To a certain extent, they don't necessarily have to trust you with their lives, but they kinda do also at the same time not to over exaggerate the scenario or the relationship. I think you know what I'm talking about though.

So if you've skipped over the most foundational aspect of marketing or the most foundational aspect of growing your business, you've got to go back to the drawing board and you're going to start working on building relationships with people in your community, in real life, so they know, like and trust you. 

And what does that mean? Well, it's as simple as just connecting with people in your community, connecting with them. The massage therapist, a physical therapist, lactation consultant, the doulas and midwives, the other chiropractors; you know the professional categories might be there's probably plenty of those people in your area unless you're in a very rural place in which if you are that's okay. You just take a different approach you're going to connect with the other small businesses in your area And then get to know people who are in positions of influence in your local area as well.

But the premise that we're working toward here is that you're developing trust with people in your community and you're becoming the go-to expert for something. And the for something is also a part where we can fall short and we'll talk more about that in an upcoming episode. But when I say you've got to become known as a go-to expert for something, that means like, people know that when someone that they know has a specific problem, you are the person they need to go to. Let me give you an example. A lot of my clients specialize or focus on tethered oral tissue in their patients or clients. So they're assessing and...I'll use the term treating loosely. They're assessing and treating lip ties and tongue ties. They're of course addressing the fascial restrictions, the subluxations, the decreased joint mobility, whatever may come along with the lip and tongue ties. 

And if they were to focus on relationship building, which they do, then they want to be known in their community as the go-to expert. So if a woman is having difficulty breastfeeding her newborn baby, and a friend says, oh my gosh, you're really struggling. Maybe your baby has a lip or tongue tie. You need to go see Dr. Erika, because she is the go-to expert in our area for this issue.

See how that works? So instead of saying, instead of going out and talking to people about the modality that you practice and saying, “everyone needs Reiki because everyone has an energy field” or, “everyone needs a massage therapist because everyone has muscles and muscle tension” or, “everyone needs a chiropractor because everyone has subluxations”, you instead focus on the people that you most want to serve and what problem in their words, brings them to see you.

I know that if you're an introvert, it can feel kind of scary to think about connecting with people in real life and trying to tell them what it is that you do or explain it to them. But I wanna just encourage you to not take that perspective on this approach. You don't have to convince people that what you do is wonderful or that it even works. All you need to do is get known in your community. Go connect with people. Learn about them. Find out what they love. Find out what problems they have. Be curious about them. Put them and their interests and their needs ahead of sharing about yourself because really nobody is like, I can't wait to go out and learn about that chiropractor or that massage therapist down the street. But they would be probably be happy to spend half an hour or so telling you about themselves. And that's where you develop trust with people, when they feel heard, when they feel seen.

Okay, now one more thing that I want to share with you before we wrap up this conversation is that well, as I mentioned, we can get very distracted with SEO, social media, Google, Snapchat, Twitter, whatever, right? The list goes on and on and you can spend a lot of time and a lot of money working on those platforms to grow your practice. Any of those things could be taken away from you without any warning or any notice for any reason that the third party deems necessary.

So think about it. Do you know someone who's had their Facebook account shut down? Do you know someone that had their Instagram account? Totally wiped out. I do, I personally know people that that's happened to. And in some cases, it wasn't even about censorship. They just had their account hacked or something weird happened and they couldn't retrieve or recover the account. And their account of 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 followers, gone.

So imagine that that happened to you, that your account was bringing you new patients or clients, in other words, new business consistently and that you were relying on that consistent new business to pay  your overhead, to pay your payroll. And then suddenly, Google or Facebook or Instagram just took it away. Just because they decided to. And there was nothing you could do about it.

Here's the truth. The time, the energy, and even the money that you have invested in building relationships in becoming known as a go-to expert in your community, in your area cannot be taken away from you by a third party. So that is one of the biggest reasons that I am such a huge proponent of all health and wellness practitioners and really all small business owners taking the time to invest in becoming the go-to expert in their area for a specific problem that people know that they have because once you establish your reputation, the only person who can take that away from you is you if you do something wrong to ruin your reputation. So don't do that. Okay.

I have a course coming up, it's actually like a group coaching program, in March, called Known. And in this group coaching program, I'm going to teach you step by step how to become known as an expert in your area, how to become the go-to expert in your community, so that people are sending you referrals.

And you no longer have to rely on Facebook ads, screenings, health fairs, farmer's markets, or any other cheesy things you don't wanna do on the nights and weekends away from your family to go get new patients or clients. If you want to learn more about Known, just be sure to send me a DM on Instagram and we'll chat more about if it's the right fit for you. You can find me at Dr. Danielle Angela, and I will see you back here next week for another new episode of the Health and Wellness Practitioners Podcast. 

Hey, thanks so much for joining me for today's episode. If you love this podcast, then be sure to join our free community, the Health and Wellness Practitioners group over on Facebook, where you can continue the discussion and get to know other people in the community as well. We're a group of chiropractors, natural paths, acupuncturists, midwives, doulas, massage therapists, mental health therapists, counselors, nutritionists, and a list goes on. So come join us, get to know other people, build some personal and professional relationships. You can find the group by heading to drdanielleangela.com forward slash community and request to join the group. And I will see you inside from there.