Acupuncture Websites – What Your Graphic Designer Won’t Tell You.
If I had to single out the biggest marketing mistake many acupuncturists make, it would have to be failing to view their website as a lead generation tool. It’s not uncommon to read in a forum about a newly graduated practitioner who writes something like this; “I printed 1,000 business cards, distributed them all out and only got one new patient.” They’ll voice their frustration about how difficult it is to build a practice from scratch. Yes, starting an acupuncture practice does require energy, commitment, persistence, and some money or at least good credit. This alone is stressful enough. When you add the apprehension most acupuncturists have about marketing, you have a recipe for uncertainty and confusion about what marketing strategy to implement.
If I were writing this 15 years ago I’d probably be showing you how to put together a Yellow Page ad that beats the competition. I would also be telling you to put 80% of your advertising dollars into the Yellow Pages and spread out the other 20% among other media. But times have changed in a big way.
Today I would tell you to invest 90% of your ad dollars on the internet and just 10% elsewhere. If you do it right, you will never have to worry about marketing again. Having a good online presence (search engine optimization) and incorporating strategic marketing into your acupuncture website is how you build a lead generation system that runs on auto-pilot.
Yes it takes some effort. You either have to learn how to do it, or hire an expert. And when I say hire an expert I’m not talking about hiring a graphic designer. Graphic and web designers are trained to make websites pretty, but pretty website don’t sell. Medical doctors are trained to prescribe drugs instead of addressing the underlying cause of the problem. It’s not their fault. That’s how they are trained. If you want to get off prescription drugs you don’t go to a different medical doctor because he/she has the same training. It’s no different with graphic designers.
Please don’t misunderstand what I’m trying to get across. I don’t have anything against graphic designers. I use graphic designers for logos and for brochure layouts and so forth. But I don’t let them get all creative on me using artsy-fartsy graphics and fonts that deviate from communicating a compelling message.
Have you seen the amount of websites today that use light grey text for the content? Let me ask you something… Have you ever read a book or a newspaper printed in light grey text? So why on God’s earth do graphic designers create web pages with light grey text? Because it’s pretty and “cool.” It’s not their fault. Creating “prettiness” is what they were trained to do. Forget that you might lose half your visitors because they have a hard time reading your message. What’s important to the graphic designer is that it looks pretty.
My dear practitioner, an ugly website with compelling content to strategically position you as the obvious choice, will outperform a pretty website with fluff and puffery any day of the week. Your website is not supposed to be an extension of you. It is a marketing tool to generate qualified leads and convert those leads into new patients. There’s a right way and wrong way to accomplish this. I’m not suggesting you design an ugly website. What I am saying is that your acupuncture website should be used as a strategic marketing tool to separate yourself from the pack and position you as the trusted expert in your town. This is how you take your practice to the next level in less time you ever thought possible.
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Comments
Hi Tom, thank you for your comments. The only thing I find myself agreeing with you on is that not all graphic designers are trained – and work – in the same way. There are many fine graphic designers that I’ve worked with in the past and continue to work with today. When you say marketing and graphic design go hand in hand, you are absolutely right. I believe there is a happy medium. However, in the real world of small business that gets overlooked most of the time. Most small business owners (like acupuncturists) don’t have deep pockets to hire a strategic marketing expert and a graphic designer. So many go and use a template to design their website. There are some good templates, but there a far more templates that come preset to display gray text in the content area. I’m referring specifically to many WordPress blog themes. For example, this blog theme you are looking at comes preset with gray text. I had to edit the CSS file and change it to black. Readable text is meant to be black. Not because I say so, but because sales conversion tests prove it. Yes, I agree that different color text is used to make different types of information distinct. But the readable “content” should always be in black. Have you ever read a book printed in gray text. How about the morning newspaper. Have you ever read an article in your local paper printed in gray text? You’ll find a great example of good marketing combined with good graphic design at CopyBlogger. This is one of the most successful blogs on the internet today. There you’ll see a perfect example of what you are referring to. They have red text links on the sidebars to differentiate the areas, but the main readable content is always black. On the other hand, when you visit a website or blog that looks like this one, after you’re done reading the page and go back to a regular page your eyes feel like you’ve just waken up in the morning.
I depend on graphic designers, especially for my retail clients in the fashion industry. There’s a place for “pretty” design work. If you’re selling retail women clothing, luxury items or a few other products, eye candy is critical. But when it comes to getting clients (patients) to part with their money and give it to you instead of the next practitioner down the street, a “clear” and compelling marketing message will beat artsy-fartsy design any day of the week.
In reference to this comment:
“To use your website as an example — giant red text, highlights, a large number of bold words — it’s as if I walked in a room and ten people started shouting at me. The target message is lost because every word competes for attention. Rather than informing me about something, it’s taking that information and forcefully shoving it down my mouth and into my head. A quick glance and I’ve left the page, without retaining much information. As a heavy internet user myself, I noticed that the website resembles the bulk of diet pill and auto insurance ads that fill my browser, and the information is quickly filtered out of my vision.”
The only reason why people leave a website without taking the action you want them to take – like optin-in to receive your newsletter or buying your product or service – is because: 1) They don’t want it. 2) They can’t afford it, or 3) You haven’t done a good job at communicating how your product or service is going to save them time or money, make them money, or improve their quality of life. It’s called copywriting, but I don’t think they teach it in visual design school.
Based on your article, I feel that you have a very skewed perception of what graphic/communication designers do for a living.
Marketing and graphic design often go hand-in-hand. A good designer should be aware of the client’s target audience and how to approach this audience. This includes being aware of different audiences for different mediums — Viewer A finding your website through Google is very different from Viewer B directly typing in your URL, who are both very different from Viewer C who clicked a link on another blog and ended up on your website. That said, a good designer will work closely with you to find the best solution for attracting new clients (if that is your ultimate objective), which is aided by a positive interactive experience online — your website.
Generally, once objectives are set, good designers will seek efficient, effective solutions. Hardly anything in this process is arbitrary; nothing is done simply “because it’s pretty”. To use your example, setting a particular section of text in grey (as opposed to full black) can do several things: organization—making two different types of information distinct for clarity; contrast—drawing attention to certain pieces of information first, if the hierarchy calls for it; readability — text that is 85-95% grey (100% would be black) is often said to be easier on the eyes for extended lengths of text.
Good typographic solutions on your website will offer your audience a much more comfortable and memorable experience. To use your website as an example — giant red text, highlights, a large number of bold words — it’s as if I walked in a room and ten people started shouting at me. The target message is lost because every word competes for attention. Rather than informing me about something, it’s taking that information and forcefully shoving it down my mouth and into my head. A quick glance and I’ve left the page, without retaining much information. As a heavy internet user myself, I noticed that the website resembles the bulk of diet pill and auto insurance ads that fill my browser, and the information is quickly filtered out of my vision.
Perhaps you’ve had experience with “bad” designers as opposed to “good” ones. Just as there are poorly trained acupuncturists out there, doing poor work for a buck, there are poorly trained designers out there, doing trendy or downright ugly work for the money. But don’t allow them, or yourself, to denigrate the profession of graphic design, or believe that all designers are trained and work in the same way. Like all facets of life, it’s not black-and-white.