When I wrote about “Would You Give A Patient A Free First Visit”, a lot of people had comments about how a free acupuncture treatment/consultation fits into your marketing.

The most interesting comment posted on that page was by Julia Quick from the U.K.:

Hi Burton,
Since I started even thinking about marketing - I offered a free 15 minute chat - to meet each other-and so I could answer questions. 1 person took up the offer and became a client.

I put a line on my website about this offer - since then had more enquiries but none asking to take up this suggestion but have become clients?!

Do you think that could have been a prompt?

Julia

In other words, since putting the offer to talk for 15 minutes on her website, Julia has been getting more inquiries than before. This happens even though no one is taking her up on it!

I think what’s going on is website visitors see that she’s willing to talk for 15 minutes without pressure. If she’s willing to do that, wouldn’t a simple phone call would be even less pressure?

This is worth trying yourself. You can look at Julia’s site (with her permission) and adapt it for yourself. Let us know if it improves your marketing results. I bet it will.

Two other notes:

Julia’s comment was definitely worth noticing, but the best comment I received on that article was sent in email. It’s so good that I’m putting it in a password protected post on Friday. The title is ”

Also, I wanted to point out if you leave a comment on an article, it automatically gives you a link back to your website. Since search engines look for links to your site as an indication of how important it is, it helps make your site show up better in search results when people are looking for you. Backlinks are especially helpful when they’re from pages with relevant keywords, like “acupuncture”. So feel free to post relevant comments, and you’ll automatically get free “link love” and improved search engine results in return.