Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
You're AHPRA-registered TCM. Google sees a wellness coach. The TGA decides what you can say about the herbs.
TCM marketing has a triple problem: the patient searching 'acupuncture [suburb]' can't tell the four-year BHSc-trained AHPRA-registered Chinese Medicine practitioner from the dry-needling physio with a weekend course from the unqualified 'wellness coach' selling crystals; the Chinese herbal medicine side of the practice pays a significant share of the rent but the TGA Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code catches almost every claim you might want to make about specific herbal formulae; and the Chinese-Australian community is your strongest patient base but the website is in English only and the social grid never mentions you speak Mandarin or Cantonese. The clinics that fill the rooms claim the AHPRA registration loudly on every page, build a modality-page library (acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, cupping, moxibustion, tui na, qigong, dietary therapy), serve the bilingual community properly, and stay carefully inside the TGA Advertising Code on what they can claim about Chinese herbal medicine.
Good TCM marketing is three things, in this order: a website that loudly claims the AHPRA Chinese Medicine Board registration (acupuncturist, Chinese herbal medicine practitioner, Chinese herbal dispenser as relevant) and the BHSc / MHSc TCM credential so patients understand the four-to-six years of full-time study behind the title; a modality-page library covering acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, the Chinese herbal dispensary, cupping, moxibustion, tui na, qigong and dietary therapy plus condition-specific work (fertility and IVF support, women's health, chronic pain, stress and sleep, digestive health) with TGA-compliant copy throughout; and a properly translated bilingual landing flow (Mandarin and Cantonese as relevant) plus a private-health rebate explainer for Bupa, Medibank, HCF and NIB. Layer in AACMA, ATMS or Chinese Medicine Industry Council member badges and a quarterly GP and integrative-medicine outreach loop, and the diary fills.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Builds your annual plan around the conditions that fill the rooms (fertility and IVF support, women's health and PCOS, chronic pain, stress and sleep, digestive health) and the patient pipelines that scale (Chinese-Australian community via bilingual content, integrative-medicine GP referrals, private-health rebate clarity). Briefs the other agents so the modality pages, the AHPRA registration claim, the bilingual landing flow and the TGA-compliant social all reinforce the same patient journey.
Imports your existing site so you stop paying for hosting plus a CMS subscription, and ships a page for every modality (acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, herbal dispensary, cupping, moxibustion, tui na, qigong, dietary therapy) plus condition-specific pages. Builds the properly translated Mandarin and Cantonese landing flow alongside the English site. TGA-compliant by construction. Two taps to publish.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move TCM rankings: claims the AHPRA Chinese Medicine Board registration in every relevant page (your moat against dry-needling and the wellness coach), optimises modality and condition keywords, adds appropriate schema (MedicalBusiness with the registered-TCM-practitioner designation), and a Google Business Profile that ranks for 'TCM [suburb]' and 'Chinese herbal medicine [suburb]'. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes; flags anything that touches AHPRA or TGA territory.
Runs Google Ads on the high-intent condition searches you can't outrank organically yet ('fertility acupuncture [suburb]', 'Chinese herbal medicine [suburb]', 'IVF support TCM'). Switches Meta off by default (TGA-fraught territory for Chinese herbal medicine claims), keeps it for clinic-life and educational content where the regulatory frame is lighter. Pauses automatically when the diary hits capacity. AHPRA-compliant copy throughout: no testimonials, no comparative claims, no efficacy guarantees for Chinese herbal medicine.
Posts the educational content that reclaims the registration conversation and supports the herbal dispensary without breaching TGA: a 'registered TCM vs dry needling vs wellness coach' carousel, a 'what's actually in a Chinese herbal formula' explainer (TGA-compliant), a tongue-and-pulse-diagnosis explainer (carefully framed), a Mandarin-language post for Lunar New Year. Cross-posts to Xiaohongshu and WeChat where the bilingual audience lives. TGA-compliant by construction.
Drafts the long-form guides that catch patients before they book: 'what to expect from your first acupuncture session', 'is acupuncture covered by private health funds', 'what is Chinese herbal medicine actually', 'fertility acupuncture during IVF, what the research actually says (carefully)'. Two drafts a fortnight, in your voice, TGA-compliant for Chinese herbal medicine claims, that bring the right enquiry weeks before the booking.
Your first 30 days.
- Existing site imported, legacy hosting torn down, Cliniko booking widget re-embedded on every modality page
- AHPRA Chinese Medicine Board registration claimed loudly on every page above the booking CTA, AACMA and ATMS badges added
- Mandarin and Cantonese bilingual landing flow live with properly translated copy, separate URL path /zh/ for indexing
- Acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, herbal dispensary, cupping, moxibustion and tui na modality pages indexed page one
- Fertility and IVF support, women's health, chronic pain and digestive health condition pages indexed for your core suburbs
- Private-health rebate explainer live for Bupa, Medibank, HCF and NIB with provider numbers and gap-fee transparency
- Google Business Profile primary category corrected from 'Massage Therapist' to 'Acupuncturist', services expanded from 3 to 16
- TGA-compliant therapeutic claims audit passed across every page and post; Lunar New Year bilingual social content queued
The hardest fight in TCM marketing isn't convincing the skeptic. It's making sure the patient who already wants Chinese medicine finds the AHPRA-registered four-year-trained clinic with the proper herbal dispensary rather than the dry-needling physio or the unregulated wellness coach. The clinics that fill the rooms claim the AHPRA Chinese Medicine Board registration loudly, build a page per modality and condition, serve the bilingual Chinese-Australian community properly, and stay carefully inside the TGA Advertising Code on what can be claimed about Chinese herbal medicine.
Agencies are too dear to actually run the modality-page library, the bilingual landing flow and the TGA-compliant herbal content for $3k a month, and most don't know the Chinese Medicine Board became part of AHPRA in 2012. Tools are cheap but you still write the Chinese herbal medicine page on a Sunday night between dispensing and case notes. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the pages, claim the registration, build the bilingual flow, fix the Google Business Profile, and post TGA-compliant educational content. You stay in the driver's seat.