5 Ways to Get In Front of Your Ideal Patients

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Hi. I'm Tyson Franklin, and welcome to this week's episode of podiatry marketing. With me, as always is my cohost, big Jim Mac. So Jim, how are you doing today?

Tyson, I'm doing well. Doing well. I'm excited to jump into today's topic with you, but now things are looking up here in Montreal. It's getting warmer by the day, Getting out for runs. Yeah.

Just enjoying the great outdoors here in Montreal.

Any heat waves over 20 degrees Celsius?

We're still waiting for that first one, but you know, it'll be here before we know it.

Must admit, it doesn't take long to acclimatize though. I've been in cold climates where it's been like pretty cold, and you sort of take a few days to get used to it, and you're used to being rugged up, and then all of a sudden, it'd be like a 10 degree shift. And you sort go, oh, no. It's bit warm today. But then you realize it's not really warm, but your body your body adapts pretty fast.

Yeah. It's one of those things where, you know, it can be so much in the negative degrees Celsius here that once it gets to around zero, it feel it can sometimes feel warm. But they say up here, maybe it's other places that are cold to say, there's no such thing as bad weather. There's just, you know, bad gear or bad clothing. Boots, if you got a coat, you got some good gloves, some mittens, like, yeah, you're usually okay here in Canada.

That is a really, really good point. No such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. So what are we talking about today?

Yeah. So today we're gonna talk about five ways to get in front of your ideal patients. You know, in the past, we've talked a lot about different types of marketing channels and those things. But, you know, I kinda come back to a similar topic when I talk with podiatrists out there. And they they kinda wanna know what are the things that are working.

But, know, there's so much information out there on the internet through different agencies or other people that are just kind of, I would say, more generic or generalized marketing strategies.

Yeah.

And every person who's taken time to really reflect about the type of patients they wanna see in their practice should really focus more on kind of targeted ways to get in front of your ideal patients. Right? You don't want to just kind of have a a broad generic message to your local area. It's how can you really kind of get the most bang for your marketing buck by kind of getting in those types of niche or subspecialty patients you wanna see. So that's what we're gonna go over today.

Yeah. And it's good that we're covering, you know, you're keeping it to like, say the top five because I've seen sheets that have been handed out by different companies, and they go, here's a 55 ways that you could connect with your patients. And and you look at them all, and you go, no one would have time to do a 55 different things. So I think it's good to really focus it down. So like you say, the top five.

Yeah. You just need to make sure things are actionable. Right? Like, can get overwhelmed by all the different options and opportunities out there are to to market or to get visibility for practice. But I try to narrow it down to these top five so it can really kinda nail them down so people understand what they are.

And then if they're doing it in the market themselves or they're working with an agency or a consultant, they can really kind of focus on these things to make sure they're executed then before they jump in and try to do other things.

Okay. So this is where I've had a drum roll sound effect right now and I'm doing a what is number one?

Number one is to leverage local SEO and basically and your basically your clinic's website. Right? So you wanna optimize your practice's website to make sure that it's relevant for keywords of the types of procedures and type of treatment you wanna do. When people are searching your local area, you're gonna have a higher you know, you're gonna show up more in local rankings. You wanna make sure that whatever's on your website are the things you wanna do in practice.

I see a lot of sometimes website agencies or marketing agencies will kinda put up cookie cutter websites where it's like the top 50 diagnosis and the top 50 treatments and just Yeah. Gonna slap it up there for a clinic. And that's really kind of not what you want to have because it doesn't differentiate you from the competition, but also maybe there's 10 or 20 of those things on there you don't want to do in your practice. And if people call in and they're booking for those services, either they're they don't reimburse well, or you just don't enjoy doing them, or you think that it's just not something you wanna do in your practice, you're kinda stuck in a way. So you need to make sure that you really hone in that that website and the local SEO to make sure you're first of all, you're doing the type of treatments you wanna do.

Also make sure that's mobile optimized because people are looking and searching more and more on their phones. You know we have our iPhones, our Android phones, and you wanna make sure that you're showing up on those phones and that your website looks good and people can make an appointment or get the type of information they need on their phone. So you wanna make sure that you have content about all the different types of conditions and treatments you provide. Sometimes you know providing some kind of preventative care and tips about it. Also you wanna make sure that you're getting on to kind of local online directories, right.

So whether it be things like your Google business profile, know, health grades, sometimes even Zocdoc if you don't have to pay for it. Yeah. Just getting on you know places like Yelp. So making sure that you have the right consistent amount of information about who you are and what you treat and your name, address, phone numbers all accurate across these different kind of local sites will sometimes help you get more visibility locally so you can treat those ideal patients.

Yeah. And that was what what you said then. It's very consistent across all those different platforms as well. You got the same information, the same phone number, the address. It's all written the same way.

So you don't have 1 2 4 2. If you have +1 242, that's what you stick with. Don't keep changing and making it a little bit different.

No. Exactly. You just need to have like, you shouldn't be surprised. A lot people sometimes move the the the location of their clinic. Right?

They move across the street or across town. And there's 50 to 100 websites that are pointing to that old location or the old direction. Maybe a new podiatrist decides to move into your old location, or another kind of foot and ankle care provider moves there. You know, now you're kind of almost giving them, you know, directions to your competitor in a way. So you wanna make sure that when you have all this information on these local directories and review sites that it's up to date and accurate and you have someone watching over those.

Because sometimes what can sometimes happen in a Google business profiles that, you know, allows users to upload and even make suggest changes. So if you have someone who's super competitive and maybe on the shady side in your local area, they can try to change your phone number or change your address or even put up, you know, an unappealing looking photo into your clinic's Google Business profile. So you wanna make sure that you're moderating those things and that that information is consistent throughout all those kind of secondary and secondary websites and directories.

Yeah. I have seen that because sometimes I'll be looking for a business, and Google have put a profile there, and it'll say, is this you? Because they haven't claimed it yet. They haven't claimed their own their own business page here on Google. And you sort of go, jeez.

It'd be easy for a competitor to come along and say, yeah, it's me. And then and then start messing around with it.

No. It can sometimes that sometimes business are named in a similar way. Right? So if you're if you're if you're not kind of directing patients about where to go leave a review, maybe they go leave a review to a clinic. Maybe there's a couple of foot and ankle clinics in there that just made a mistake.

So you wanna make sure that you're providing kind of the information is accurate, but also you're providing good information to your patients to to where to fill out these reviews and to make sure that you have that that that information in a very clear area both on your website and all these directory sites.

Okay. So what's next?

Next is it's kind of a topic we've touched on a little bit in the past, but I think it's really, really important that we touch on it again. That's basically networking with both healthcare and non healthcare businesses in your local area. Really building relationships with these like local healthcare providers such as you know primary care doctors, physical therapists, orthopedists, other people that can refer patients to you for your specialized foot and ankle care is huge. And you know for example let's say you're trying to build a practice where it's you're seeing you're seeing kids or pediatric patients and you just need to be visible not only to pediatricians, to other people taking care of maybe it's you know pediatric physical therapists, you definitely want to make sure that they know who you are and what you do. So whether that's spending time in their practice to shadow or hang out with them, inviting them to come over to your clinic to show them what kind of modalities, what type of treatment, what kind of treatment environment you have there, that can be a huge thing.

Because these are the people that are in front of these pediatric patients, for example, right. And maybe it's also these non healthcare businesses. Maybe it's kids shoe stores, maybe it's other places that service what are common injuries in kids. So maybe it's at an elementary nurse that takes care of an elementary school. Or there's just different ways to get in front of both health care and non health care businesses to really get your name out there.

And if you're, like I said, as a clinic, you're a local business. And the more that you have people that know, like, and trust you in these different aspects of your local community, the more likely they are to kind of send you patients and kinda build a positive referral system where you're sending people their way as well. So it's a it's a win win win in that in that way.

Yeah. I used to find networking was one of the best marketing tools we ever did. Purely just finding out what local business lunches were on, whether it was chamber of commerce or Cairns business women's lunch that they used to have on. So we we were just $50, you go along this, listen to a speaker, have a good feed, sit at a table of 10 people that you didn't know who they were, introduce yourself. And the more you went back to these things, you were being introduced to people who were in the health industry, some who weren't, and then they would connect you to other people.

And I found right up even till selling my clinic, one of the last weeks when I owned it when I was seeing a patient. And that patient that came in was one of the first people I'd met twenty something years ago at one of my first networking events, who was still a patient twenty five, twenty eight years later. So it I I think it's really important to just get it and connect with, like, the health industry and the non health industry and and be seen and be heard.

I I couldn't agree more. And I think sometimes when you're younger and just starting off in practice, you know, you're you have more time than money, so you have an opportunity to get out there and see these, you know, these individuals and these associate and kinda be a part of some of these associations. And like I said, like, by, you know, kinda going on to the non health care side, you're gonna find your way, you know, unless you live in some huge community. But everyone's got connection to somebody. Right?

And, you know, by showing value, by befriending people and just being genuine and authentic with them, you know, you'll be surprised some of the connections you can make down the line. Maybe it's a a friend of a friend of a friend. And over time, if someone trusts you and you you provide them value or just you know you know, it's it's the real sets up so many opportunities just to provide value to your local community. And just over time, the more people you meet, the more people know what you do, and just getting that visibility to anybody in your in your local area is gonna set you up for success in the future.

Yeah. I like what you said then though about especially when you're first starting out, you've got a lot of time, and you don't have a lot of patience. So this when you invest money into yeah. Because I know people will spend $500,000 in a local magazine advertising that, hey. We've got a clinic here.

But that could equate to 15 monthly lunches that you could go to, you know, or 20 monthly lunches. So to me, it's it's one of the things when you've got the time, get out there and go to these things and go and meet people. Because eventually, you'll get to the point when you don't have the time because you get too busy, and you can't get out there. And then it takes a while before you get other people working with you, before you got the time again to go get there and do it all over again.

No. A %. And I think one of the things that, you know, it goes without saying, but I'll mention it here because sometimes it's not super obvious, especially for younger people getting into practice. But, you know, go out and meet all the different podiatrists and foot and ankle care providers in your local area. There's definitely types of care that they don't want to do.

And if you can be a great source for them, you know, there's probably gonna be things you don't want to do. So if you can kinda find what people like to do and what they're good at, you can kind of almost find you know a kind of a network of podiatrists who are kind of referring patients back and forth about different types of care. Some people don't want to do anything with kids. Some people only want to do sports medicine. Some people just want to do wound care.

So, you know, obviously we're trained, we can do a lot of different things, but you know, as you get into practice and know what you wanna do, it's just a real benefit to not necessarily see everybody as the competition. Maybe there's some gonna be some people that don't wanna talk to you or or or, you know, whatever, and that's totally fine if they don't wanna do that. But, know, just kind of being that affable young or person coming into the community and showing that you're a team player and you're there to kinda help uplift the profession and the local community can meet a whole lot to people. And when I was in practice in Eugene, I had a great group of podiatrists who welcomed me with open arms. We had, you know, we we had monthly meetings where we'd meet up, talk about different issues, different things going on at the hospital and those things.

And you can really gather a lot of information, not only you know, getting more patients to your practice, but really get the lay of the land and understand what's going on in your local community to help podiatry grow in whatever community you're in.

No, that's a good point. So what's what's the third thing?

The third thing is basically developing kinda educational content and resources. And this is something where it helps you kinda get your kinda domain authority, whether it be writing articles or writing in your local magazine or local newspaper. But just kind of addressing specific topics in kind of your subspecialty, whether that's through your blog, like I said, local publications, maybe you're making YouTube videos about the type of patients you see and the type of care you provide in your clinic. Also sometimes informational brochures to provide to other healthcare or non healthcare businesses to show them what you do. But when you do this, it really kind of shows people who you are and what you treat.

Right? And you know you know what you do and what you treat because you're in your practice every day and you're doing it. But by developing these kind of educational content for your website and for other outside publications, It really helps the community and the rest of the people understand who you are and what you want to treat in a way that's helpful to them. So if you can treat that content, that's going to help build trust, it's going to show your domain expertise, and really help you get in front of those ideal patients.

Yeah. It is. It's I reckon if you if you sat even if you grabbed a group of your favorite patients, you know, somebody or you class as your ideal patients, you shouted them to lunch, and you got the you have six of them around the table. That's why they wanna be ones that you like to hang around with. But if you actually said to them, why are there?

Hey. I'm taking your lunch because I just wanna ask them questions about my clinic. I reckon you've probably half a dozen. You sit down with them and said, okay. Tell me what you think, what you know my podiatry clinic does.

And I'll guarantee you, they only scratch the surface of what you actually do and the the services that you can provide. So it's so important to create all this sort of content and resources and get it out there because they only see the service. They only if you're not putting anything out there, they only see what the problem they come in with, and they only see what you put out there. If you're not putting much out there, that's all they've got to go by.

Yeah. It really helps educate them about all the different care you provide. Right? And one other topic that or one other area they can do that is through the kind of the we've talked about this in the past about newsletters. You know, newsletter shouldn't be about make appointment, make appointment, make appointment.

Obviously, you can put that, you know, call to action within your newsletter, and that's totally fine. But it is also a way to help educate them about what you provide. You know, just because there's someone who came in for heel pain, they may not realize you do bunions, or they may not realize you take care of ingrown toenails. So to get in front of those ideal patients, helping educate them about what those procedures or those types of treatment you provide, it can be really, really valuable.

I was just writing down that patient lunch thing on a post it note.

There you go.

I thought, oh, I like that idea. It's just something that I know. Every now and then, you we're talking about stuff, and as you tell me stuff, an idea pops into your head that we mention, and all of sudden you go, oh, I know I could expand on that so much more and and put together a framework on how you could actually make that work or as an effective marketing tool. So put it on a post it note, which will then go into my brain book, and then I'll start working on that. Okay.

There you go.

What's the next thing?

Number Next is to yeah. It's to implement a targeted advertising campaign. So, you know, I think a lot of people will try to get onto Google Search Ads either themselves or through an agency, and they feel like they know what they're doing, and they they've got it all figured out. But really when you make these kind of local like I have to call them either areas we serve or local ads, it can be really really beneficial because you can kind of talk about who you are and what you do. But when you're making search ads with keywords that are local, you know it's just going to be people in that area.

And it's going to be very relevant to them. And it's going to really help you create kind of like the highest ROI form of advertising or visibility that you can get. Because it's just it's super you can kinda craft it to a person in a location. Right? You know, whether it's podiatrist near me, or podiatrist in in Cannes or in Montreal, you can really make them feel like that you are talking to them in a way.

It's not just a generic thing, whether it's like I said, can highlight the type of care you wanna provide, so make sure that your ideal patient knows it's for them. But I don't see enough people doing, I would say like these kind of targeted local advertisements through Google search ads enough. It's always, know, people focus on heel pain or surgery or bunions and those things. And those are fine, but they're much much harder to get people searching for those terms. But a lot of people are looking for that local expert, and when you have a campaign that kind of you know you know is really relevant to them, and kind of satisfies what the the type of search they have, you know, that kind of relevance that ties in the search query to the result, that's when it's really really power powerful to have these types of local Google search ads.

And this is what you help people do as well, isn't it?

It is. It is. It's one of the fun things I love to do to set up people and just see the the patients come rolling in with with these types of campaigns.

Yeah. So if people are not sure what to do in that area, they should just reach out to you.

Yeah. I'm happy to help them out in any way possible.

Jim@podiatrygrowth.com. Is that right?

That's correct.

Is correct. Okay. And what is the anything else on that topic?

No. I think that's good there.

Okay. What is the fifth and final as your title said? Hang on. I'm gonna repeat. What is the fifth and final?

Five ways to get in front of your ideal patients. What is number five?

Number five is to participate in community health fairs and events. We talked a little bit about previously kind of networking with business owners and other health care professionals, but this is a way just to get with the people. Like this is maybe you're going to a local health fair, you're talking, let's say you want do wound care, you're talking about why it's important that diabetics get their feet checked every three, six, twelve months, what happens, and kind of showing your expertise so people are educated about what their options are. Maybe they have a mother or a husband who's a diabetic and helping kind of spread information that's beneficial to the community. Also, can get involved with different types of events.

We've talked about ways of public speaking. Maybe you're getting in front of a senior living facility, or maybe you're getting in front of a running shoe store to give a talk about running injuries. There's a lot of different opportunities that if you reach out to these different organizations or businesses, they'd be more than happy to let you speak to them and help educate their clientele about the type of care that you provide. Maybe it's providing free foot assessments, like I said educational talks, ways to prevent injuries. Sometimes you can even sponsor some of these health fairs or events.

Know I always enjoy participating in the medical tent at marathons. By being out there in the community amongst your patient, you show them that you're not this like guy in the white coat that runs, you know, comes into the office and comes into their treatment room for five or ten minutes and tells them what to do and then leaves and they never see you again until the follow-up or never It can kind of endear you to the public that, oh my doctor's in the marathon tent, he was taking care of me, or oh I saw my doctor at the diabetes health event. And it really shows that you're willing to go that extra mile. You know when you get into healthcare it's really about you know, we kind of dream about helping other people and when people see you kind of giving your time and effort even outside of your own clinic, it really shows them that you are a valuable, not only expert in the local community, but you're a valuable member of the local community and really can build that trust to kind of help you get in front of those ideal patients.

Like I said, if you're in a specific niche there's probably five ten events at least a year in your community where you can really provide value and education for those types of patients, and you should really take that opportunity to do it. So yeah, that's kind of the top five there of the the five idea the best ways to get in front of your ideal patients.

Yeah. Well, on that last one too, we used to attend a lot of health expos and health fairs and running events, and we were always putting our hand up. And as soon as we heard about an event, we would try and find out who the organizer was, send them an email straight away, say, can we help, like, in the in the running tent? More often than not, it's always a yes. They're looking for volunteers.

We had helped I think when I had my clinic on the Gold Coast before I moved to Cairns, the Gold Coast Marathon, I would volunteer each year, and we get a jacket with marathon thing on there. And it felt great to be sort of just part of the the whole event. And then when you finish going into the the medical tent and seeing if they need a hand with anything. So it's it is a good way of like, you see your patients, but then you're like you said, your patients see you out and about doing something and not in exchange of money. You're doing it.

You're giving your time, and I I think just reflects positively on you.

No. That's totally right. And I would say also a lot of these event directors or the event managers, they're usually a fantastic resource. Right? Like and usually a fantastic connector because they're they're having to organize a lot of people to get involved and volunteer in these events.

Yeah.

And, you know, they have so many connections. So if you're providing volunteering and value to them, it's only kinda human nature that at some point they would want to kinda reciprocate in a way. You know, just to kind of there's give and take even in volunteering and those kinds of things in a real positive way. So, yeah. It's it's I always enjoyed that aspect when I was in practice, and definitely I I hope people can who are in practice now will will take advantage of that.

No. I think that's fantastic. So everyone needs to dive on to those. I'll repeat the title again. Five ways to get in front of your ideal patients.

So Jim, that is fantastic, and I look forward to talking to you again next week.

Have a look at plan, Tyson.

Okay. See you later.

Bye. Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDaniel. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.