External Versus Internal Marketing (And how to Use them Properly)

<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>00:51</time>
<p>You're listening to Podiatry Marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald. Welcome back to Podiatry Marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald. Join us always with my trusty co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are you doing today?</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>01:07</time>
<p>I'm fantastic today. Big Jim, fighting fit, feeling good. All my back problems, most of my back problems are behind me. That's a thing of the past. And knowing the doctors said to me, this could take twelve months to get better, I am fantastic that I I feel great that I've sort of proved them wrong, I'm up and about and doing nearly everything within a much shorter period of time.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>01:32</time>
<p>So it's all good.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>01:33</time>
<p>Yeah. I'm glad to hear you're on</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>01:34</time>
<p>the mend. It's no fun being hurt or or or, you know, injured or sick. It's yeah. It can be pretty demoralizing, but happy that you're back on the upswing.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>01:43</time>
<p>Yeah. I think there's always positives from it, though. I think it makes you realize just simple things that you do in life that you when you can't do them, how important those simple things are. But I can really empathize with patients more too. Not and and not just, oh, I've had, yeah, that side of problem, I know what side of pain feels like, or you've had heel pain, you know, that's like but just your your older patients that, you know, they come in and and sometimes they're a little bit slower.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>02:10</time>
<p>They've got to put their shoes on and sit and they go, oh my god, hurry up. Just and and how how useful exuberance sometimes, we can be we get annoyed with other people who are taking their time. And I think when you realize when you can have a simple injury that affects you, and you realize how slow you can be, and realize that when some people get a lot older, they have no choice. That is the it's not gonna get better. It's probably only gonna get worse.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>02:39</time>
<p>So overall, it's been a good thing for in life in general.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>02:42</time>
<p>I'm I'm glad to hear your your back feeling good, and I'm sure so the listeners are as well.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>02:47</time>
<p>Yeah. I'm a better human being now, Jim. No. I know you're thinking.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>02:51</time>
<p>Was that even possible? Impossible.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>02:54</time>
<p>Yeah. How could that be possible that you could be a better human being? But yes, it it is possible. Somehow. Somehow.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>03:01</time>
<p>And I know there's people listening to this, they just go, oh my god. Why do we listen to this guy each week? Because of Jim. That's why that's why you listen. So should we should we get on to today's topic?</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>03:12</time>
<p>Yeah. What are gonna jump into today?</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>03:14</time>
<p>I I think this one was this is something that it was an idea that popped in my head a few days ago. And what it was, I actually started, like, drawing a diagram about it that no one would understand what that diagram was even if you're watching the video. And it was just a thought that popped in my head, and I was looking at the difference between external marketing and internal marketing. And basically, external versus internal, and how we probably should be using them properly. And I sometimes, I don't think people are using external internal marketing the right way.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>03:48</time>
<p>And because of that confusion, they're not getting the most value out of the money that they're spending in their marketing.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>03:54</time>
<p>No. That's definitely a big issue these days. I'm curious to kind of hear hear the points you wanna bring up and so yeah. Let's just dive into it here.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>04:03</time>
<p>Okay. Well, I reckon most podiatrists, they're marketing the wrong thing at the wrong time, and they're marketing the the sort of marketing treatments they provide instead of problems that they actually solve. And and I think that's where sometimes they might go, oh, I've been doing my marketing, it doesn't work. And I always get annoyed when some people say, I've tried this and it didn't work. And I go, just because you did something that's worked for 99,000,000 other people it didn't work for you, it doesn't mean that it's wrong.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>04:31</time>
<p>It might be just you're making a mistake. And that's why I thought this could be the problem. So today's episode is about using external marketing to market problems and internal marketing to basically to educate about the different solutions that are available. So external marketing is used a lot to attract patients, whereas internal marketing is used to convert patients. Once they're already in your in your clinic, you can then explain and educate the different treatments that are available.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>05:02</time>
<p>And patients, they wake up in the morning thinking about their problems. They don't wake up in the morning thinking about treatments, whereas clinics clinicians often, yeah, they're thinking about the different treatments that they offer, and that's where the disconnect can be. So I don't think anyone gets out of bed in the morning, and when their heels hurt and goes, I wonder who does shockwave therapy. I think they get out of bed and go, why does my heels hurt? And that's the that's what they're basically searching for.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>05:27</time>
<p>I think that's a great a great point, and I see that mistake sometimes made on on web pages or on websites for a clinic where where it's all about the different modalities. And to be honest, like you said, patients don't know what those things are. Sometimes the words could be kind of scary like shock wave.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>05:41</time>
<p>We have mentioned that.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>05:42</time>
<p>So but they they they know that they have a heel that hurts, so they know they have a toe that hurts, but you know, they can't find copy on your website that kinda describes their problem. If they don't see what they, you know, are dealing with on your website, they're gonna go to a different one. So I think it's important that, you know, whatever copy, whatever pages are built are kind of in that patient language.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>06:01</time>
<p>Yeah. And to get to give a real world example, let's talk about, say, heel pain versus, say, shockwave therapy. In external ad, you might say shockwave therapy is available. And most people will see that and just ignore it. Or as we've mentioned before, Jim, when you're talking about shockwave therapy, it can sometimes sound scary.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>06:21</time>
<p>You and I know exactly what shockwave therapy means. And you have a pretty picture there with someone with the the shockwave thing on their foot and the patient's smiling because it it doesn't there's no discomfort whatsoever. But to the patient, when they hear shockwave therapy, unless there's a photo that really explains it, they're picturing, said it on a recent episode, Jack Nicholson and one flew over the cookie's nest with a bite in his mouth and the electrodes on his head. So you gotta be you gotta be aware of that. An external ad though, whereas if you had yeah.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>06:52</time>
<p>Do you have heel pain when you get out of bed in the mornings, you know, or after sitting for a while? That is instantly relatable to a patient. It gets attention. Then once they're in your clinic, then you can explain shockwave therapy. And and I mentioned ages ago when I had actually made this mistake.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>07:11</time>
<p>I had an ad that says, attention, people with heel and arch pain. And it went through all this stuff in there. This ad just kicked ass time after time after time of using it. Then when we got a Shockwave, we went, oh, let's have a bit of a break from this ad that is making us a fortune in bringing in so many patients. Let's drop that and let's talk about this new shockwave equipment we've got that nobody in Cairns has and nobody even knows what it is.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>07:37</time>
<p>So let's let's do let's put all their marketing into that. So we did that over about eight week period. And I just watched my numbers just drop and plummet. Yes. There were a few people that came in because of that ad, but the proportion the the percentage of people came in were probably ten or twenty percent of the people that were getting from heel pain.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>07:56</time>
<p>So very quickly, that was my lesson learned. I went straight back to always marketing the problem, not the actual solution. That's good</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>08:06</time>
<p>you had those kind of analytics and you were measuring to see what was happening there because definitely, if you were asleep at the wheel, that could have been pretty catastrophic. But glad you were able to course correct before it became too much of an issue.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>08:17</time>
<p>Yeah. Well, yeah. I think my accountant, everyone that worked for me was happier too because the money kept money then started coming back in again. But there's this thing called the the five second rule. And pretty much, when somebody sees any form of marketing you do online or offline, they they only have a you only have about five seconds to actually grab their attention.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>08:37</time>
<p>And if you miss it, that opportunity could be completely gone. Therefore, external marketing should not be used to try and educate people. It should be used for recognition because your goal is you you want the patient thinking when they see your marketing thinking, oh, that's me, and and have them taking action pretty much straight away.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>08:58</time>
<p>Yeah. I think that's a great point. You only have a short amount of time to really get them into understanding what you provide and that if they're kind of that target person right by, like you said, just kind of yell yelling out to them in in a way to to grab grab their attention either be it visually or, you know, if you're doing radio, maybe through audio.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>09:17</time>
<p>Yeah. So the the common mistake is clinics advertising shockwave or say for example, laser therapy. Instead of advertising heel pain and ingrown toenails. Things that people are commonly having those problems with and coming depending on the type of clinic you have, I suppose. If you lead with the treatment, a big chance that you're actually gonna lose them.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>09:40</time>
<p>So and as a side note, I just wanna point this out to people. Even though with shockwave, laser therapy, all these different treatment options you have, you should have blog articles written about these, and they should be on your website. There should be sections where this information is because you still will have the odd person who they might be at a friend's place on the weekend and the person says, oh, I had heel pain and I saw the podiatrist and they did shockwave. Oh, what's shockwave? They're talking about it, then later on, the person's going, oh, I wanna know a little bit more about shockwave.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>10:10</time>
<p>So then they start searching for it. So there will be a percentage of people who are I've heard about shockwave and wanna know more. Laser therapy, some of the other treatment options that you offer. So you need to have that information on your website. You really need to have some good articles.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>10:23</time>
<p>You can have multiple articles on it. So I'm not saying don't because even that is still part of your your marketing. But once again, what you're putting on your website because if anyone knows the six or seven pillars of marketing that I use, things like that, that that is your internal marketing. It is still put up internal, but it's also part of your online marketing.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>10:40</time>
<p>I think it's it's all about the sequence. Right? You gotta catch on with something that's gonna get their attention, and then you have to have those resources available on the website. So it's it's kinda like what do you put out in front of the patient to start off with, but still having that backup resource is a is a huge opportunity for the clinic.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>10:56</time>
<p>Yeah. So simple rule that I think everyone needs to remember right now if they take nothing else away from this episode is if your external marketing at the moment mentions a treatment before the problem, then you need to rewrite it. So you can have a a thing that says, you know, do you have heel pain when you get out of bed in the morning? You might talk a little bit about it, and then you might mention some of the treatment in that ad that you're doing, but don't don't actually start with it. And how this all works together is external marketing basically grabs the attention.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>11:27</time>
<p>It gets the patient in having them thinking, yes. Yeah. That that's deaf that is definitely me. Then they have the consultation. And this is where they they build understanding about the problem.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>11:38</time>
<p>They get a bit of education. They start to trust the podiatrist a little bit more. And then internal marketing drives the treatment decisions and what they're going to say yes to, whether it's shockwave, whether it's laser therapy, that is part of that conversation that you're having with the patient.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>11:54</time>
<p>Absolutely. I think that's what we talked about just a second ago, that the sequencing is super important, right? You have to get attention, build trust, and kind of show them what the options are. And then, yeah, just kind of driving the treatment decisions. Obviously, what's gonna be best for the patient, but then you know, what options do you have as far as trying to get them better at different rates or at different opportunities for for the patient?</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>12:17</time>
<p>Definitely, 100%. And here's a really simple analogy that came up with. If you look at a restaurant, external marketing might have a a frame sign at the front and it says, best pizza in town. And you're walking past and you go, oh, I could I could really handle a pizza right now. And they've got the best pizza in town.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>12:38</time>
<p>So we don't know this town real. Let's go in there. So that's the external marketing. That is fantastic. That's what got you in.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>12:44</time>
<p>The internal marketing is the rest of the menu, and it's also the waiter that is actually serving you. That waiter is gonna explain other options. Then there's usually good pizza places will have a pizza special that particular night. So it might be upgraded slightly or the waiter might be going, have you thought about adding this to the pizza? And you go, oh, pineapple on a pizza?</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>13:07</time>
<p>Who would have thought? No. Thank you. Yeah. We had this discussion the other night.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>13:13</time>
<p>And what's funny is as I've gotten older, when I was younger, the last like, fifty eight years of my life, I was always anti pineapple on a pizza. As I've gotten older, for some reason, that little bit of sweetness, I don't know what it is. It's just got me anyway, back to the pizza analogy. But the way they recommend other dishes because you might go, oh, actually, that sounds really good. But what they're doing over a period of time, they're increasing the order value.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>13:38</time>
<p>You're not just walking and getting a $20 pizza. They'll be saying, oh, with that particular pizza, I know you're thinking about having a Coke Zero, but what's the point of having a Coke Zero while you're having a pizza? You should have this type of margarita. It goes absolutely fantastic with it. You go, oh, yeah?</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>13:55</time>
<p>We're not driving here. Yeah. I will have a margarita. And if you like it, you might have a second margarita. So something that was $20, they can upsell that quite easily.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>14:03</time>
<p>But that's where the internal marketing came from. If they just had a sign at the front that said, hey, we've got we've got great margaritas that go with pizzas. And you're walking past and you see that. Is that gonna straight away? That is completely different sign.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>14:17</time>
<p>It's just saying we have the best pizzas in town.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>14:20</time>
<p>Absolutely. I think that's a great process and kind of a great example to kinda show the differences and kinda how people can make a big difference in in the process.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>14:29</time>
<p>Yeah. And so what you're think about is how does this actually affect your business? So external marketing improves your patient numbers, and it gets people into your clinic that have specific problems that you're searching for. Now, this is really important as well. It's always just make sure you're only ever marketing what you want more of.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>14:52</time>
<p>So if you don't want more ingrown toenails, then don't do any marketing for ingrown toenails. It's really that simple. If you don't want more diabetic patients, don't mention any of those sort of things. Just talk about what it is you want more of. External marketing improves your patient numbers.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>15:09</time>
<p>Internal marketing improves the type of treatment that you're offering, the the treatment acceptance, the patient outcome, also the revenue that you generate per patient, but also the long term retention. Because if a patient can see that you're you're not just a one trick pony. You come in, you have this problem, you get orthotics, which what it used to be thirty years ago. That was all we had. An ultrasound, If you're a really flash.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>15:37</time>
<p>And but now, there's all these different treatment options. So you can make these all available and orthotics will still still be part of the treatment if if that's what's best. But most clinics focus too much on just getting the patients and not enough time on what happens once they arrive. And if you can think about, okay, we we need to get more patients. But if that's all you're thinking about, you're missing a big opportunity.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>15:59</time>
<p>When we get those patients, what is the treatment journey through our clinic? What are the things we're going to offer? And if you can tap into that and and put a bit of time and attention to it, that is actually gold for your business.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>16:11</time>
<p>Absolutely. I think the in clinic experience both with the the way things look to how professional the staff is, how how welcome and how welcome the patient feels in the practice just kinda sets you up for success in the treatment room. So I definitely totally get with where you're going there, and I and totally agree with kind of that direction.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>16:30</time>
<p>And like I say, Jim, I've got a bit more to talk about here, but this has been one of my favorite episodes. Out of the 230 something episodes we've done, this has been one of my favorite episodes. I think it's just because it's a topic that I know the people listening to this. If you can nail it, it will make such a big difference to your practice. But anyway, here's a few practical takeaways.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>16:52</time>
<p>First one, review your website homepage. Does it talk about problems or treatments? And this is what you said really early on, Jim, when you've gone to websites, and all they're doing is talking about different treatments, not talking about the problems that people are actually searching for. So need a little help with your website. Go and talk to Jim, please.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>17:10</time>
<p>Can they reach you, Jim? Absolutely. Give yourself a plug now.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>17:12</time>
<p>Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Can just email me, jim@podiatrygrowth.com. I'm happy to to help out and provide some feedback.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>17:19</time>
<p>And if you need some done for you services, I'm there as well.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>17:21</time>
<p>So So review your current ads. Are they are they problem focused? Also, train your team. How well do they explain all the treatment options you've got? And you probably got KPIs on this.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>17:35</time>
<p>Are they offering treatment options for different types of patients and different problems, or have they got blinkers on because they may have worked somewhere else before and this is all they do and they're not actually thinking outside of it? So if your clinic has four or five different ways of treating a particular problem, make sure they're making the right treatments available to all your patients. And just improve on your internal marketing. So the brochures that you have within your clinic. If you have posters on clinic walls, just make sure they're actually talking about the different treatments that you're offering.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>18:09</time>
<p>The chairside conversations, this comes back to your team. But also email blasts in your newsletter. So your your newsletter is one of the best internal marketing things that you can use. So you've got all these patients that come in for different problems. You may have already had treatment with them.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>18:25</time>
<p>You may have solved all their problems doing certain things. And then all of a sudden, you introduce Shockwave. Talk about Shockwave in your newsletter. Let everybody know that it's available because there'll be people that are reading it that all a sudden go, oh, shit. I might go back in and talk about it because I now have this other problem.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>18:43</time>
<p>Or they will start talking about it with other people.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>18:46</time>
<p>One of those things where people come in for one problem but don't know that you do those five to 10 other different things. So it's a great way to educate the masses by having an educational and helpful newsletter for sure.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>18:56</time>
<p>Yeah. So closing few closing thoughts here is marketing isn't just about getting patients. It's about guiding them to the right treatment. External marketing gets the attention. That's pretty much why you're doing it.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>19:11</time>
<p>Internal marketing builds trust by offering various solutions, but both are essential. Your internal or your external and internal marketing must work together. I know there's a lot of clinics that will spend a lot of money on external marketing, and they give internal marketing very little thought. Then there's other people that all they do is internal marketing with the people they've already got, which is, I think, is extremely important. But they don't put enough thought into the external marketing, or they'll be the ones who say, external marketing doesn't work.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>19:42</time>
<p>I've tried that. And it doesn't work in my area. My demographics are different. They can't afford that type of treatment. But so if this has made you rethink your marketing, it might be time to take a closer look at, yeah, your whole marketing strategy.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>19:58</time>
<p>And that's exactly what I help podiatrists do. So if you wanna talk, head over to tysonfranklin.com and reach out. But if you think you've got it sorted, but you might need help with it could be like your Google Ads or what you're actually saying in your Google Ads, once again, reach out to reach out to Jim. So do wanna give yourself a plug again, Jim?</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>20:17</time>
<p>Yeah. They can just go to podiatrygrowth.com. You know, there's that free practice visibility scan that we have or</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>20:23</time>
<p>Oh, yeah.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>20:23</time>
<p>You go to podiatry.market and they they can get that practice visibility scorecard, and it's a free thing that we offer all listeners, anyone that's even not a listener, you send them the link, happy to kinda provide that helpful information and give you a baseline as far as how you're visible locally and maybe some demographics area that you could maybe, you know, find where your best patients are at and really kind of double down on that that ability to be seen and do more of the care you wanna do. So</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>20:47</time>
<p>Yeah. And that's on the podiatry.marketing website?</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>20:50</time>
<p>Yep. It's just there at the top. They go check it out there.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>20:52</time>
<p>Okay. Well, Jim, that's all I want to say on this particular topic. I think we've covered it all. Anything you wanna say before we wrap up?</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>20:59</time>
<p>No. I think it's been a great topic. It actually is kinda leading into what we're gonna talk about next week. So I'm excited to to expand on some of the the themes and the ideas you had here on on on my turn next week. So no, it was a great great podcast, Tyson, and looking forward to talk to you the next one.</p>
<cite>Tyson E. Franklin:</cite>
<time>21:14</time>
<p>Okay. See you next week. Bye.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>21:15</time>
<p>Alright. Bye now.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>21:17</time>
<p>Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim Mcdonald. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing. Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDonnell. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing.</p>
<cite>Jim McDannald, DPM:</cite>
<time>22:27</time>
<p>That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.</p>