Five Simple Marketing Moves Every Podiatry Clinic Can Do Without Spending Money

Jim McDannald, DPM: 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. Joined as always by my trusty co host, Franklin. Tyson, how's it going today?

Tyson E. Franklin: I'm fantastic today, big Jim. So good to be on here, and I am really excited about this particular subject because it's another one. It's another title where I have a number in front of it. And I love

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah.

Tyson E. Franklin: I love adding numbers to things. Five tips, seven ideas. I find when you put something together and there's a number, there's an expectation that people are gonna get from a particular episode or something that they read. So do you wanna know what today's one is?

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. What's today's number? I'm curious.

Tyson E. Franklin: Today's number well, the number is five. But what it is is five simple marketing moves every podiatry clinic can do without spending money. There we go. That's the

Jim McDannald, DPM: There you go.

Tyson E. Franklin: There's the title. And, basically, what it's all about is most clinics don't have a marketing problem. Well, I don't think they do anyway. They have pretty much an awareness problem. So their their clinic is if they really stop and think about it, their clinic is a marketing gold mine, yet they treat it like it's a gravel pit.

I'm hoping that this episode is going to change your thinking on the way that they see the clinic day to day when they walk in there, walk around all day, just the amount of marketing that is in front of them. I think if they realize that and they tap into it, they'll never have any problems about having marketing ideas again.

Jim McDannald, DPM: No. I think it's a great point. You know, if if you see it as a gravel pit, you're gonna just you're you're not gonna see those opportunities. Right? It's it's just a gravel pit.

But I think sometimes when it's framed also as a way to build additional trust with patients or to like do more of the the work they love, then that can kind of maybe turn the frame and kind of change the frame a little bit for the way that people viewed marketing or kind of view as a means to an end to get the kind of clinic and the kind of, you know, work life balance they want.

Tyson E. Franklin: Mhmm. And the truth is most podiatrists don't wanna hear this is because it's just so simple. Because in podiatry, everything's gotta be complicated. That that's how we we earn a living. The more complicated it is, they feel that life has to be that way.

But you you the thing is, marketing is not like that. You don't need more marketing. You just you need to use what you already have. And I see a lot of clinics will they'll throw money at online ads or boosting posts, and they'll try all these different types of platforms while they completely ignore the most powerful marketing assets sitting pretty much right in front of them, which is, one, their patience. The other thing that's right in front of me is the conversations that they have every day with their patients.

Also, the positive results and outcomes they get with their patients, and also their own stories. The ones that they this is funny. The ones that they openly share with other podiatrists. I don't think I've ever been to a podiatry conference or I have not overheard podiatrists sharing all their war stories and the wins that they actually have with patients. And that information they're sharing with other people, that is absolute gold.

So in this episode, I'm gonna give everyone five simple marketing ideas that will cost nothing, but will also but if they do them consistently, will outperform, yeah, some, not all of their paid advertising.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. So I think there's good opportunities to kind of to to build that trust within the clinic.

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah. Well, the thing is what I'm gonna discuss, but these none of these things are gimmicks. They're not what's the latest hot trend or anything like that, which people tend to jump on. And definitely, guarantee you, you will not have to dance on TikTok. Oh my god.

I I remember when there was a bit of a craze when there was a lot of lot of podiatry clinics and all the staff, and they'd be in the reception areas, they're all doing all these things. And I'm yet to ever bump into a person in the street or just friends who go, hey. Let me tell you about the doctor that I'm gonna see next week. I saw them dancing on TikTok. Impressed me so much with their dance moves.

I thought, that's the clinic that I'm gonna go to. Instead, I'd hear other people just laughing about it. Anyway, so here's a simple framework that I reckon if people can follow this, and you also you always need a framework is basically the framework, there's three parts to capture it, package it, and then share it. So most podiatrists, they will do they do great work, and then they they move on to the next patient, and they just let all that great work and all those ideas and thoughts just disappear. Whereas smart podiatrists, they will capture their thoughts and ideas while they're fresh, while it's still fresh in their head.

And then they'll package those thoughts and ideas into various ways, and then they will actually share it. And this will make more sense in a second. As I go through the five really easy steps that aren't gimmicky, this will this will be totally clear with what people have gotta do.

Jim McDannald, DPM: No. That sounds great. What's what's step number one? I'm kinda curious to hear about that that that first marketing idea.

Tyson E. Franklin: Well, I tell you, when people hear these five steps, they're gonna go, oh my god, Tyson. I tuned into this episode. I thought this was gonna be like five amazing things. But if people go back to what the title of this is, it's five simple marketing moves. So these are very simple things that you're probably already doing that you need to tap into.

So the first one is turn patient questions into content. So the average podiatrist, they will ask patients what the problem is. And probably 10 times a week, maybe five times a day, they will be told exactly the same thing, and it just goes in one ear. Yeah. They write it down, but they don't actually give it any thought.

Whereas smart podiatrists, what they do instead is they'll write down those top 10 problems or answers to that initial question. So when they ask the patient, how can I help you today? What seems to be the problem? They make a mental note. They they notice repetition.

Ah, people are telling me the same thing all the time. Then they'll turn each of those problems or answers to that question, they'll they'll turn it into a blog post. They might shoot a a short video on it. They might do a social post, or they might do a little blog snippet, or from it, create some form of frequently asked questions because, obviously, these are the things that people are thinking about. So the key take takeaway from this first one, turn patient questions into content, if one patient asks a question, a 100 patients are probably thinking it.

If 10 patients tell you about their problem, there's probably hundreds of them with the same problem out there who are currently searching online for a solution.

Jim McDannald, DPM: No. I think that's a perfect example. People are are searching Google. They're searching LLMs for, you know, solutions to their problems in in very specific language. And if you can, you know, take that information you've gleaned from the patient and turn it into content, it can be a great great discovery tool and a great kind of pathway to their first and foremost, maybe your website or Google business profile, but then to your clinic.

So I think that's a that's a great point.

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah. So the the second tip is or the second of the five simple marketing moves is document, don't create. So this is where a lot of podiatrists will get stuck. They they'll think, I I need to create content. But the reality is they're they're living the content every single day.

They're just unaware of it. So an example would be you've just had a patient, so shoot a quick video after the consultation without actually giving any details about the patient. You've said to this patient, something really amazing has happened. It's fresh in your mind. Quickly grab your phone, hook it up on a tripod, and just share that information right there and then while while it's fresh.

You say, yeah, I just saw this interesting case today, and you can start talking about it. Or if you don't wanna do that, explain what you're doing behind the scenes in your clinic today. And this is the takeaway from this part, which is really simple. Your normal day is actually fascinating. Well, it may not be fascinating to you, but for other people, it actually will be fascinating.

And I remember we we would shoot a video of I might have been grinding a planet groove into an orthotic. And I'd say to some, hey. Just grab your phone and record me doing this. And I'd record it, and then I'd do a voice over over the top of it later. And the amount of patients I saw them were, wow, that was really cool.

I didn't know that's how you actually got that shape into the top of an orthotic.

Jim McDannald, DPM: That's in the way of kind of delivering, kind of broadcasting your expertise to people. Right? Like, we kind of get used to our environment, to our clinic, we used to get used to the things we do. But like you said, people that, you know, see us for an ingrown toenail didn't know that we did an orthotic or people that we did surgery on doesn't don't know we do certain things. So when you kinda show some of that behind the scenes, it really helps expand people's minds about what you do because what maybe is not always feeling like what's interesting to us could be very interesting to other people.

Tyson E. Franklin: Well, we were on a cruise a couple of years ago, and we were talking to this young girl who was an optometrist. And while we're talking to her, I said, I I thought about optometry, but it seemed a little boring. I didn't think I could sit in a room all day going, is that better or is that better? Is that clear? Can you read the second line?

Is that better or is that better? And she went, ugh. She went, everybody thinks that's all we do. And then she started explaining to me other things that optometrists do and other things that they diagnose and some of other treatments they perform and removing things from people's eyes. When she started getting into it and you could see how passionate she was, even my wife said, I didn't realize optometry was so interesting because we we don't actually see that.

And, unfortunately, optometrists don't share this to the world either. So we all think it's just them sitting in a in a dark room flicking flicking different lenses in front of people's eyes. Isn't that what you would have thought, Jim?

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. That's whenever I've gone to optometrist, that's what that's what what happens to me. So so, yeah, like, you don't know. You don't know what you don't know.

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah. Or but then they have their assistants that do, know, the eye pressure test, and and they'll test a couple of other things. And the optometrist, I was obviously looking at that. But when she explained all the other things they did in her clinic, I was just blown away. And that made made me think, do you share that with people?

Because if you shared that with people, I think one optometry would look more more, yeah, interesting. But there's probably a lot of patients that have other problems who don't go to an optometrist. They just go to their general practitioner because they're unaware that

Jim McDannald, DPM: they do it. Absolutely. Like you talked about, that's an education piece, letting them know all the things that you do in your in your clinic and your practice.

Tyson E. Franklin: So number three is use your front desk as a marketing machine. Your your reception or your receptionist, front desk people, they are usually massively underutilized. And and a few simple ideas all front desk people should be doing if they're not already doing it. So, of course, you should be saying, yeah, how did you hear about us? And you should make sure that you're actually tracking this.

You're recording it somewhere, not just in the patient file, but it needs to go on some form of dashboard so you can see trends. We can't get into that now. But dig deeper if if teach them to dig deeper if they have time. So if a patient said, oh, I I found you online, or it was I saw you through Google. If they've got the time, there's nobody else in the receptionist, ask them.

So out of curiosity, what were you actually searching for? What what what what made you find us on Google? Because that is what that's where the real information comes from, where if you can sort of dig deeper into that information. I used to have my podiatrist actually asking patients this as well. And if you're the business owner and you're asking your receptionist to do this, never assume it's being done.

You must double check it's being done. This is all part of the education and and training and communication that you should be having with your team.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Absolutely. And I think it's one of those things where people sometimes like, oh, what was that one thing that led you to the clinic? But Yeah. There can be multiple touch points. Right?

So I think it's, you know, letting your staff know that you don't have to stop at one, but maybe they saw, you know, you can prompt them as a you know, maybe they said, oh, I searched Google. But like, had you seen if you know you've done a campaign on Instagram or Facebook, you could have your staff say, oh, did you have you happen to see us on Facebook or Instagram? Like, oh, actually I did see an ad. Or do you have a relative or a family friend or someone that recommended you to the clinic? Oh, that's right.

My my grandmother does come here. So like sometimes that you know, they call like last click or like last step attribution gets a lot of the love, right? So but there can be a lot of other touch points along that patient journey that's led them to this. So the more information you can gather, yeah sure that last point part part is really important because that's how they made the appointment. But you know, maybe it's a print ad, maybe it's a you sponsor their little, know, their their kids soccer team.

There can be a lot of reasons why people come in and see you, it may it's not just one thing.

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah. But I remember patients coming in, and they may have written Google, for example. But then when I said to them, same thing, like, tracking it back a little bit further, they go, oh, I drive past here every day, and I can't that new sign that you put up from the time you put I didn't know you were here, but when you put that sign that went around the corner, I see that every day when I'm driving past. So I just knew where you were. This is where I was gonna come, but then I just went to Google to actually get your number or find your address or look at your website.

So it is very worthwhile to dig deeper. The other thing at your front desk should be encouraging referrals. And just in conversation, saying to patients, Did you know that most of our patients come from word-of-mouth referrals? That may or may not be true, depending on your clinic. But you could say that, and the reason you're saying it, it helps develop this belief system with your patients.

Because if they haven't referred somebody to you already, but you've just told them a lot of your referrals come from word-of-mouth and they're like, geez. I haven't referred anyone. You're instilling that belief into them that, hey. I should be talking about this clinic more often. You can't lose, and it can't hurt you by doing it.

And they should also mention other services that you do. So you now it'd be weird if somebody came in for an ingrown toenail and the receptionist went, excuse me, but do you know we do orthotics? That would be really weird. But if the patient is a regular they've been in before, they may receive your newsletter if you have one. And you may have had an article in there about shockwave therapy.

While you've got them there and they might be coming in for nail surgery. And you can say, hey, Jim, out of curiosity, did you see the article on shockwave therapy that we do? And they'll always say, yes, they did or didn't. And then you may actually talk about that particular service even though they don't need it now, but at least now they're aware.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. The education part about all the stuff you do is is hugely important because you only have so much of their attention time, and the more you can make that apparent during the clinic visit, just really like yeah. It's it's it's so valuable.

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah. So the key takeaway from that is your best marketing isn't always online. It could be sitting at your front desk. And I tell you, if you get the right person at your front desk like, I had some absolute gems that were there. They were marketing machines.

And I tell you, you can't put a value on how important a really good front desk person is compared to someone who's just, yeah, dodgy. Not dodgy. That sounds terrible. But just not trained well. That is just going through the motions, answering the phone, making appointment, and then the brain switches off until the phone rings again.

Yeah. You want someone who's pretty dynamic at the front. Number four. Absolutely. So I'll move on to number four.

So before and after stories without being dodgy. So an example, you could tell a story about, oh, a patient came in unable to walk comfortably, yada yada yada. That's actually from Seinfeld, in case anyone was wondering. That's a reference. And six weeks later, they're back playing golf.

Now we're not talking about unethical transformations. What the idea for this is to tell stories that are real, and we've all got them. These are the stories, like I said before, that you share at podiatry conferences. Oh, I had this guy that hasn't been able to run for the last six months, and I did this. We did these exercises and rehab work, made these orthotics, changed his footwear, and he won the local marathon, yeah, three months later.

We've all got stories like that. And as long as you're not lying, it's I just think they're they're sort of information that it's right in front of you. So to do it properly, you really just need to focus on the outcomes, not any hype, and also make sure you really keep the patient's privacy. Yeah. Keep it private.

To where I mentioned before about the person won the local marathon, well, then you may not wanna mention that because if people know who won the local marathon so you gotta make sure you exclude anything that can really narrow down to who that patient could be, or you might get in trouble. So the key takeaway stories build trust faster than any statement or anything else that you do.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. A lot of people, like, talked about, you know, if they then I make the bio page for them. They went to this residency. They have this surgical training. They have this board certification.

And, you know, really, like, people connect more to stories. Right? So, like, people aren't looking at your bio. They don't care what you say about yourself. They care about what other people say about you.

So, yeah, hugely important to have these kind of will it be testimonials from others or just, you know, clear stories where you've helped someone else out from them could be pretty powerful in your marketing.

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah. But I still think it's just really important to make sure you don't give away any information that could pinpoint who the patient is. Absolutely. So the fifth thing is staying top of mind without being annoying. So most clinics simply forgot they're not deliberately rejected.

So I don't think a lot of patients will sort of go, oh, I'm never going back there again because I don't want to. They just forget you're there. So you've got you've got to stay top of mind. And and keep it really simple. Do you have a monthly email?

Nothing fancy. And I say, if you don't have a a monthly newsletter, I'm like, what the what are you doing? It is a it is a simple thing to put together. You should be doing it. It's a great way of staying in touch with your patients.

Short educational posts on social media. And the other thing too is wow posts are things that get shared. So if you read about something, could be footwear technology or just something that's medical related, and you read that and go, wow. That's absolutely fantastic. Share that information.

It may not even necessarily be podiatry related, but if you share it, your patients will see that and then they will share it. So they're the sort of posts that people love. And then quick check-in campaigns. If you've had patients that have had certain symptoms, send out something to them, whether it's an email or even a phone call, just say, hey. Just check-in.

How is everything going? That's how you stay top of mind with people. So and you want and the thing is whenever you're contacting patients, whether it's through a newsletter, email, or something else, is you wanna be seen as valuable. You're contacting them, and the reason that you're contacting them, it's adding value to them. It's not just more noise.

It's not just another email that is trying to flog something, and they go, oh, is it another one of the 150 I've got in my inbox today? And they're just going through and basically deleting it. But if they're not unsubscribing, then that's a good thing. So the takeaway is patients don't come back because you're good. They come back because they actually remember you.

Jim McDannald, DPM: It's hard to be remembered these days. There there is so much noise out there. Right? There's so many things competing for our attention. You know, a lot of marketing, you know, it's it's one of those things where how can people spend their time.

So even having a great subject line might be what you need, right? Saying you're a clinic and you treat a certain thing in the subject line to to let people know that you exist. Because like you said, it's not a lot of it's not people saying like, oh that they're terrible, never going back there. It's just there's so many options and people are busy. Mhmm.

So making sure you're making yourself improving that overall awareness of who you are and what you do is in the clinic and outside the clinic is super important.

Tyson E. Franklin: Well, I remember a great story. I don't know if it was in the eighties maybe. And Coca Cola, for example, they would dominate. They were it was a coker's life. It was their they were the number one soft drink.

That was so big that they thought they didn't need to spend as much on marketing anymore. So they didn't. They cut they really cut back to marketing because everybody loves Coke. That that was it. Then Pepsi came along.

And Pepsi did this massive marketing campaign, and Coke lost a huge market share of what they had. It's because they were just stopped being visible. People forgot about them. And I know right now, if Coca Cola never advertised anywhere, and I don't know who who on here drinks Coke or who doesn't, but if they just stopped advertising completely, if McDonald's stopped advertising completely, straight away, there'd be certain people we just forget they're there. You go to the next person that is sort of is reminding you.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Absolutely. It's something you got you got to be top of mind for people to know that you exist.

Tyson E. Franklin: So So these have been five really simple ideas. I'm just gonna you a quick review, or not a review of each one, but just a bit of an overview, is you don't need more ideas. You just need more awareness of what you already have. So pay attention to what you do each day. Don't don't just go day by day, patient by patient, and and stop paying attention to what's basically right in front of you.

The second thing is you need to develop a framework that is really easy to follow and get your team following this framework. Capture it, package it, and share it. Because, well, they always say simple scales and complicated fails. So if you've got systems on how you're gonna do things and it's overly complicated, no one will do it. But if you just know, capture it, package it, share it, that's that's your three steps.

Very, very simple to do. And the last thing is you don't need more money to implement any of the ideas that I have basically shared with you. Nothing. It's just a little bit of thought, bit of structure, have a few things actually set up. And so before I finish, before you spend another dollar on any form of marketing, ask yourself one question.

Have I fully used what's already happening inside my clinic every day? Because chances are you're sitting on a gold mine, and you're walking pretty much straight past it. Stop treating it like a gravel pit.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Sound advice.

Tyson E. Franklin: Every time I say gravel pit, you get to have a bit of a chuckle.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. I just think about gravel pits. I don't know. Like, something's funny about gravel pits.

Tyson E. Franklin: Oh, it's funny. When I was in The UK, we went on the world's fastest zip line, 190 kilometers an hour, a 118 miles per hour it was. And this was in Wales. But we also went to the top of the same mountain and drove go karts down the side of the cliff. And it was all slate.

That's why the gravel was sort of sticking in my head because they were you have gold mines and you have slate mines. And I know which one's more valuable.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. I think I think I'm also thinking of the scene in Groundhog Day when the Groundhog is driving Bill Murray. Maybe it's like a rock quarry, but I just think about a gravel pit during

Tyson E. Franklin: that scene.

Jim McDannald, DPM: That's right. Maybe that's why I'm laughing is that that Bill Murray

Tyson E. Franklin: Droves off

Jim McDannald, DPM: the Groundhog cliffs Day.

Tyson E. Franklin: He drives off the cliffs

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. Exactly.

Tyson E. Franklin: Doesn't he?

Jim McDannald, DPM: He does all kinds of stuff in in that movie. That's a great movie.

Tyson E. Franklin: That is a fantastic movie. Was it puck pucks or something Phil?

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. Punxsutawney. Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

Tyson E. Franklin: That's the town.

Don Pelto, DPM: Yeah. I've got that on my list

Tyson E. Franklin: of places I wanna visit one day. I wanna I wanna be there

Jim McDannald, DPM: There you go.

Tyson E. Franklin: To see Punxsutawney Phil coming out to see whether he sees whether it's gonna be a long winter or not. Yeah. It's a Okay, good Big Jim. That's all I wanted to say today. I hope somebody gets something out of that.

Even if you just pick one of those ideas and go, hey, this is what we're gonna do. Let's focus on this a little bit more. Like I said, the content is is right there. So just dive into it and stop turning a blind eye to what's right in front of you.

Jim McDannald, DPM: That sounds like great advice, Tyson. Thanks a lot for today.

Tyson E. Franklin: Okay, big Jim. I'll talk to you next week.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Alright. Sounds great. Okay.

Tyson E. Franklin: See you. Bye now.

Jim McDannald, DPM: 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.