How Podiatrists Can Adapt to Direct-to-Patient Marketing

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 back to this week's episode of podiatry marketing. With me is my cohost and friend, Big Jim Mac. How are doing today, Jim?

Doing great, Tyson. How about yourself?

I'm good. I learned an interesting fact from you before I pressed record. If you're ever chased by a bear, run diagonally. I keep changing things.

You've got me like second guessing it. Maybe it's that the crocodile alligator thing. So I'll have to look it up once we get off the podcast.

I know. Like, so I said, yeah. I know crocodiles. If you run a straight line, they'll they'll nail you because they actually got a bit of bit of speed when they get up and go on those legs. But if you bang yeah.

If you change angles suddenly, then they they can't change angles as well. So you reckon you made the bear thing up then?

I don't know. You had me second guessing. So have to definitely Google it once we get off this off this recording.

That is so funny. I'm gonna I'm gonna check it out too. And then next week, we'll let you know the real answer. For sure. Okay.

So what are we talking about today other than outrunning bears?

Yeah. So we're gonna talk about something a little less dangerous than bears or alligators or crocodiles, but no no less controversial, I think, these days. We're gonna talk about how podiatrists can adapt to direct to patient marketing. So as as some podiatrists are aware, there's there's at least one maybe there's a couple more companies out there, primarily in The US that, you know, no longer kind of markets towards I mean, they might market a little bit towards podiatrists and to foot and ankle surgeons, but they're really trying to go the kind of direct to patient marketing route. And this the the biggest example of this, there was a TV commercial during the finale of The Bachelor about bunion surgery and made by a hardware company.

This hardware company is obviously, they're directly doing that by making television ads, you know, kind of marketing direct to the patient in that way. But also, they're really known for having almost their own directory of surgeons. So if someone types in like Bunyan Surgery Pittsburgh or Bunyan Surgery Los Angeles, you won't get a podiatrist, you won't get a clinic, you'll get this medical device maker's, basically website directory of foot and ankle surgeon to do their specific type of bunionectomy. So that's not to say that their procedure isn't great. It definitely is something that a lot of podiatrists use, but just the way they're going about their marketing, it's important that podiatrists kinda understand this kinda strategic pivot by the advertisements.

And, you know you know, we're so used to kind of direct to consumer stuff, but not so much in health care. So the the this topic is just to kind of be aware of, you know, what are some pros, what are some cons, and, you know, what are some ways to address this. Because I think, like we've talked about in the past, Tyson, sometimes podiatrists see other podiatrists as the competition.

Yeah.

And it should be more collaborative. We both agreed to that. But sometimes when a medical manufacturer jumps in and starts, you know, marking directly to patient, it kinda cause some different issues that podiatrists should be aware of.

So so what you're saying because I don't think that's happened here in Australia is you've got a company that's made product x, And so instead of them marketing the podiatrist to say, hey. You should all use product x. They're going straight to the public and going, if you need this procedure done, product x is what you need to have used, and this is a list of the podiatrists that actually use it.

Yeah. So it's a surgical technique I think it's very their own their own kind of surgical hardware screws and plates and those things. Yeah. It's got its own kind of trade name. So they're pushing this very specific type of bunionectomy to the public.

So

yeah. So what's your opinion on it? Do you

think it's a

good idea or a bad idea? Like, I can see I I can see the positives with the company making patients aware that they can get this procedure done, but I can also see the negatives where just because these podiatrists are using it doesn't mean they may be the best podiatrist at that procedure.

Yeah. Would definitely say that you know old school podiatrists are kind of you know kind of getting their feathers ruffled and definitely upset about it. I think it's it's pretty clever to kind of go down this road. But, you know, marketing in The US and those things in business, you know, there there's there's there's trade offs to some of these things, and I'll kinda go into the the pros and cons of them. So, you know, some of the pros and con you know, some of the pros initially are, you know, it does definitely increase awareness of, you know, bunions in general when

Yeah.

You have a manufacturer talking about it and, you know, spending millions of dollars or hundreds of thousand dollars on advertisements. It definitely brings a broader audience to be to know more about certain podiatry issues, in this example bunions, and that it is diagnosis that does have certain treatments. So it can encourage people in general to seek, you know, a doctor's appointment to get educated about it and to seek professional advice, you know, and otherwise, they might have just thought that, like, that was something that they totally had to live with no matter what their pain level. So in that way, some general patient awareness is not necessarily a bad thing.

Yeah. No. It's just when you mentioned before about, yeah, advertising on TV in America. It's one of the most entertaining things as an Australian to go to America other than visiting a a shopping center or grocery store. They are always entertaining.

Just watching your TV, watching the ads that come on, the amount. It's like 50% of the ads are all medical and pharmaceutical procedures.

Yeah. And 80% of those commercials are the, like, fast reading complications or side effects of said drug.

Yeah. They'll go, oh, I have this. And by the end, it causes anal bleeding, does this, causes diarrhea, makes it makes you vomit every every four hours. Right? And you go, why would anyone take that drug?

It is incredible.

Yeah. They're they're pretty some of those commercials are pretty wild. Yeah. So the next, you know, kind of pro I would say is that it does expand the patient base. You know, if someone doesn't know that, you know, they had a bunion or the treatment was available, you know, by kind of doing the direct to patient marketing, it definitely raises awareness about bunions or other foot and ankle problems.

So that can be a positive. And last but not least, there is some kind of enhanced brand recognition, would say, meaning that podiatrists are more aware that they're actually, patients are more aware that there are podiatrists out there to take care of their problems. Wasn't one single podiatrist that was kind of talked about in that advertisement. Obviously, when the they do have the website that has their kind of preferred podiatrist that do their kind of specific procedure with their hardware.

Yeah.

But like I said, it does kind of raise brand recognition for podiatrists when it's mentioned in the advertisement that they are experts. So sometimes I think podiatrists, especially in The US, there's so many other people that try to take care of foot and ankle that you know you need to kind of brand yourself as that foot and ankle expert and by kind of directly marketing to patients in this way it does help kind of the name recognition of podiatrists and you know foot and ankle surgeons specifically. So that there can be some some marginal benefit from that.

Yeah. I can see there's a big positive because if they're saying product x and you see this list of podiatrists to get the get this procedure done, let's say it's a bunion procedure, they're not talking saying, oh, you can get it done at this orthopedic surgeon clinic as well. So that does it does promote podiatry a lot.

It can for sure.

So did you say earlier on though that some of the older podiatrists aren't happy with this?

Well, I think people prefer you know, the old way of marketing, you know, is to kinda go talk to the doctors, right? Yeah. Like, basically, if you have a medical medical equipment or surgical equipment, you go to that talk to the doctors, you show them why it's kind of more technically superior or why it's a it helps increase healing times or you were talking to the person actually doing that procedure who's gonna have to then talk to the patient about it. This kind of doesn't end around. It kind of bypasses that doctor.

I think, you know, the the these groups are the some of the main the medic medical equipment manufacturers will obviously have relations with the doctors, but it definitely changes that kind of it kinda adds another person into the physician. And we'll get this as far as the cons go, but kinda adds another person to the kind of physician patient relationship about where they're getting their information from.

That actually makes a lot of sense because like I said, the guys who there might be three or four companies that make different products for that particular procedure. They'd rather have the patient come into them and say, this is what I think based on what I've seen on my experience. Not you've seen someone do a really great marketing campaign, and now you think that's the best one for you, but it may not be.

Well, that's where I get to here in the cons. It's a perfect segue as far as why this is not the best thing. Know, why what are some of the cons of direct to consumer marketing for podiatrists? So number one is, you know, the risks of misinformation. I will say that while the they did mention a little bit as far as the risks and potential complications of a bunionectomy and the specific type of bunionectomy you have to do with their type of surgical hardware is usually it does require some portion of non weight bearing.

And in a thirty second or a sixty second spot, you can't really get into all the risks associated with foot and ankle surgery. So when you're getting advertised this kind of solution for a problem, there's a whole area that's kind of being left unsaid. You know, it it kind of risks for misinformation or for someone to have kind of unreasonable expectations after watching a thirty or sixty second advertising spot. So, you know, when you simplify the messages, it can really like, these unrealistic expectations and even outcomes and recovery times can kind of fall by the wayside. Right?

So that's one kind of con of, you know, kind of going direct to the the consumers that you don't have enough time to really explain the risk and potential complexities of this type of procedure.

And is that why they run through the warnings at the end?

Well, they could run through

the and they're so fast because it's just they say them that quick because, okay, we've warned them, but the person doesn't really hear that ending. They're only seeing the the shiny marketing side of things.

Well, but yeah, the shiny like, here's the awesome result is gonna be slow and kinda show you in a way that is positive and they're gonna rush the last five or seven seconds of the commercial with some of the potential complexities or complications you can associate with any kind of procedure. So it is a it's definitely a tricky tricky thing.

And then I suppose it also comes down to as long as they're not lying, they can get away with it. But then if one company does it, another company will start doing it as well, and they're gonna try and out market each other.

No. It gets really tricky. Like you said, when one's doing it, the problem is that now you have kind of an increased demand for very specific treatments. Right? You know, like I said, this the one treatment that is, you know, put out there is kind of a trademarked name for something.

Right? So you're gonna get patients coming to you either in your clinic or maybe on a phone call like, you do x y z procedure? And you don't you haven't even looked at the patient yet. Right? Like, maybe they have like maybe they have great toe joint arthritis.

Maybe they have some soft tissue mass that looks like a bunion, maybe they have something else going on there. And you know when patients are being insistent that they have this very specific type of treatment that was advertised regardless of maybe there's something better out there for them, you know, can like I said, it can lead to tension and challenges in the doctor patient relationship before you even get someone into the practice. And if they come into the practice and you're having having to debate a patient about what the best procedure for them is after they've maybe bought into what they saw that either through the website or the television ad or the that kind of stuff about this very specific procedure can lead to a lot of issues potentially.

Yeah. I could see the confusion because, you know, as a consumer myself, I'll see something advertised, and I'll go, yep. That looks absolutely fantastic. Then if I went to somebody to go and buy that product or whatever it was, and the person I went to buy it from was then trying to sell me something else, I'd be confused. As a consumer or the patient, I would start getting confused.

The has the company lied to me to do the marketing, or is the podiatrist trying to get me to do something else that maybe they're gonna make more money from?

Yeah. It adds a lot of layers of complexity too. It's like sometimes, you know, maybe even the surgery center or the hospital where people do these procedures at, they've actually mean, they won't allow that one to be done. Right? And you're still doing a a great Oh, job in the bunion.

Yeah.

So there's a there's a lot of considerations when you're kinda advertising direct to the consumer.

So we have a company that markets product x, but the podiatrist might work in a hospital that does not use that. They've got a different relationship with somebody else.

Right. Or they won't allow it. There's like it can be a really messy situation. I'm not a I've kind of been out of that game for ten years or so when it comes to what you can bring into the hospital, what you can bring into a surgery center. But there is definitely purchasing departments and budgets and things that have to be considered when using different types of hardware surgically.

Yeah. This is definitely an American problem.

Yeah. We probably turned off all all The UK and Australian podiatrists have already moved on to the next podcast, but I think definitely a lot of US Podiatrists can understand some of these complications.

Oh, no. I think from from I like at the level you talk about on the surgical side of things, I think Australian podiatrists are like, god, that doesn't really relate to us. But recently, the amount of just products that I've seen for, hey, buy this thing and this will fix your heel pain. Yeah. Are you spending all this money seeing a podiatrist?

All you do is use this vibration thing and it's going to work. And these things are just popping up all the time. So I think podiatrists are are being faced with this, not just at a surgical level, but at all levels of companies promoting products. And then a lot of times, they'll just say, and it's being designed by a podiatrist, so therefore it must work.

Well, like you said, there's there's kind of some pressure that's kind of being put on some of these medical practices. I think the the best example of that is that, you know, if if the if this company has a website, this directory of the people that are doing this very specific type of procedure and it's ranking number one or number two with for very specific search terms and they're willing to spend thousands of dollars on Google search ads or things to get that ranking really, really high, know, some podiatrists might feel compelled to offer or promote that procedure just because there's kind of patient demand that's being influenced by this advertising rather than they're making decisions based off of that and maybe what they've been trained to do best. Or I think most podiatrists out there are ethical, and they can do what's right for the patient. But if you're getting a decreased amount of surgical cases coming to you because of all this competition from a million dollar, multimillion dollar medical device person who's advertising against you in a way, it can really affect sustainability of your practice and put you in a tough spot because you want to provide.

We take an oath as physicians of the foot and ankle to do no harm and to do the best by our patients. And it is one of those things where these, and this way sometimes it feels a little bit in conflict if you're not, if someone's kind of in and rounding you and usurping that physician patient relationship and kind of putting you in a tough spot. But I think there's different ways to approach it and kind of things to consider that we'll get back into the kind of the next section.

Have you noticed this happening more often in in America or has it just sort of started when it comes to

No. I mean, a couple for for a couple of years, I've run into issues when I'm not issues, but like, they've been competition in search results for quite some time in certain major metropolitan areas. When you're searching for foot and ankle surgeon or bunion podi bunion podiatrist or bunion surgeon, you're gonna these these device manufacturers are going to crop up into the search. And most like I've talked about in the past, most podiatrists are going to spend somewhere between maybe $1,000 to $2,000 a month in ads, and that's probably good. But if you have if you're making so much more money off of these procedures, like these medical advice companies are, you can spend 5 or $10,000 in that local area and then send them to your directory where people are gonna see that doctor x y z does this type of procedure.

So, there's a bit of competition with your marketing when you're kind of going when you're in an area that has these types of ads or these kind of surgeon directories that are kind of being led directly to kind of their surgeon partners, if you will.

Okay. Are there any other cons?

Those are the three cons.

Yeah. What's the solution? You got one?

Yeah. So some of the so some of the solutions are number one, like no one patient education and kind of getting out there know, to kinda counteract some of this misinformation. Podiatrists really focus on creating and disseminating comprehensive educational content both on their websites and, you know, by by doing marketing. Yeah. It's going to help potential patients kind of understand all aspects of the proposed treatments.

Like I said, when you have a thirty second or a sixty second commercial, patients don't normally get themselves into. So it's important that not only when they come and see you in your clinic they understand risks benefits of undergoing things like a bunion surgery but you know if you have that kind of information visible on your website you know when it comes to the risks and benefits of these procedures it helps patients understand the kind of the totality of what it's like to get a bunion. You just can't explain it enough in a thirty or sixty second spot. You have to have information either during the clinic visit or even the lead up to the clinic visit of what the totality of the procedure includes.

So what else?

Also, it's really important that podiatry clinics kind of diversify the channels where they're at. Like I talked about previously, definitely website is a great way to get out more information there. But it's really crucial podiatrists to use a mix of marketing strategies. You know, online content through your website, community engagement is really really huge. Know so if you can get out and talk to different groups in your local area, to other people that are in front of your ideal patients.

And sometimes like talked about it's not always digital, sometimes it is traditional advertising. If you're going for seniors you want to make sure that you use a balanced approach that reaches the various patient groups that you want to treat. Sometimes like I said we've talked about this in previous podcasts but if you're just kind of a one channel person you're probably missing out on those other opportunities to help educate them about different ways of going about and treating bunions. Know someone that is more elderly or less weight bearing or this you know in a different stage of life maybe that this they saw you know they have time to watch TV, they're watching the bachelor final and that's really not a good good procedure for them. So you know having information kind of being disseminated in other channel besides the ones that you're kind of seeing competition with is a way to help educate these potential patients.

Yeah. I like you said too early on when you mentioned that it's up to the podiatrist to actually start marketing themselves. They can't just sit back, let these companies do all the marketing, and then they don't have a voice to to say your their opinion, whether they're it's on their website or it's part of Google Ads or whatever it is that they're actually doing, writing blog articles about it. But you said initially right at the beginning that this company was advertising on TV during The Bachelor. There's the problem right there.

It's everybody who watches The Bachelor. You gotta stop watching that. Do you know are they also doing it online as well? Are they doubling up or are they just targeting TV programs with them?

Me being in Canada, I'm probably not at like in their market. Right?

So Yeah.

If they're doing it, it's I would say it's probably on locations where they've already, you know, built some of these directory websites. I haven't had anyone like come to me and I haven't like done any research to see if they're doing it in any kind of US markets, whether it be YouTube advertising or other stuff, maybe they are. But I'm like me being in Canada means that I'm not gonna be targeted for these types of ads.

Okay. Yeah. I I assume they probably if they're doing it on TV, they're probably doing it on other channels as well, which is why podiatrists need to be more on more than one sort of channel as well.

For sure. The last thing I would say is, know, on this topic is that, you know, we all took the Hippocratic Oath in The US, we all, know, kind of in it to really give our patients the best possible care. So you know just continue to focus on ethical marketing right. So the central predict for podiatrists to you know always put the patient first you know do what's right by the patient and you won't go wrong and know it's really important to have you know a informed consent you know this not just kind of like you talked about the five or six seconds they talk about the complications you really need to make sure that when you and patients, most podiatrists that are listening to this understand that, but you need to let them know what the benefits and what the potential risks are of procedure. Just being very blunt and honest about those things in a caring way is going to give them more reasonable expectations.

Know, if they just go by what they see on TV, they're going to be, you know, oh, I didn't didn't know that all this stuff was involved. I didn't know infection was a risk. I didn't realize that, you know, I had to be non weight bearing or protected weight bearing for this many weeks. So it's really, really important that you approach to help maintain the integrity of podiatry in the medical profession and really protect the patient's best interest because at the end of the day that's what's really most important. I'd say by understanding and integrating these considerations into your marketing strategies, podiatrists are going to be better able to navigate the challenges posed by the direct to consumer approach.

Like I said, I don't think it's all bad. It definitely gives some visibility to the foot and ankle and to podiatrists. But it is one of those things where if the the the surgical hardware company is, like, driving the message home, they can't really provide the level of complexity and information that patients need to kind of convey to potential patients about the kind of high quality and patient centered care that's that's really really important because if they get half the picture that it's all you know roses and sunshine and someone gets the first time someone gets an infection it's gonna be it's gonna be bad it's gonna be a bad day for the clinic but but most importantly bad day for the patient because they didn't have those reasonable expectations and risks explained to them. So I would say that like I talked about it's not necessarily the podiatrist that's the competition. Be aware of other people kind of marketing to your patients and make sure that you're being proactive in marketing ways that help you know, provide excellent care to the patients in your local area.

Yeah. And like I said, yeah, this seems to be an American problem at the moment, not so much in Australia. But whatever happens in America usually happens everywhere else eventually. So it may not be a company with a surgical product for a procedure, but there's gonna be more and more companies. Like I said, I've seen some online already, and I think this is gonna happen more often.

So I think it's really important for podiatrists to educate their patients. Make them smart. If you've smart patients, they'll make smart decisions. And, like you said, always just do what's the best thing for the patient, not what's gonna make you the most money, what's the best thing for the patient, and I think you can go wrong.

Absolutely.

Okay, Big Jim. Anything else you wanna say before we wrap up?

No. I think that's good.

Okay. I look forward to talking to you again next week. Sounds great. Okay. See you.

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