Marketing Your Podiatry Clinic In A Mobile First World

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, Big Jim Mac. How are doing today, Jim?

Tyson, I'm doing fantastic. Things are good here in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. No complaints.

I'm looking forward to today's topic because it's something that I think everybody needs to be aware of, and I think there'd be a few podiatrists out there who who aren't paying attention to this particular aspect of the marketing. So tell us what the topic is.

Well, we're gonna be talking about something today that I think most people either, you know, carry in their pocket, have it in their purse.

A gun. He's basically talking We're talking guns, are we? Because you're American, sorry. Oh, that is That was wrong. I shouldn't have said that.

Do you own a gun?

Anyways. What's that?

Do you own a gun?

No. I live in Canada. Guns up here.

Yeah. We don't have them either. Anyway, sorry. Now, something we all carry in our pockets.

Something we all carry in our pockets, a mobile phone. So, you know, these days we live in a mobile first world and we kinda dig into what that means because I think there's a lot of people out there. If you're my age or Tyson's age, maybe you're younger, but most of us had kind of our first interaction with the Internet with a desktop computer. But things have changed over the last ten, fifteen years since the introduction of the iPhone. And it has a pretty interesting impacts on the way people, you know, try to get patients, you know, basically market their practice, how they can be, you know, seen and visualized by podiatry or patients for their podiatry clinic in their local area.

So there's some kind of interesting things we'll jump into today about that.

It's true, though. You think of your habits of when like you said, we we all all have it on us. It's with us all the time. We use it for payments everywhere you go now. And usually, when some how many times will you be with somebody?

Somebody will talk about a subject or topic of service, and the first thing we oh, I'll just Google it. You don't even ask your wife anymore because remember that shirt that had, I don't need Google. My wife knows everything. Now, no, Google knows more.

Well, Google knows a lot more. There's all these, like, chat AI systems now out there that can give you, like, full fully formed answers to all your questions. It's kinda creepy. But but, yeah, I think that's a huge thing. You know, like, my son and I this this past year were, you know, watching the World Cup on TV, and he's wondering where Morocco is, where Australia is, where Spain is.

And all you do is you pull out your phone and then all of a sudden you can say, hey, that's there. That's there. You know, it's it looks small on this map, but it's a long ways away. So they have really changed the way that people, you know, ask questions, get answers, you know, whether it be through text, voice, video conferencing. It's the way that people communicate these days.

And, you know, like, it it could be a bit of a paradigm shift or a change for people that, you know, came up in the nineties or the February because it is not that desktop computer anymore. Yeah. You can still, you know, pull up websites on the on your desktop. I work on my desktop a lot. I know you work on your laptop quite a bit, but, you know, when people are searching for things, that phone is always with them.

And one thing that that I've noticed is that the majority of the traffic that's coming to the clinic websites I work with is usually about, I would say, somewhere between 7080% of the traffic they get is on a mobile device. Not a tablet, not, you know, like a laptop, but an iPhone, an Android phone. And that's really, really important for a number of different reasons.

And it but it used to be two years ago, if you went to someone's website and you had it on your desktop or laptop, it looked great. You would never look up their website on your phone because it looked like a dog's breakfast. You couldn't see anything. It was you had to zoom in, see this went there's no way I'd ever do that. And which is why what people have to be aware of.

Now I think it's a perfect example. Not only was it, you know, it was basically just kinda like a business card for your webs for your clinic. Right? Like, just have contact information, a phone number. It wasn't very graphically interesting.

I also didn't load very fast back in the days. I remember when, you know, mobile internet was something where it would take minutes for a website to load. And it was a very frustrating user experience. But now, it's so fast on all these either through WiFi or through these different mobile networks. It can really load quickly.

So it's it's super important that, you know, since 80% up to 80% of the traffic to your clinic website is coming from mobile, is that you have a very user friendly mobile version of your website. It's probably more important than desktop version. And that's it's a bit of a a shift in mindset for people because we're so used to thinking, at least my generation is like website on desktop and then, yeah, you Google things and you look at websites. But that's really important to have that design where you're displaying not only your expertise, but a way to either make an appointment or call the clinic, which is super simple and super, you know, designed in a way that makes it easy for that person searching for who you are. So, you know, really implementing a mobile first design that connects with people and kinda converts into appointments and makes it simple for them is is super important these days.

So the mobile first design too would also apply to how people construct their if they're doing email newsletters.

No. That exactly. You wanna make sure that you have a a newsletter provider that does have a, you know because a lot of times as well, like you said, like on a desktop or a laptop is where you make them, that people consume them on their mobile phone. You'd make sure there's a way to assess what that mobile version of that email is gonna look like. Because you can have some massive image that doesn't scale down or there's certain ways that either you or your marketing team or your marketing provider works on that newsletter.

They need to make sure that, like you said, it's there's a mobile version of it that's readable. It's not in, like, teeny tiny font, but the font's not too big. You know, it it it has to be kind of that that right, you know, that that Goldilocks, you know, just right level for the images and the font in those those newsletters.

I think you gotta be really aware when people are whether it's your website or anything, how it actually looks on the mobile phone.

Yeah. Because of these kind of responsive websites. It's not like you initially have to build one website and then build a mobile website. Usually, there's these themes that people use to build websites, whether it be WordPress or other types of Squarespace, other types of website providers. But it has to be, you know, a reasonable looking, like you said, like, something that makes sense from a a a font and the layout.

It has to kind of highlight your expertise, but also make it easy to either, you know, fill out a quick form. I think forms is another thing that sometimes looks bad on mobile. Yeah. You know, if there's not they're using software for the forms that doesn't really scale well or like you said, if it's off center or it's not, you know, sometimes you pull up a a mobile website and you have to kinda like move around it. It instead of just scrolling up or down, if it if you have to move around, it's probably a sign that it's not a very responsive website.

So I'm making sure they're building something that's gonna, you know, whoever's building your website, making sure it looks good on mobile is a really, really important part of the design process.

And I suppose it's one of those things too. Unless you're a you're a service or somebody that someone just really desperately needs, they may overlook a bit of having to move around on a on a mobile phone if it's a bit of a pain in the ass. But for the average person who has just come to your website and they want information, if they come to it and they go and they they get annoyed, you know what? There's another four podiatrists in your area. They can go and check out their website, and if it's easier to navigate on a mobile phone, then we're going, well, that was more professional.

Therefore, they must be more I think it's a good reflection on what your business is actually like.

No. Exactly. It's like it's your chance to make that first impression. Right? Like, you know, we make digital first impressions these days.

So if if you're like, people's clicking through, a link on Google or from Google My Business Google Business profile or through an ad or through your Facebook, you want there to be this, like, seamless connection between those different sites onto your your main website. And it has to be you know, one thing we touched about design a little bit, but also the speed is important. That it loads quickly and it looks good. Sometimes, you know, as kind of mobile Internet gets faster and faster, this becomes less of an issue. But sometimes, know, if someone's only testing it, maybe a mobile device that's a someone's developed your website and they're only testing it on a strong WiFi signal.

Yeah.

You know, you don't have to live too too far away, but maybe there's a place that only has three g or four g and it's a little bit, you know, the the more the larger the images are or if there's like a video that takes a long time to load on your homepage or something, that can be a you know, if it's two or three seconds longer than somebody really wants, it's like you said. You know, if they're having to kinda sit there and wait for the website to kinda chug and load everything, People, you know, especially the younger generation these days are very impatient when it comes to letting things load. So

I'm impatient.

Maybe it's two or three.

Oh, am I impatient?

You're an impatient loader?

Well, there's a program, Libsyn, that I upload my other podcast here, Podiatry Legends. And they've up they've they improved their website. It went from Libsyn four to Libsyn five. It takes so long to load on my desktop. It's even worse on the mobile phone.

And I sit there the whole time just going, this is annoying the living crap out of me. And and sometimes it's taking ten to fifteen seconds to load. I don't know what the problem is, but it's enough that if I was first looking at them, only because I've been with them for so many years now, I'm like, okay. I'll put up with it. I'm not prepared to move.

But if I was looking at for the first time as a as a consumer, as a patient, I would've I never would've gone there. I would've just left. It's that bad.

Yeah. It can be difficult. Right? I think I think as technology gets faster, our our ability to kinda be patient and wait for things is less and less and less. So, yeah, I I can completely relate.

Can I show you this kind of show you one of the world's worst online versions of a of a web page? In fact, the web page itself is no good to start with, and I feel really bad saying this. I'm not gonna say the name unless you said we should, and this video may never be released. So I don't know if you can actually see this one.

Oh, I'm not sure we can do that.

Is this the world's worst online mobile version of a website? I was showing someone the other day. We we looked it up because I'm designing a new website. And I had a look at this one, and they went, my god. They said that is so bad.

And so then we looked at the mobile version as well. And they went, well, that's even worse. Would you agree that that's a really, really bad version?

Yeah. For sure. It's not

And the company should have only

They have a real I'd rather not. I'm sure everyone that's listed the podcast from The US knows probably the most archaic, oldest looking website in our profession. And I think it is one of those things where they've they've been around for so long that whether it's a financial thing, they just don't want or or or don't really want to take all of their archives and update into something more modern looking. But, yeah, it definitely is not the best user experience for sure.

It's terrible. But the the magazine itself is great.

No. It's a good magazine. And for sure, I've written a few articles there. So yeah.

Yeah. We're not talking about Women's Day.

No. I I haven't written the articles there yet. Maybe in the future. But

So where should people start? Like, if there's a podiatrist and they they listen to this now and they go, oh my god. I better go and look at mine. They look at their website on their phone and they go, oh, it's not tidy. It is a bit messy.

It's hard to navigate. What should they do?

Yeah. I think before jumping into, like, the solution, I think there's one other really important aspect of the kinda mobile first world we live in, and that's the real aspect that kind of understand these mobile phones now have kind of two areas or two technologies within them that really help kind of pinpoint where you're located. Obviously, they all have GPS associated with them. You know, you pull up Apple Maps or Google Maps or whatever and you see that blue dot and that's where you're at. Yeah.

But there's also a secondary way that that they can kind of get a general idea of what location you're in and that's what's called your your IP address. And that IP address basically is tagged to every device that you have. And, you know, maybe it's not your direct location, but they know that your computer connects to the Internet in this general location. So it's important because, you know, whenever you're you're looking at Google results or different types of results, whether it be for podiatrist near me or find your local barber or a Thai restaurant or something, they're pinging that either GPS or that IP address and giving you very relevant results. So, you know, whatever you're searching for, your patients are also searching for.

So being kind of locally relevant and understanding there is kind of a local component and a geographic component to your mobile device, which provides different types of results. Right? So if you're typing, you know, how to fix your muffler, you're not gonna get, like, a map and others. Maybe you get, like, car repair shops, videos about how to, you know, DIY your muffler repair. It will be a little bit different if you type in, like, podiatrist near me.

So understanding that kind of that IP address or that GPS built into your phone is really affecting not only the results you're seeing, but also the results your patients are seeing. And and they move based on what geographic location you're in. I think most people are savvy enough to realize that, but it can really impact that local visibility. If you're making Google Ads, obviously, you know, or different types of advertising, you know, containing them in a certain GPS or certain IP addresses and certain ZIP codes are ways to promote your clinic. So knowing that these mobile phones have that capability kinda changes the game.

It's no longer having to, like, put something into a new you know, an ad into a newspaper, and the notes gonna be seen by everybody in that city. You can really keep it to specific locations and geographic areas when when doing your marketing or your ad buys online.

They're amazing things. But the mobile phones today, what they can do and what we're using them for, I can't wait to see what are we gonna be using for the next five or ten years. It's just gonna be just it will it will be. It will be your whole life. It'll be on that phone.

It's pretty close to it now.

And I think at some point too, maybe, I know it's gonna be glasses. Obviously, there's these huge contraptions that either Facebook or maybe Apple's gonna release one in the future. These like kind of like goggles or some type of like smart screen. That might be the next way that, you know, maybe the phone will go away and we'll just have these glasses or something we put on our head to give us kinda either augmented reality, necessarily VR, virtual reality. But I'll be interested to see kind of what that technology advances as well.

That's also obviously mobile, but it's a different instead of have us having the screen or that screen in our pocket, we have it, you know, kind of a heads up display in a way.

Yeah. Because we're all gonna end up with tumors in our leg.

You never know. Right?

Like, so I remember that with something ages ago when I put talking about because we were holding the phones near the ear, what effect is that gonna have with with that, which is why they were recommending headphones. But anyway, getting back to 2023, back to reality, not in the future, what should podiatrists be doing? Yeah. There are a couple of solutions that they should be looking at or things that they can do to to make changes and get the best out of their website.

Yeah. I think that first step is really kinda like stepping back and kinda taking a look at your website from the perspective of a patient. So pulling out your mobile phone, maybe you're, you know, away from the office on lunch or, you know, maybe you're off on vacation doing something. And just get a general sense of, like, what is it like to kind of let's say you're imagine you have a certain diagnosis or a certain part of your foot hurts and you search Google or you search a search engine in your local area. What is that mobile experience you have on your phone if you're looking for a solution to that problem?

Does it require, like, eight different taps? Does it is the text small on your website when you're trying to find something? Maybe even hand the phone to your a friend or your wife or to someone else and try to have them say, hey, like, imagine that you have heel pain and you wanted to make an appointment in my clinic. How would you do that? Watch them do that.

Sometimes we you know, if we don't look if we kind of we know what we wanna do on our website. Maybe we've used our website a lot of times, but for someone that's not familiar, you know, how easy is it? Is it easy for your mom or is it easy for your grandmother to navigate that? So, you know, having kind of a circle of people around you, you kinda take a look at it. Obviously, you and your staff probably see it all the time, so it's second nature.

But someone outside of your staff or yourself, just to kinda like get an idea of what that looks like. And then, you know, if things are going well, people are, you know, two taps or they, you know, allow them to be, like, critical. You know, obviously, if they're too close to you, maybe they're just gonna gonna tell you what you wanna hear. But I think it is important to kinda get a a different perspective on what that mobile version of your website look like. Because, you know, if 80% of the traffic to your clinic is coming through there, that's a huge opportunity.

You know, if you get an additional five or 10% people to make an appointment, you know, if you have, you know, 10 thou you know, if you have 2,000 or a thousand people coming to your website every single month, you know, getting an additional five or 10% of people to make appointments can be have a huge impact on your practice, whether it's the the ideal patient or maybe you'll have to start filtering. You're eating so much so many people to your website that you'll have to filter them to other clinics in your local area because they're not your ideal patients.

Yeah. But I've said that before that even people with ugly kids think they look good.

No. For sure.

Because it's your baby. It your your baby's beautiful. But for other people, they're looking at but because you see it all the time. And how many times have you read something? Your staff have read everybody who's so close to it reads it.

It all seems fine. You post it, and then three days later, you'd be looking at something you've posted online. Could be social media, Facebook, and you read it and you go, how did I not notice I've spelt that wrong? I mean, it is so wrong. And then you read it and it's so obvious that it's wrong, or you've posted it and someone goes, oh, do you know you've spelt this wrong?

And it totally changes the context of what you said, but you read it 10 times. So I think sometimes if you're been looking at your own website for so long and and navigating your own website, you know how it works. You just flick through it so quickly. Whereas, like you said, someone who's it's their first time experience, if they find it clunky or they're asking you questions, oh, so where am I supposed to go from here? What what's this button mean?

Then you need to do something about it.

No. I think that's a good point. I think there's you know, I don't think we've talked about this in the past, but I think there's an opportunity for podiatrists to really, you know, reconnect with some of their classmates or reconnect with some of their residency mates to really kind of like, you know, have a little bit of additional communication and some constructive conversations around different topics, not only websites and things, but this is one topic you could bring up as, know, like, what's what's working for you on your website? Would you mind taking a look at mine and, you know, see what you think about it? And just getting some initial feedback from a podiatrist, maybe who's made a little more tech savvy.

The other option too is, you know, send us a message. You know, go to podiatry.marketing, and I'm happy to give a little bit of constructive feedback to folks at no charge. Just say, hey. Like, this this and this probably could be improved. So, yeah, definitely reach out, you know, podiatry.marketing.

Send us a message, and I'm to give kind of some quick tidbits about things that I found that that work. And I know that this is something you work on with your clients too when you're doing your coaching, Tyson. So there's definitely some opportunities there for people that are in the day to day like yourself and myself to truly help some podiatrists improve their website so they can really capitalize on this opportunity as we kind of move into or kind of deal with this kind of mobile first world we live in now.

Yeah. And some people may think, oh, I don't wanna ask a question because I don't wanna sound stupid. But they reckon the stupid person is the one who doesn't ask the question and continues to do the wrong thing. And this applies to your team as well. I'm sure you'd much rather have a team member come up to you and say, well, I'm thinking about injecting this in the patient, and is this right?

You'd rather them ask you that than them not asking it and doing the wrong thing. So I think this is exactly the same thing. You get a question around this particular topic. It's just ask the questions, and and you may find that the answer is really, really simple.

I couldn't agree more.

And go and check out. If you haven't looked at your own website for a while on just your mobile phone, just if you're listening to this now, as soon as you get off and you've written the you got your phone in your hand, one, first thing you need to do is write a review for us on Spotify or Apple Podcast, then go and look at your own website and and see what it looks like.

Sounds like a plan.

Okay. You got anything else to say before we wrap up?

No. I think I think it does take an this opportunity to kinda step back, though, right, and realize we do live in this mobile first world. Whether, you know, you spend a lot of time on a desktop in your clinic, just know that your patients and people in your local area are just pulling out their phones. They they they've got it in their pocket and their purse, and it's a huge opportunity to really continue to grow and improve your practice by having something that's appealing, functional, and helps them, you know, make appointments for your practice.

Yeah. And you said it's it's like 80% of people are using their mobile phones these days to check out websites. So everyone's if they're not if they're not thinking about that or taking that on board, you're crazy.

So alright, Tyson.

Okay, Jim. Good talking to you, and I'll talk to again next week with another I won't tell you the topic yet. It's a secret. It'll be fun.

Alright. Sounds great,

man. Okay. Talk you later. Bye.

Bye. 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.