Money is in the Follow Up

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. It's a new year 2023, and I've got a new a new guest host. No. No.

No. No. No. No. I've got a my cohost, Tyson Franklin, as always. Happy 2023, Tyson. Are you ready for this new year?

Happy New Year, big Jim Mac. Yeah. It probably worried people then. They probably listen to it when there's a new person. Who's the new person?

This is but this has taken us by surprise. So no. It didn't 2022 went so fast. I mean, it was here one minute, and then it was over. And can you believe it's now, like it's been three years since COVID sort of started, and now everyone's going, oh, COVID.

Yeah. I remember that. It's starting to be it's starting to become a distant memory, which is great.

Yeah. I'm hope yeah. I'm I'm hoping it's gonna stay that way. Like, things have definitely changed here in Canada with the restrictions and that stuff. But, yeah, hopefully, no more pandemics in our future.

We've already we lived through our one for the lifetime, and let's just keep moving on.

Yeah. Yeah. Next will be a war. Well, there's that yeah.

For sure.

One of the things that actually interesting interesting, though, just on that note is yeah. We've through the pandemic three years. Yeah. A lot of people's lifestyles were in a bit of turmoil, but, yeah, we will sort of come through it. But imagine what it must have been like back in the day when they had World War one, World War two, these big wars that took these four, five year chunks out of people's lives that they didn't know whether their house was gonna be there the next day or not.

Especially people in Europe, how unnerving the whole thing would have been. So I I think living through a pandemic, yes, it's gonna be one of those historical things that we can say, oh, yeah, in fifty years time, we'll still be around. So I remember when, but yeah. But anyway, we're not here to talk about history. We're talking here to talk about marketing.

No. For sure. I think there's a lot of things to be, you know, feeling blessed for in 2022, and then let's really get a good start here in 2023 with our listeners and keep up doing that podiatry marketing advice. It's really gonna help people take their practices to the next level. I'm really excited to for the upcoming year and to see what we can do together.

So on that note, what are we jumping in today? What are we gonna talk about in the first show of 2023?

The first show for 2023 is or the topic is money is in the follow-up. Very

good. Very good. So so like, you know, show me the money. Where's the money at? Like, how do we get to that to that, you know, that that kind of the the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

Like, how what what is this? What do you mean by follow-up?

Okay. So it's all about nurturing. So you can have a a patient come in, and this is something that I I'd read recently. And they said a lot of mistakes that salespeople make, and even they put on to go, oh, I'm not a salesperson, and they they get a bit uptight when they when they hear that. But sales is really just, like, giving people value.

It's educating them. It's giving them information. And when when a patient, for example, walks into your business, they know a certain amount about their problem, and they know a certain amount about the foot. But what they know really is of no value. It's what you know.

It's your expertise. It's your knowledge. It's your insights. It's your ideas. That's where the value is.

And that is what you're actually selling to your patients is the value that you can actually offer them. The problem is if someone comes in for one visit and you go and you dump all this information off and you go, okay. See you later. See you. Get back in touch with me if you wanna do something.

You were just pretty much throwing money away because and I gave this analogy to someone a couple of months back, and I said, it's it's like you might have a new graduate working with you or a recent graduate, and they don't reappoint their patients. Patient comes in. They give them all this information and say, you contact us. And I said, can you imagine university? You you turn up and you go, I wanna be a podiatrist.

They go, okay. Here's a whole pile of books. You need to read these books over the next four years, and we're gonna assume you've read them all. And in four years' time, we're gonna give you a a piece of paper that says, you now have a degree in podiatry and you're a podiatrist. Now why don't universities do that?

Because they don't trust us to actually do the work. So they they give you a semester and they do a test. Then they and if you pass that test, they give you the next semester, you do another test. And over a period of time, they keep giving us information, they keep testing you until at the end, they go, yep. Tick.

Tick. Tick. Tick. You're now a podiatrist, and you're qualified. And I think with your patients, it's the same thing.

You give them a certain amount of treatment or a certain amount of information, have them sort of take that in, and then you bring them back and you check. Have they taken action on that information? Are they doing that? Then you give them the next lot of information. Then you give them the next lot of information.

And that is that is all adding value to each and every visit. And that's that's part of nurturing your patients that are coming back on a regular basis. But the money in the follow-up part is really about nurturing those patients that haven't come back. The ones that may have contacted the clinic or asked for some more information or seen you at an expo or saw you do a talk, and then when that was really good, How are you going to follow-up those patients? That is where you need to create some form of nurturing.

I like that. I think I think you framed it really well. I think, you know, we said like I said, we could give patients all this information. You know, a lot of this information is now available on Doctor. Google and through web searches.

But, so all this information is kind of out there, right? But what's the true signal and what's all the noise out there? And part of our job as being health care providers is to really dole out that information into bite sized chunks, but also guide them through that treatment course. And I think that's a great way to look at it as far as the role of the physician in this relationship and all the information that is already out there. But then there's also those folks that, like you said, if they're lost to follow-up, they're a contact of a contact or someone you met out at a running expo or in the community.

And it's how do you get in touch with those folks to know that you exist, and then what are all the services that you provide so they can, you know, not only come in themselves, but also be kind of an advocate for you and for your practice.

Yeah. So if you go back to a step so you do marketing. So where the marketing is you're doing a talk in front of a hundred people or it could be Google Ads, it might be something on Facebook, it might be an audio ad, it could be television. Doesn't matter what type of marketing that you're doing. A certain amount of people are going to see what you do, and 50% are not interested.

Doesn't matter. It could be free. So I'm giving away free orthotics that normally cost $600. They are free. And there's gonna be 50% of people going, I don't care.

I'm seeing somebody else for whatever reason. They might have a brother that's a podiatrist. So you've given them information and go, oh, I'm gonna go see my brother. They're never gonna see you. So they reckon 50% of people are never gonna say yes.

5%, as soon as they see what you're offering, are gonna go, I'm in that much pain. I need an answer. And they're gonna say yes immediately. And that's why you might run a newspaper ad or you do a Google ad and your phone starts ringing because that's the 5% that are going, I'm in pain. I've tried other things.

That looks like a a solution for me, and they contact you. And, also, you go, wow. I'm awesome. I'm getting all these phone calls. But where the money is, it's the 45% that may have contacted you and said, that was interesting, but can you give me more information?

Or or they come in for that one visit, and you tell them something, and they go, I need to think about it. It's like, what are you gonna do with that group of people afterwards? And if you can tap into that and have a some form of nurture program or a follow-up sequence for those people, for those potential patients, there is so much money that is there. But a lot of people just quickly jump to the next marketing strategy. They do that.

50% say no, 5% say yes, and 45% going, I want more information. And while they're waiting for more information, they're going to doctor Google. They're seeing somebody else's ad. They contact them, that person has a good nurture program. They stay in touch with that person.

So it may be new that it it sparked that initial curiosity of how can I fix problem x, but you need to have something in place that you can you can stay in touch with them and drip feed them information over a period of time?

I think that's a really good point. I think a lot of either marketing strategies or ways that people utilize a lot of digital tools initially is to kinda make people aware of you. Right? Like, it's it's trying to get that new patient in the door. It's always the new, the next.

But like you said, once you develop kind of a database of patients that have had some some form of contact with you, whether it be an old patient, someone, you know, that signed up to receive your email newsletter. There are these different ways to go about kind of, like, leading them down the path. Like, maybe they you provide a service they thought was interesting about something, a way to treat ingrown toenails or heel pain in a way that maybe a family member had it and that they didn't have it. But it is one of those things where you're kinda like planting the idea in their mind for either a need they have now or a need that they may have in the future themselves or someone in their network. And it's just kind of remaining how do you kinda, like, walk them down that path or stay relevant enough that when they do have that need, you're the one that comes to mind as that local expert that they feel like they wanna see and have to take care take care of their their problem or one of their family members problems.

Well, how many times even yourself, Jim, you will see something you could be on Instagram and you're flicking flicking through the photos, and all of sudden, a sponsored ad will come up. And it could be a certain torch that has a built in knife and is also a hammer. It's just just something I saw recently. It's perfect Christmas gift for my daughter, I thought. But you look at that, and you see that one time, and straight away, you don't just make a decision there and then.

You see it. You go, that was interesting. And but then life moves on. You see a thousand other ads that day of other items, and that what you originally thought that, yeah, that would be good sort of starts to move away. But you normally find when you click on something like that, all of a sudden, you start noticing it on Facebook as well.

And then you'll see other things. It just keeps popping up so they know that you're not gonna usually make a decision straight away. You need to be nurtured over a period of time. So they will do it online. Yeah.

Quite it's like big brother sometimes. It's a bit scary. Somebody said he wants, if you wanna really know something, just start talking to your phone and somebody is listening. Next thing, that information will pop up. I'm not sure if that's true.

So I think when somebody reach reaches out to you, you you could be able to talk. There's a talk, 50 people there, and you can say, hey. If anyone would like some more information, please leave me your pass us your email address, and I'll send you something. So they give you the email address. In return, you might send them it it could be just a a link to an article on your website.

That could be the first bit of contact you have with them. They read that article there. That was really interesting. Still not ready to do anything yet. Don't know if you're the right person.

But now that you've got the the email address, you can then like you said, you can put them into a newsletter so they're gonna be contacted at least once a month. But you may then send other information to them, just dripping information to them whether it's whether it's every couple of days, whether it's every couple of weeks. I don't think you should let it go just monthly. Monthly is too long in between. I have this problem now.

I think you need to give them more information and it needs to be more often than not.

That's good to know. Yeah. I think there's a definitely like a right cadence depending on what kind of how how, you know, how general that information is. I think there's this kinda like, you know, how how relevant is the follow-up? You know, how how relevant is the the nurture sequence to kind of maybe previous care they received?

You know, that kind of sometimes runs in, at least in The US, you gotta be a little bit careful with the time and the tools that you're using to do But I think there's definitely a range there. It'd be somewhere between two to four weeks, which makes a lot of sense depending on what what you're trying to achieve with the patient. But I think there's definitely trying to find that right cadence to not be annoying, but also remain top of mind so that that you can be an option for them down the road.

Well, I know that I've seen things online. It says, oh, download this free book. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. I download the free book.

And I've had somewhere I've received seven emails that day. And I've gone, my god. I think you get another seven the next day, and it never stops. And I where's where's the unsubscribe button? Please get me off your list.

And to me, that is an overkill. But I think initially, especially if somebody had heel pain and they and you may have a free book, for example, on your website, and it may just be an online version. They ask for it, you get the email address. I think within a couple of days, you should at least respond. Make sure they got it.

Do they have any questions? I reckon that should happen within probably the first forty eight to seventy two hours. Should be fairly quick. Then I think a week later, you should do something again. And I don't I think weekly is not a problem as long as your each time you're having contact with them, you're giving that little bit more information.

You're not just saying to them, hey. So you're ready to come and see me yet? It's like, you had heel pain. You can do this. Oh, did you know you can also do this?

Have you looked at that? And you just give them bits of information. And each time they get it, they sort of go, okay. That's that's really good. So we we did this a few years back, and we found that about twenty five percent of all people that reached out to us to get, say, a free book that we were offering, twenty five percent ended up coming in as patients.

And it was worth a lot of money and a lot of patience to our business.

Now that's excellent. I think you're I think you make a nice distinction there between kind of more of a general clinic newsletter that goes out, you know, like once a month or every few weeks, and then something more like this kind of downloadable ebook or what we kinda call, like, a lead magnet in marketing and then having those automated follow ups that can be set up through different types of software. So then they, like you said, they download the book. You can just touch base with them real quick, you know, a day later, a week later, seeing how they're enjoying it. Has it been helpful for them?

If not, here's the name of the here's the number or the email to make an appointment to get that checked out. So I think that yeah, there's kind of a little distinction there, but I think you're right. Those types of things can be very powerful.

We'll give you a perfect example of what not to do. I had a a lady the other day. She bring my wife up and said, oh, I know you used to own a podiatric and your husband's podiatrist. I just wonder if I could ask you a question about something. Something Something just didn't seem right.

So she she had seen a podiatrist local in town. I won't say who it was. And when she went and saw them, she went in with heel pain, explained the problem, and his treatment was, yes, you have heel pain, and you need to change your footwear, and here's some physio cream. Sold her the cream and told her to go to the athlete's footwear, where was, buy some shoes. She got home and just went there was no, hey.

Come back and see me, let's see how that went. There was no follow-up whatsoever. Couple of weeks had passed. She was still having the same problem. He hadn't reached out to her to find out what was going on.

So she rings my wife. I jump on the phone. She tells me a few things, and I said, I know where your business is. Look. I'm gonna be in that area.

I'm just gonna I'll drop in and have a look. So I went in, checked a few things there, explained to her exactly what the problem was. She went, well, that was never explained to me.

I gave her a

list of instructions to do at home. I showed her how to strap her feet. I had a look at her footwear. The footwear that she got was were fine. Anyway, so I did all that, told her, I want you to tell yeah.

In about forty eight hours, I'll get back in touch to you, see how how it's going. Rang her back in forty eight hours. How's it going? She went, oh my god. That strapping tape works so well.

And I said, okay. So I gave her a few more instructions on what to do. Now I don't actually have a clinic that she could come into. But straight away, she already said to me, you've already given me more information what the other person did, and I paid them. I didn't have to pay you.

And I'm thinking, how many people have gone to that podiatrist? And the reason why I stepped in was because I thought podiatrist was getting a bad rep. I thought that the way that he had treated her, and I've just narrowed it down, it was a him. The way that he had treated her, I thought was did not do our profession any favors whatsoever. In fact, it she had a really negative thought of what podiatrist did.

I've stepped in, and all of a sudden, I've given her a little bit more confidence that and then I said to her, long term, this is who you should go and see. So I told her to go to a particular podiatrist in town because I said, I can't do the the next step. But that is what the follow-up is all about. Even if this this other podiatrist had said to her, do this, and I want you back in three days to see how it's going. That is part of how the university works.

Do this study. Let's do an exam and see if you know it. We'll see if that's what yeah. If that's before you go on to the next thing. And it's so easy to do, but I don't know why podiatrists don't do it.

They just they so quickly just move on to the next patient.

No. I think that's a great point. And I think it's one of those things too where just by making that follow-up with that patient, it's a you know, we're providing, you know, foot and ankle care. Right? And showing that you're that person is worthy of coming back to see how they're doing, to check-in with them, to see if they're making progress or getting better or not getting better, it's a sign to the patient that they have that follow-up appointment, that you do care enough to make sure they are progressing in a way that is consistent with whatever kind of treatment you provided them.

And I think you made a great point as well. Like, it's all about communication and relationships when it comes to developing a rapport with your patients. You know, if communicating what you're doing, why you're doing it, and then getting them back for a reasonable time after for a follow-up appointment, it just kinda, like it closes that loop as opposed to, like, the the podiatrist you mentioned. He just left a loop, like, wide open. Oh, yeah.

Not only the bullet not only will it reflect poorly on him, like, as a provider, but also, like you said, it could reflect poorly on all of us. That just like podiatrists are just people that give people creams, send them to shoe stores, and just say, see you later. Like, that's that's what we do as a profession. Right?

So Yeah. And with her too, could you imagine down the track somebody bumps into her and says, I've got a foot problem. Who should I see? Now if she didn't hadn't seen me, she wouldn't be saying, oh, I recommend you see a podiatrist because you know what? They can recommend some shoes that didn't help me.

Well, they gave me to this cream, which I saw down at the chemist. Why don't you just go and get the cream? And that's what podiatrists don't realize. This is I always say when a podi when a patient comes into your clinic for the first visit and they leave, think about where are they going next. They're either gonna talk to family, friends, work colleagues, another health professional, and what you hope they're not going, they're not going to their lawyer.

So afterwards, you just know when that person leaves your clinic and walks out, they're talking to people. What is it are they gonna say about you? Are they gonna say something really positive like, oh, I went to this podiatrist date. They were brilliant. Or they're gonna say, oh, I saw this podiatrist and my god.

What people go to university to do that? What what's the point? And then people wonder why, oh, jeez, people look down on us. They don't think we're we're health professionals. Well, if you don't act like a professional, you're not gonna get treated like a professional.

And I know the people listen to this podcast, we're not talking to you. You you if you're listening to this podcast, you're exceptional already.

They're the top of the top if they're they're listening to this podcast. Right?

I think so.

So so that being said, you know, you talked a little bit about newsletters. You talked a little about some of that type of follow-up. What are the types of, you know, platforms allow for, you know, adequate or different types of follow-up sequences to be kind of instigated into that process?

Well, you can you can go old school. If if they've come into your clinic and you have their address, you can send them follow-up letters if you wanted to. You could send a postcard, but then you can do an email and you can have some form of email sequence set up. And something I read recently, it and this we were talking about the frequency of doing something. The faster you can move people through a pipeline of of staying in touch with them, the faster the better the response is gonna be.

The longer you drag them through that pipeline, the more chance they've got they may go and see somebody else in the meantime because you haven't given them the exact information that they were after. But I think using email is so easy. Sending them links to different areas on your on your website that is talking about their specific problems, videos. But think even doing webinars are a great way of maintaining contact with patients. You might be saying, hey.

I'm gonna be doing a webinar on problem x, and you send something out to all the patients you know that have had that problem in the past, yeah, recently, and get them to to tune into it. People are so used to webinars these days, but you can also use those webinars to reach out to health professionals as well and let them know that, hey. I'm an expert in this particular area. And and if you market your webinars to other health professionals, they may tell some of the patients as well, hey. You've had this problem.

You should tune in. There's a podiatrist talking on this topic. You might find it really interesting. And then when people register for your webinar, you also get their email address.

No. That's a very good point. I think not only, you know, trying to do the outreach with with potential patients or current patients, like I think I like I like that aspect of networking with other health care providers to really kinda get in front of their patients or people that they're treating that have similar problems. Because like you said, you know, in order to register for that webinar, they're gonna have to, like, provide their email address with permission for you to contact them afterwards. And it just it it kinda, like, creates, like, a flywheel of, you know, people that know who you are, that see you as an expert, and then you basically become an option to be their foot and ankle care provider in the future.

Well, I always look at it this way. When I'm looking for a healthcare professional, regardless of what it is, a lot of the times, I will ask friends and family, do you know a physio? Do you know a chiropractor? Who would you recommend for this particular service? And when somebody talks highly of somebody else, usually, it's because that health health care professional has actually built up some rapport with them.

That they saw some of their marketing. They went and saw them, and and they got sold to. They they were given some value when they went and had that visit. Then there may have been a bit of a pipeline, but then they went and got the treatment, and it was delivered perfectly. They got a good result, and then they became a raving fan.

And once they become a raving fan, they're constantly on this wheel of referring other people. And if I had someone recently said, go through your your referral sources, and how many of your referral sources are word-of-mouth or coming from existing patients? And I was surprised. I went, oh, jeez. Not very many at

all. And

I said, you need to work on that. It's obviously just you need to be staying in touch with your patients and and converting them from just being not just being a patient or a regular patient, actually turning them into into raving fans.

Yeah. Those raving fans are like practice advocates who, know, they can just multiply your practice if you get the right people speaking about you and just kind of being out there, you know, putting out the good word about you and the care you provide.

I think chiropractors do it better than anybody. Most people that will see a chiropractor and especially the chiropractor's receptionist, they are drinking the Kool Aid. They they just and and and when you think about chiropractic, if you've ever been to a chiropractor, they see you, like, three times the first week, twice the next two weeks after that. They they're seeing you 10 or 15 times, like, in a in a two month period. So you see them that often, you start the they you start to get to know them and get to know, like, and trust them over a period of time very, very quickly.

So therefore, if you then become a regular patient, you also become a raving fan because you got to know them. Whereas, you see, if a podiatrist sees a patient once, gives them a ton of info and goes, get back in touch with me and see how it goes, and they wonder why that patient doesn't tell anybody else and why that patient never comes back. So it's it's all about nurturing. And like I said, right from the start, the money is in the follow-up. It's following up your patients.

It's following up anybody that has reached out and asked for information.

No. That's a really great point. I think, like you said, like, the money is in the follow-up, but also the it's it's it's showing that you care, that you care about their progress through their diagnosis or the treatment you're providing them. And it's and it's, like, it's basically kinda closing that loop. When you leave that loop wide open and you wonder why your practice isn't growing or people don't have great things to say about you or the care you provide, That's the reason why.

You're not you're not nurturing. You're not doing the follow-up, and the money won't come when you're not doing those things.

Well, I think one thing, how many how many podiatrists listening to this have ever had a patient ring their clinic and say, I was just wondering how much it is for orthotics or how much it is for a consultation. And they either give them the answer over the phone, the person goes, oh, okay. I'll call you back or something else. Now we when I'm doing coaching with people, I'll take them through how you actually handle this properly, but there's no harm in saying to a patient, oh, have you got your could I get your email address? I will forward you some information.

You get their email address. You forward them the information that they requested because most people aren't gonna do that, but then you've got their email address. And once you have their email address, then you can start following up with with other information based especially if they say, oh, how much is something? You go, oh, what type of problem are you having? If they go, yeah.

I just want to find about the price. Well, then there's a there's a way that you deal with that. But most people say, oh, I've got x. Oh, okay. Well, look.

I will send you some more information. You could get your email address. You get the email. You send that information. Bang.

And then the whole nurturing process starts. So every phone call, every email inquiry, every talk that you do, it's you just gotta try and get some contact details and just maintain that relationship.

I think it's a great point and a really great example. I think this this topic is really really important and hugely valuable to the people listening today. So definitely reach out to us, reach out to Tyson if you have any questions about this topic. We're happy to answer those questions. And maybe even this year in 2023, we'll have some listener questions.

Maybe there's some topics out there with our listeners that they would like to hear more about. So don't be hesitant to go to podiatry.marketing. Fill out the email form there and let us know what you want us to talk about. But that being said, Tyson, is there anything else on this topic you'd like to wrap up with? Are we are we good there today?

No. No. I think that I think I'm done, and I think this is a great episode to start 2023 on. So I'll see you next week, Jim.

Sounds great, Tyson. Okay.

See you.

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