Produce Different Content for Each Step of the Patient Journey

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, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's it going today?

I'm fantastic day, big Jim. How are you doing?

I'm doing alright. Doing alright. No no complaints here today.

No complaints. Well, it's always good.

It's

it's always better not to have any complaints. The only thing that is I know it's a shame to see summer slowly disappearing on us. Yeah. Even though all it means what all it means for us in Cairns, we go from really hot to just hot when we leave summer. I see.

I've had to get back into the podiatry practice a little bit here. My my my seven year old son's been playing soccer, and he kicked a ball while someone else kicked the ball at the same time and now has, like, medial pain along the course of his posterior tibial tendon. I'm like, the unlicensed podiatrist now trying to figure out what's going on. Like, it doesn't seem like it's a fracture. He's actually I don't think it's a posterior tibial tendon because he's can do toe raises with no pain, but he has tenderness right along kinda like the some of the deltoid ligaments, I think.

I don't know. We'll we'll see what happens.

You guys still remember all that stuff, Kai?

Yeah. I remember I remember it, but I just don't I didn't treat a lot of seven year old soccer players. I'm like, well, I'm not gonna let him go to practice this week. Gonna let him rest it until he's not super tender to palpation, hopefully. So I don't think it's any kind of fracture.

Otherwise, I would take him and get him seen. But maybe I'm unlicensedly treating my son. I don't know. We'll see.

Yeah. Anyway, well, same thing. Well, actually, I'm I'm still licensed, so I can do what I want.

There you go. May maybe I'll maybe I'll ship him down to Australia. You can help him out.

No. It was something that a friend of mine so he's no longer a podiatrist. Well, he technically, he is, but he's no no longer registered. And if you're not registered, well, you can't call yourself a podiatrist in Australia. It's like, you just can't

do it. Okay.

Which is crap. Because you you should be able to you're still a podiatrist, you're just not registered. Anyway, which is why I maintain my registration because well, because I'm always talking to podiatrists anyway, so I'm still up to date with what's happening. And then if I do bump into somebody, I can offer sound advice. There you go.

I don't tell them to always listen to me, but I give them sound advice. Most don't listen to me. That's the problem. If they did, they'd get themselves fixed up faster.

Absolutely.

Okay. That's about four minutes of banter before we get onto the subject.

Yeah. What are we gonna talk about today?

Today, we are talking about producing different content for each step of the patient journey.

Sound like a good one.

If you think of your ideal patient I'll give you an example. Mine used to be, say, 40 to 45 year old male, and I have all these other criteria what they made and all that, had a couple of kids who were getting that, you know, 10 to 12 years of age, and they were trying to keep up with them, but they're finding it really hard. They're a bit of a weekend warrior. So I I had this really good image of who my ideal patient is. But even though they might be my ideal patient, they may or may not be ready for the services that I offer, depending where they are actually on that patient journey.

So some people might say, oh, but my ideal patient is this. Well, that's great that that's who they are, but there's seven steps to the journey that I'm gonna explain. And then from those seven steps, then I'll explain the content that you've gotta match up depending on where they are on the journey. If you use the same con content for everybody, some of them are gonna think you're stupid because it doesn't make any it won't make any sense.

Yeah. You might be kinda shouting into the void. You know, if you don't you don't make your content tailored to someone specific, you know, it's gonna resonate with with with zero people. Right? So I think we've talked to them in the past whether it's, you know, knowing who you don't wanna treat, but then also, you know, speak you know, messaging to those people that you do is hugely important.

So the first step of the journey or the first type of patient, you've got those that do not know you yet. So they are totally oblivious that you even exist. They may or may not even have a foot problem. They don't even know about podiatry. They have no idea that your clinic could be a kilometer away from their house.

You you are totally irrelevant to them. So there are people who you're ideal patient who don't even know you exist. That's the first part of the journey. The second part of the journey is they know you but they haven't engaged with you yet. So they might have a foot problem and they might be undecided whether they should see you or whether they shouldn't see you.

So once again, they're your ideal patient. They know where your clinic is, but they're like, do I really need to see this person or don't I? The third part of the patient journey is they have engaged with you, which means they may have walked into your clinic and asked a question, they may have sent you an email, they may have even phoned phoned you up, phoned the clinic and spoken to your receptionist and asked a few questions about, oh, do you treat this, and how does this work, and what's this gonna cost? So they've they've engaged with you, but they haven't committed to making an appointment yet. I don't know if you wanna jump in or comment on anything.

No. Mean, that's a good,

you know, kind of breakdown of the first three. Just they're kinda walking down that path. Yeah. So, like, you know, as far as, you know, whether they're getting more touch points or they're just becoming more aware of who you are and the services you provide. I think it's a it's a good starting off there.

Yeah. So the fourth part or the fourth step of the the patient journey is they have actually made an appointment with you, and they have spent some money with you. So they may have they may have booked, and they've kept their first consultation. And that's great. But then the next step after that is they've spent more money with you.

So they they've actually had a return visit. They might have had multiple visits. They might be going through a particular treatment plan. They may have gone down the path of getting orthotics or shockwave therapy. They've had their initial, which was step four, and then they've come back and they've spent more money with step five.

Step number six is they've referred other people to you. That's the sixth step of their journey. They've seen you as a patient themselves. They trust you enough now to send you people that they know. It could be family, it could be friends, it could be work colleagues, and hopefully this is why you wanna focus on who your ideal patient is.

Is because hopefully your ideal patient is referring other ideal patients, and that's going to make your your job a lot easier. The seventh step, and this one is really important, is like the end of the journey. They're giving you a positive testimonial. Because not every patient that goes through and even up to the point of referring patients who really knows, likes, and trusts you is going to do a testimonial even when you ask them. But those who do, they are a fan because they are now sharing their positive experience with the world.

They're prepared, you know, to sort of put, like, pen to paper to tell everyone, hey. I've been there. I'm telling you that you should actually go there. So that's the seven parts of the patient journey.

No. I think it's a great explanation. I love the it's kind of a gradual build of awareness and then in trust, and then, you know, people that are basically kind of almost you're raving super fans by the end of that, you know, person willing to kinda get out in front of the public and provide that testimonial for you and for the care you provide. But, you know, the like you said, when it's focused on that kind of right fit patient or that ideal patient or your perfect patient, you're able to really then, you know, hopefully find more of those folks because you're kind of having that message that resonate with a very specific type of people or type of patient. And it just that's what you know, it's it's each kind of step along the way that's important.

But once you get to the near the end of that, those seven steps, then you can potentially have, you know, huge referrals and kind of almost explosive growth in kind of the exact type of care you wanna provide.

Yeah. And that's what what I was talking about before, that you can't create the same content for everybody that's on their different journey because they're on a different journey. And there's no time based on from when the person doesn't know who you are yet right through the testimonial. It could be three months. It could be thirty years.

You just don't know what it's gonna be. So therefore, what you're gonna do is look at each of those stages, each of those steps, and create content that's targeted towards those people. So the first one, for the people who don't know you yet, any sort of marketing or content you're gonna create is gonna be all around awareness. It's just an awareness campaign. It's letting those people know that, okay, I know you don't need me now, but when you do need me, I want you to be thinking about me.

And a type of awareness campaign or awareness marketing that you might do or the content you create, whether like even, I think, putting the time and effort into sponsoring sporting teams, and people will go, well, is that really content? Well, sponsoring the team may not be, but taking a photo of that team and writing some articles about that team and then getting it online somewhere, that's the content that is letting people who might be following that team. So if you sponsor that team, you're following that team, and then you create an article around something you've done with that team, and you get it in front of them, that's awareness. And how you would talk to someone who doesn't know who you are compared to how you talk to someone who does know who you are is completely different.

Absolutely. You have to kind of that first kind of impression. Right? You need to make a part of first impression that maybe it's like you said, they're not gonna, like, necessarily go into your clinic right away, but you wanted to, you know, show that expertise. You know, if they just kinda come in contact with you, you wanna have them kind of be ready to kinda start building trust in you and the care you provide.

Well, I think we've all dealt with businesses ourselves that you will see them advertising certain things or doing marketing or they might put something online, and you happen to come across it and you go, you know what? I don't need that. It's I don't need that. But then, one or two years later, that company is still just putting that that awareness stuff out there, and then all of a sudden when you need it, you go, oh, I know exactly who to call. Never thought I'd need them, but now, I'm gonna go and call them.

And and that's why all this sort of content you're creating has to be something like with your word of the year, Jim, you gotta be consistent. It's consistently putting put it's consistently creating the content, doing the work, and putting it out there.

Yeah. I mean, consistency is huge here. Right? Because if you just stop you know, if you kind of stop this kind of awareness stuff, you know, you're gonna be easily forgotten, and then maybe someone else, a competitor down the road is gonna be taking over, or maybe their their voice will seem louder in the community because, you you stopped doing it.

Yeah. I always always remember a story about Coca Cola because things get better with Coke. That used to be one of the slogans. And somebody told me once that many years ago, Coke was just everybody knew who Coke was. They they were winning the cola wars against Pepsi.

But because Coke was so popular, I thought, you know what? We don't need to market anymore because we own the market. We we are so strong. They stopped a lot of their marketing, and they would have been doing this across the board to all different different areas. Pepsi ramped theirs up, And then all of a sudden, Pepsi became, like, on par with them.

And now, it's just these massive colors. So the second thing that I mentioned was they know you, but they haven't engaged with you yet. So the type of content you would create for them so they're gonna be like educational campaigns or you might have a campaign where there's a call to action where you want them to start making you aware and you're trying to prompt them to actually make some form of contact with you. That's that's one of the main things. The third one that I mentioned, when they do engage with you, they've sort of reached out to you.

And when they do reach out to you, this is what I call the nurture nurture program number one. Because when somebody contacts your clinic or they reach out to you or they say, for example, they phoned you a receptionist and said, oh, just wondering, do you help with problem x? Whatever it is. And the receptionist says, yes, we do. And they go, god.

How much? They might ask a few questions, and then the receptionist is gonna say, would you like a morning or afternoon appointment? They go, oh, I'm just inquiring at the moment. I'm not not sure with my work schedule, whatever it is. If the receptionist can you can train them to somehow get their details, their email address.

So if you're bringing a clinic and they said, oh, Jim, well, I've got you. The podiatrist, they've written a few articles about that particular problem you have. If I can get your email address, I can just email you a link to a few articles on our website that will give you more information. So you can read through all that, and then you can decide from there whether you wanna do something or not. And most normal people go, sounds fair.

No. I mean, with helpful educational content that kind of like, you know, is maybe helpful to the person, they're they're not gonna say no. Right? It's just one of those things where there's no pressure. We're not like forcing you to come in the clinic.

But if you can get a little bit information about maybe what you have or to of help educate the patient, it's kind of a win win.

Yeah. And so the important part of this is you don't send an email with 52 links to different things all over your website. What was the problem they had? You've got their email address. Send them a link to an article that you think is gonna be best suited for that particular problem based on their inquiry.

Then you might have eight other things that you know that you can send Then this is the nurture part, as you slowly just feed them a little bit more information. Hey, we came across this or here's a video that we've got in a YouTube channel. And you push them over that or the video might be on your website and you push them over to there. So you're slowly just giving them that information, and when they're ready to make an appointment, when all a sudden they've gone, you know what? I need to get this problem fixed.

Are they going to just ring a complete stranger, or are they gonna contact the podiatry clinic that has slowly just been giving them information? And there's a there's a structure and way that you should do it.

Absolutely. I think it's it's kind of a gradual building of trust over time. Right? It's like, you know, it's not something where you just jump into it right away. It's something you've kind of provided value for them, and they've they've helped you've helped educate them, and they're building trust and kind of faith in your expertise.

Yeah. And I've I've had this happen with companies where I've reached out, asked a question about something. The person on the phone's giving me a little bit of advice and gone, okay. Thank you. Bang.

Over. And then I've had other companies where they have actually, know, asked for my details or I've had to give provide details because I contacted them, say, online. And they have slowly just stripped me a little bit more information a little bit more information. And I know that's the one that I normally go with. So it works in every industry, so podiatrists should be doing it.

Absolutely. The second well, part four was the person has actually come in and spent some money with you. So that is what I call nurture program two. And this is where you provide specific ongoing information based on the presenting problem that they had to actually help them make a decision whether they're gonna do treatment and take that next step. So they may have come in say, for example, it was heel pain.

You've done the evaluation, and then they've gone away. They might be deciding whether they're going to follow some form of treatment plan and get orthotics. One thing, your newsletter is actually part of that nurture program, is maintaining contact with them. But if the person had it could be bunion problems, it could have been a neuroma, it could be heel pain. If they've had an initial visit with you, you've explained the information, you want them to do the next step, If you do not follow them up or have some form of nurture thing that you drip feed them once again, different type of information that you would to somebody who hasn't made an appointment.

This is a big difference between the two. One, you're nurturing people who have never come into you and seen you yet, and the other one is a group of people that you're nurturing that have seen you for treatment. Different content, you're gonna talk to them differently.

Absolutely. It's like you talked about previously. You need to make sure that the content fits not only that they're your ideal patient, but also kinda what stage they're in. This is the perfect example of that that, you know, they've they've they've been treated by you, but now it's time for them to kinda decide, basically, an opportunity for them to learn more about who you are and what you what you do in the clinic.

Yeah. And that even in that area, they're one of the leaks that I tell people that are plug up in the business is incomplete treatment. Incomplete treatment process would be part of of that particular step. So the fifth step is, you know, they come and seen you multiple times. They spent a bit of money with you.

They followed a treatment plan. This type type of content you're creating here is to relate to your, yeah, reactivations if you need those patients to come back in or your recalls. You've gotta have a recall system. And if you're sending out one text message to say, hey, Jim. It's been twelve months.

Do you want another pair of orthotics? And you're not getting much of a response from that because you don't deserve much of a response. It's it's to me, you've gotta have there's gotta be multiple steps. You might use text messages. You might use emails.

You you might use a letter. That'd be different. But there's there's multiple ways that you can actually contact these people, and you should have multiple steps. You should have a recall system. It's not a a recall one text message, and then you sit back and you pray and hope that those people actually come in.

The sixth part is the person has now referred someone to you. You should have a thank you program. When somebody refers a patient to you, you should have a program of some way that you actually thank them. Because when they send the next one, you don't wanna be sending the same message to them every single time. Hey.

Thanks, Jim, for that referral. Next one. Hey. Thanks, Jim, for that referral. Oh, here's something different.

Thanks, Jim, for that referral. You should know. You should have a process. Oh, if Jim sends this many people and then this many people and then he does this, what is your process that you're actually going to go through? And Jim will notice that that escalates as well, and Jim is gonna appreciate that.

Now Jim's already a patient, so he's probably on the program, the recall and reactivation system beforehand. So you should be aware of this. When he comes in for that, once again, that could be part of your thank you program. You're thanking him for those referrals. And the last one, the person that does a testimonial for you and you know that they're a bit of a fan, is you should have some form of acknowledgment program.

When they do that, I think you should really acknowledge that they have done that testimonial for you. And you should be sharing that on your social media pages. You should be really, one, thanking that person for it. So if they've done a Google review, because we've spoken a lot about Google, is make sure you've commented on the Google review. Take that Google review, use it in your social media pages, and thank that person a lot for doing that testimonial or that Google review, depending which way you wanna look at it.

No. I think that's a great those two last two steps are hugely important, I think. Like you mentioned, if it's kind of kind of a not a very thoughtful, you know, referral thank you program. It's just gonna be all those things like, oh, like this person I've sent them like five, you know, five patients. I've sent them 10 people and just that same thing every single time.

Yeah. You know, just a small personal touch can really, you know, brighten somebody's day, but also take that person from that kind of that level six to level seven where they're more likely to maybe give you that positive review. And then that kind of positive digital word-of-mouth, like you said, either through Google review or, you know, a video or a written testimonial on your socials or utilizing in some form of digital advertising, those things can be really, really huge. Obviously, all these steps are important, but, you know, like I said, the kind of explosive growth or the opportunity to really get out in front of people because what sometimes you struggle with, you know, as a clinic is that you know what you do, you know you're good at it. It's it's it can be, you know, you you just you can just shout into the void about how great you are.

Mhmm. That doesn't necessarily mean all that much because anybody can do that. But when your patients are kind of, you know, kind of speaking for you and they're feeling that kind of trust and that level of comfort that you are that expert, they can really help you kind of unlock levels of growth that you just really can't do by yourself.

Yeah. And I think even but we used to use do you have those scratchy things where you scratch them? If you match three, you win money? Even sending yeah. If you have a patient that has referred certain patients to you or you know they've done a testimonial, pop on in the post with a little note on this saying, hey.

We really appreciated you supporting our clinic. It wasn't for any specific referral. They may have referred a few patients to you and then not referred anyone for a while. As part of their thank you program, it could be three months later. Just send it send it to them randomly because one, that will prompt them that, oh, just try this.

My podiatrist just sent me that. And we used to always joke and put a little note on that. Oh, by the way, if you win 10,000, if you wanna share it with us, we're we're open to that. So what I wanna say in summary is just is think about those seven steps that I mentioned, and then think about the content that you will provide for that person on each of those as part of their actual journey. Just really sit down and think about, okay.

Oh, this is my ideal patient here. This is the journey that they're actually going through. What am I gonna create? And the thing is, steps one and two is really external marketing, verbal marketing, online marketing. That is where you're touching base with these people.

Steps three to seven is all internal marketing. Everything we discussed about whether you're doing a newsletter or you're sending thank you letters, recalls, reactivation, incomplete treatment, nurture program one, nurture program two, that is all internal marketing. That is stuff that these people have come into your your realm of your podiatry world, and now it's up to you to utilize that as much as possible. Whereas everything else, steps one and two about the the awareness and education, that is all external stuff. Yeah.

Or it's verbal. They don't know you. There's a lot lot of work goes into that. But once they become a patient or reached out, there's a lot less work, but that's where the smart work comes in. Absolutely.

Okay. God, I love this stuff, Jim. I really do. This is so much fun. And if anyone wants to know more about this, if you've listened to any of these episodes and you're like, goddamn, this is a good podcast, one, tell your podiatry friends how good it is, and feel free to share episodes around the place on social media.

But, please, if you wanna work with Jim, reach out to Jim. If you wanna work with me, reach out to me. Don't just sit there in the shadows and be quiet. Nothing will happen that way.

It's all put, Tyson.

Okay. Okay, Jim. I look forward to talking to next week.

Sounds great, Tyson. Okay. See you. Bye now. Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDonald.

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