Proof Beats Promises: Why Evidence Wins When Advertising Fatigues

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 cohost, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are you doing today?

I am fine today. Jim McDannald, how are you doing? I like how you introduce yourself as Jim McDannald. You you should be introducing yourself as, hi. I'm big Jim Mac and with me, or is it weird you saying it yourself?

The fact that I'm, like, five foot nine, a hundred and sixty pounds, me calling myself Big Jim Mac would feel a little ridiculous. But as long as you and and all the listeners are calling me that, I'll let you guys have that fun. I'll just just call myself Jim McCannell.

Yeah. And I'm just known as trustworthy cohost. Trusty.

I just call you trusty. You know what I'm trusty because like my

trusty cohost.

Yeah. My trust trusty sidekick, you know, like Batman and Robin.

Oh, I don't wanna

be Robin. I didn't say you're Robin. I'm just saying, like, you're you're good you're, like, you're your sidekick. We're we're we're each other's sidekicks.

We're at at the Muay Thai gym the other morning, Monday, and we're there. And this new guy turns up, and a young guy, and he's from Germany. And he said and his name was Robin. And he said, oh, my name's Robin. And the other guy was a young guy that was a fit dude.

I said, you just call him Batman. Look at me. I'm more like Alfred. And I was the only one that found it funny because they're both quite young guys. They're only in their twenties.

Right.

They didn't find it as funny as me. But they both looked at me and said, Alfred, do you know the old guy, the butler who looks out? They went, oh.

Michael Caine Michael Caine from the new movies. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway. So should we get into today's topic?

Let's do. I'm I'm curious to hear what we're gonna talk about today.

Okay. So today is we're talking about proof beats promises. So why evidence wins when advertising fatigue. So I'm going to start by asking everybody who's listening to this a question. They don't have to pull over in the car.

They can just think about this while they're driving. And this question is for you as well, Jim. When was the last time an ad actually convinced you? What? Not just reminded you or followed you around the internet for four and a half weeks that every time you went on, they just kept popping up.

But an ad actually came up, and that one particular ad, you went, yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna buy that. That's exactly what I want.

I'd say I've been going to real AI deep dive recently. So, like, when I listen to like, if I listen to a podcast and I feel like I get a lot of value from somebody, and this is not a plug for us necessarily, But, like, it may seem self serving on the surface, but I'm curious to understand, like, what else can they they teach me if they if I learn so much like, usually, it's a guest. A guest comes onto a show

Oh, yeah.

And it's like, wow. That person's really smart. How did I not hear about them? So I'll go look at their LinkedIn. I'll go look and see what other channels they have, and maybe they have, like, a paid newsletter.

And if I feel like the information they provide is really valuable, to me, like, a $100 for, like, an annual subscription to a newsletter is well worth it if I can glean some information from it. So I'd say, like, a podcast leading to, like, a Substack newsletter was, like, my most recent it wasn't even actually an ad, I would say. But, like, it I I I built trust by they're on this reputable podcast, and then I just see the amount of value they're providing. I thought I I could use some of that knowledge.

Yeah. And I'd say every coaching client that I've had who's whether they've been with you a couple of months or for long term, all of them came about not from one single ad that I may have produced or something that I've posted somewhere. It's an accumulation of things over a period of time because your trust gets built up over that period of time. So the first thing that I wanna mention to people is advertising fatigue is real. So patients, they're skeptical about your ads.

They're more they're cynical because every day, they are being marketed to. From the time you wake up I can't remember the exact figure. I was gonna Google it before I jumped on here. But it's something like and this is a crazy number. It's like 10 or 20,000 ads that we see per day that we're bombarded with it.

We don't even realize we're being bombarded with. Just drive to work billboards, things that everything is around you.

Yeah. It's crazy. Like, whether it's like, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Those have ads. You know, obviously, the Internet websites we we go across, you know, all the time have them just walking down the street.

You you definitely can't get away from them.

Yeah. So everybody is screaming at, we're the best. We're different. We care more than the other business down the street. We've all heard that one before.

And and the louder it gets, the more probably the less people are believing that anymore. And this is where your podiatry business has a huge opportunity, where most clinics are still running around doing what they call promise based marketing where they talk about advanced treatments, or we have a friendly team, or we have the latest technology. And I don't think I've ever chosen a business ever in an ad because it said they have a friendly team. And when I when I need someone, I I just need it. You can have a grumpy team if you want.

If you're providing the best service, I want that. I still also hear grumpy, I wouldn't go there. But patients today would prefer you to actually show them how good you are through through videos, testimonials, case studies, and things like that than you just purely telling them, hey. We're awesome by an ad that you're running online, offline, or or both.

I think there's a huge opportunity to build trust, you know, through the, like, the word-of-mouth of others or digital word-of-mouth of others. It's it's one thing just like we talked about while you might have the best, you know, residency training and resume of anybody, but if people in your local community won't talk about how deeply care deeply you cared about them and and their the the treatment they received at your clinic, you know, that's gonna speak more volume than anything you or your staff can do.

Was it two weeks ago on the podcast, I actually said to you, Jim, can you say, what does board certified mean? Because that's a term that they use in America all the time, but here in Australia, don't use that term board certified. I don't know if the average person in the street walking along who needs to see a podiatrist goes, oh. His ad said he's board certified. That must mean something.

So and it and that probably means something more to other podiatrists than it does or and to other health professionals than it does to the actual public.

Yeah. I think the the best use of board certified is maybe like a a badge of trust on websites. There's like a visual, but but, yeah, it's not something that maybe any any normal person that go to medical school or through residency knows about.

So what I'm gonna I'm gonna run through a few different things that are going to help you sort of show how good you are instead of just telling people how good you are. So the first one is doing before and after stories, of course, done ethically. And these still work really well, especially when they're if they're educational and they're realistic. Not miracle marketing, you know, like, hey, rub this cream. I had plantar fasciitis for four years, and then I rub this cream on my elbow every day, and it went away.

It's BS. We all know that. But they still that's like

Snake oil.

Snake oil. Yes. So yeah. And what makes it powerful, instead of say instead of, like, look at this amazing transformation, which a lot of people do, you can say, hey. Here's a patient presented with this.

Here's what we assessed. Here's the plan that we actually created for him. Here's the time frame that we stepped out, and here's the outcome over a given time frame of what eventually happened. And this shifts your message from promotion to more of a more of education. You're not actually showing off how good you are.

You're just showing the the process and the results that somebody begets. And that's what the before and after is actually all about. And a lot of health and nutrition places, I think do it some do it badly, but some do it really, really well and look very professional when they do it.

That's a great point. I think you have to take people along that journey. Right? Like, we have our journey taking people from not knowing about our clinic into becoming a raving, you know kind of excited patient, person who want to promote our services. You have to do the same thing when it comes to you know showing people going through the treatment, the treatment modalities and giving people certain expectations of what what's gonna happen or what potentially could happen.

Obviously, no two results are gonna be exactly the same. You have to make sure you clarify that. But at the same time, I think especially when it comes to medicine, there's a lot of fear and anxiety associated with the profession because, you know, are they gonna be shots? Are they gonna be like, are they torture me in the room? You know, they're like people sometimes whether it's a dentist or a doctor's office, people don't get excited about going because they're not sure what's gonna happen.

But I think when you're taking this educational standpoint and kinda showing them through the stories of others with permission, it can be a great kind of anxiety reliever as much as it is a great opportunity for education.

Yeah. And the permission part is always important. I mentioned a few times with some of the different things that we do, but the next one is doing case studies without breaching trust. That's important. So case studies are still one of probably one of the most underused marketing tools in podiatry.

And the thing is, you don't need to use the patient's name and you don't wanna use any identifying details, but you do need what their age range was. You know, was it this person between 25 to 35? What their activity level was? Yeah. Were they active or worked in an office all day?

What the problem was? What the limitation was? What mattered to them the most? That is the really important part. And what changed after the treatment?

You don't have to be extremely specific on what changed. But you might have, for example, a 50 year old 52 year old recreational runner came in with unable to complete a three kilometer run without pain. And the thing is her goal wasn't to run a marathon, It was to run with her daughter on, say, a Saturday's park run. Now you're you're not talking about orthotics. You're not talking about shock wave.

You're not talking about other treatment. You're talking about what they came in with and what the problem what the what was limiting them in life. And the people are sitting back, yeah, I can I can relate to that? We're talking about identity, something that other patients can also relate to. I wanna do that.

I wanna run again. Yeah. My my partner's running, but I can't run with them on weekends because I'm in too much pain. So people can relate that. It's a powerful way to market your business, and it's a 100% ethical.

But the side note is, like we said before, is if you're gonna use images, and I think any images of a patient, even if it's just their foot and you can't identify them, I still think you should get the patient's permission. I used to do it all the time. I would take photos, and I would actually say to the patient, hey. I'm thinking of using this in my marketing. Can I get your permission?

And they'd say, yeah. No problem. I would print out a sheet. I would say the date the photo was taken. I'd describe what the photo was, and I'd get the patient to sign it.

And I'd put that in their their patient file because I'm thinking it's just one of those things that I I just think it's the right thing to do. I don't think you should be snapping photos of anyone's body part and without their permission.

Absolutely. But I think you touched on a really important part there. It's, you know, humans, we enjoy stories. Right? We like to be able to connect, you know, events to emotions and kinda like, you know, what what we want our future selves to be able to do.

Right? Like, he's like, tying it to she wants to, you know, run the future with her daughter in these park runs. That's much more relatable than like, oh, we're just gonna do shockwave this thing for you, this brand new amazing technology. Like, that's kind of cold and like kind of self promotional. But if you can try to like focus people on potential outcomes or, you know, ways that you can help them get to where they wanna be, that's gonna connect you much more with them in a in a human way.

Well, it's it's no different when I talk about coaching sometimes. I can say, hey. Come to me. I can help you with this, this, and this. That's great.

But if I share a story where I had a a female podiatrist contact me in her late twenties, working really hard, making x amount, but she wanted to have children. Couldn't take the time off to have children because the business wasn't set up a certain way. But over a period of time, we helped her clearly turn over three times more, employ other podiatrists, and over the last five years, have three children, and also take a couple of overseas holidays at the same time. That is a success story. And so if there's anyone listening to this who goes, I'm a female podiatrist.

I'm in my late twenties. I wanna have children as well. Can you help me do that? That is better than just saying, hey. I can help you build a better practice.

Yeah. The more specific you can be and the more you can tie it to real world either goals or the way they wanna live, the the more successful the both parties are gonna be.

So the next thing is social proof beyond Google reviews. We've spoken about Google reviews probably every second episode Google reviews come up, I think. So everyone knows they have to do that. And Google reviews, even though they're extremely important, they are becoming sort of like a baseline for credibility. But most businesses, if you're in an area of four podiatrists and you're all pretty switched on, you should all be getting Google reviews.

Everyone should be doing it. Some are gonna be better than others. So they're expected these days, and if you're not getting them, you're you're definitely missing out. So you should be really focusing on Google reviews, but they don't differentiate businesses as much as they used to. Real social proof includes creating content about different aspects of your business.

So you might get people talking about your business and doing Google reviews, which you must do. If you're not doing that, give yourself a a slap across the face. And it's really many sound effects, Jim. Big

I mean, if if they didn't listen to this podcast long enough, I mean, I think we've said it so many times. They're not doing it by now. They're they're just like gluttons for punishment for listening to this show.

Yeah. Just give yourself an uppercut. Anyway, so provide educational content. You could be doing short videos explaining heel pain, plantar fasciitis, but explain it in plain language. You could be showing different processes in your business.

What actually happens during a a consultation, or sometimes what happens behind the scenes. I remember one of our most successful videos that we put on social media once was just how we ground and modified an orthotic, how we did a rear foot post back in the day when we used to grind them on there. And patients are like, is that how you do it? Just thought a machine did it. I'm like, no.

No. I do it. I am a machine. And so it's surprising. What you think is boring, patients will actually find interesting, but it also just lets them see some of the process of the business.

If you've got if you got a team with you and you wanna show off their expertise, you might show why your receptionist asks certain questions when you come into the clinic or why your treatment plans are structured a certain way. You could actually say, this is a treatment plan. This is why we explain the treatment plan in these steps. Or when when you come to your clinic, these are the questions our receptionists are gonna ask and why. Why we use these forms before and during certain consultations.

What what you're basically showing people is you're exposing parts of your clinic that they wouldn't normally see, but also what you do in the community, your your presence in the community. If you do local talks, if you attend events, you go to workshops, if you're on a podcast, when people see you teaching and basically not just selling, your authority actually grows over a period of time.

I think it's a huge point. You have to to build that trust and get to be seen as a as a giver and someone that's contributing to the community. Right? You can't just be out there just pitching people left and right. You need to show that that that community involvement is super important in in building that positive word-of-mouth.

And I'd I have seen some businesses, I'm not just talking about podiatry, in the community, they're out there all the time doing some really positive things in the community, and they never share they they don't share it on social media. They don't do anything. I'm sitting there just go. And it's not because they're they don't care about that. They're just not even thinking about it.

And I just go, my god. You have such a good opportunity. I think I mentioned to you at Mission Beach, we went to to Charlie's Beach House. Fantastic brisket, best pina colada I've ever had in the world. And I wanted to post something on Facebook, he didn't have a Facebook page.

And I'm like, Charlie, really? And he was telling me how quiet it's been. I'm with Charlie, you're killing me. So, yeah. I have to have I have to have a word to it.

Anyway, that

You're gonna be a brisket restaurant coach or a strategic brisket restaurant thinker.

Yeah. If you kept feeding me that brisket, I'd do it for free. It was it was really good. The next thing is just why testimonies alone are no longer good enough. Now in Australia, we technically can't do testimonials.

I know in the rest of the world where it's sane, you can do testimonials. But in Australia, our registration board says a big no to that, and they're very strict on it even though some podiatrists blatantly break the rules. And what I found out, it's only against the rules if another podiatrist dobs you in. That's just stupid the rule is. Isn't that silly?

You can have people on the registration board, and they could know that the podiatrist down the road is blatantly breaking that rule about testimonials. Blatantly. But unless someone complains, they can't do anything about it.

That's wild.

I know. I I only know this because I I asked them on the registration board once this question. So, anyway, testimonials are more like reactive proof. They're they're often vague. So, oh, you know, when you get a testimonial and it just says, oh, great treatment, or I highly recommend highly recommend this clinic, they were very good.

They're a little bit vague. Often, they're repetitive. So sometimes you'll see a lot of testimonials, and it's just saying the same thing. There's not nothing really unique about it. And sometimes, they're a bit distrusted, especially if you see testimonials, and this is including Google reviews as well.

There'll be 10 on one day, and then you don't see anything for another three months, and then there'll be another 20. And you go, okay. Just looks looks a little bit dodgy. So and like I said, testimonies, they're they're good to have, sometimes they don't always differentiate differentiate you. What they call the the modern trust equation is more like education plus transparency.

So educating your your patients, showing them a little bit more about what's happening in your clinic. Consistency is another thing is you can't just be excited one week and do all this and then sit back and don't do anything for another three months. You better do a little bit each week and just keep plotting it out there, just being consistent. And also, plus outcomes. Showing outcomes of things that you've done, things that have worked, patients that you've helped.

You put education, transparency, consistency, and outcomes together, and that will actually improve your authority in the marketplace.

I really like that that equation. I think, you know, when I was younger, I was one of those people, like, you go, like, you know, 100 miles an hour for for a little period of time and then back to zero. Right? 100 miles an hour is zero. But it's that consistency over long periods of time and and and some of those other like, the outcomes like you mentioned and the transparency and education, which are really gonna lead to that, that trusted expert, that authority in the local area when it comes to foot and ankle.

So I I definitely can relate to that and something that maybe it's gonna take a little while for certain clinics to fight to figure that out, but I'm glad you laid it out for them today.

Yeah. And with the consistency part is people don't really trust wild claims or even mild claims if people are claiming certain things. But what they do trust is patterns that they can see. And when they're seeing regular patterns, and that's that's consistency. So multiple educational posts, repeated examples of structured care that you provide, clear communication in the things that you're posting, and ethical case discussions.

Their brain says this clinic basically knows what they're talking about, and you're never having to run around and say, hey. Look at me. We're the best. Because the evidence that you're providing is already telling them that you're really, really good at what you do. So where one person down the road is going, look at me.

We're the best podiatry clinic. We're the friendliest podiatry clinic. The other clinic is just putting the information out there, and the person's going, that's the one I'm basically gonna go to.

That that makes total sense.

Here's what podiatrists can start doing immediately. First thing, share one mini case per week. Just pick a small case. Just write a little bit about it. Put some photographs together, and actually just start posting it in different places.

Explain the second thing, explain your assessment process in in a short video. Nice and simple. Show the third thing, show how you build your treatment plans or how you when you're putting a treatment plan together, you can shoot a video on, hey. These are all the different treatment modalities we have. So you could show an orthotic shockwave, lasers, and then say to them, all these treatments can be used to treat one problem, but based on you and what you're coming with, your symptoms and your activities, determine which one we we use.

Just a video explaining that would make patients go, ah. So it's not a one one treatment fits fits everybody. There's multiple treatments for for different things. Share a story about a patient's goal and and and how you actually help them achieve that. And highlight this is one.

Highlight why you charge what you charge. People are so scared about, will I upset this particular patient if I put my fees up $5? You're like, really? If if you're gonna lose patients because you put it up $5, they didn't like you to start with. They were just putting out with you.

So maybe it's good to find you'll find out who your friends are.

No. Absolutely. I think you've gotta be paid what you're worth. Right? So you gotta value your services that you provide to others.

Yeah. And if you charge more than others and patients can clearly see your processes, you've done all these videos. You've put all this proof out there. You explained it. We've all these different treatment options.

And if you came in with heel pain, we can do this, this, this, this, or this. Or we can combine these where you don't no longer your proof that you put out there justifies the prices that you charge. Because they can go and see the guy down the road who might be cheaper, and they go, oh, by the way, what treatment modalities what do you use to treat heel pain? They go, oh, we have orthotics. Pause.

Big, long pause. And they go, ends it. Oh, we treat it with orthotics. You can be charging as whatever you want because they know that you've got all these other treatment options available. Okay.

So to wrap this up, if your marketing still sounds like everybody else's, it's probably because you're promising instead of proving. The shift isn't about spending more on on advertising. It's about showing more of what you already do and what you do really, really well. And if you need help with anything, you know, your online advertising, websites, and stuff, talk to Big Jim. If you need help with your business structuring it a better way or just taking your marketing to that different level, please reach out to me.

But I don't work with everybody as we've already discussed, Jim, offline.

No. You want people that are ambitious and that are ready for a strategy. You don't want the the folks just kinda dabbling in in there.

Yeah. So, like, if you're just starting out in business, I think you should read my book. It's No Secret There's Money in Podiatry. Devour that first. Listen to every episode on this podcast.

Get yourself a notepad and take notes. And from every episode, go, hey. That was a great point. I'm gonna apply that. Start applying things.

Instead of just taking in information, take in information and start applying some of the things that you're learning. Once you do that and you start building your clinic up and then you really wanna take it to next level, then reach out to me. But don't do it beforehand.

That sounds like a great plan, Tyson.

Okay. Big Jim, that is all I wanna talk about today.

Alright. Well, thanks a lot for that. I really I really enjoyed it. And hopefully, the the listeners, not only did they learn something, they're gonna put some of those things into action.

Yes. Take some action. Okay, big Jim. I will talk to you next week.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. See you.

Bye now. 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.