Slow Times, Fast Results: Boosting Podiatry Appointments

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 to this week's episode of podiatry marketing. With me, as usual, as he is every week from the other side of the world, it is big Jim Mac. How are doing today, Jim?

Tyson, I'm pretty good. I'm just kind of curious if this time in a in a few months from now, if I'm gonna be living in the fifty first day of The United States, I'm not sure what's going on here in The US, but they seem pretty intense, at least the president does, to to make Canada a part of The United States, which I'm not a really big fan of, but it's been an interesting few months being here.

Yeah. I don't think it'll happen. I I just don't I don't think it happened. I don't think Canadians it'd be no different to, like, Australia and New Zealand, for example. We're extremely competitive.

Any sport, it doesn't matter what it is. Rugby Union, especially rugby league, marbles, yo yo competitions. Wouldn't matter what it is. We're extremely competitive. Yet, if there's a sporting event on in New Zealand and in Australia, and we get knocked out, we will support New Zealand a % without any problems at all.

But I think if somebody said, oh, we're gonna just if Australia said, New Zealand, you must join our fold and become, yeah, a state of Australia. New Zealand said, they don't they don't want that. They wanna be they wanna be New Zealanders. Yeah. So I can't see Canadians.

I can't see George Saint Pierre go. People who don't know who George Saint Pierre is, he what is he? French Canadian. Is that how you describe him?

Yeah. He's a Quebecor. He's a UFC fighter.

Oh, and he's awesome. And, yeah, I just can't there's no way. There's no way Canadians will let that happen.

No. I don't think it'll happen either. Just kind of annoying with all the tariffs and all the all the kind of hot air that's coming coming towards Canada. So

Yeah. It's happening over here too. They're putting tariffs on everything and upsetting everybody. And now prime minister is but you shouldn't be doing that to friends.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So oh oh, before we get on to today's topic, it's important that I talk about Last time you did, it was your topic, and when we started talking about I asked a question about turkeys, about chickens and turkeys. So I did some research. So everyone listening to the show, just settle in. You're gonna learn a little bit more about turkeys compared to chickens.

And I know this is why you tune in to get all this other interesting information. So a chicken will lay the egg every day normally, but a turkey will only lay one when it's in laying mood every twenty four to thirty two hours. So therefore, over two weeks, a full clutch is what they call the eggs. It's a full clutch of eggs is nine to 13 eggs. Now I got this information on the life cycle of the wild turkey in Oregon.

Good to know. I'll make sure I wow some of my parent friends with this this helpful info.

So a chicken will lay about 300 eggs a year, and a turkey will only lay about a hundred. Chickens are cheaper to feed, and a chicken will also start laying eggs at five months of age. A turkey at seven months of age. Overall, the assessment is it's less profitable in terms of egg production. That's why you don't see turkey eggs for sale anyway.

There you go. Good to know. Good info.

Yeah. I found that very interesting. And it said if you really want a turkey, oh, they taste about the same, little bit fatty, a little bit more cholesterol as well. Yeah. This will come up in a trivia competition that everyone is gonna go, I'm so glad I tuned into this podcast to learn interesting facts.

Anyway, what are talking about today, Jim?

Yeah. We're gonna talk about I guess we're talking podiatry marketing turkey facts. No. But the last time we chatted on one of my topics, we talked about, you know, kind of assessing those slow times, and we kinda talked maybe more in general terms about, you know, how to prepare for them. You know?

But, you know, we didn't really get into the tactics or strategies. If you're already in the midst of maybe a slow time in your practice, what can you do to maybe boost some podiatry appointment? So we'll kinda go over today. We'll discuss some of the digital strategies that can maybe help your practice thrive during some of these quieter months. So, you know, we're hoping that, you know, maybe you're working with a a marketing agency or working with a marketing provider, and maybe these are some suggestions you can make to them if if you haven't already kinda implemented some of these things in your clinic or in your digital marketing.

So that's the goal today is to kinda go over some, you know because some things take a long time. Right? You're, you know, getting SEO and getting Google ranked kinda in the organic section. There's certain things you just can't fast forward. But, you know, hopefully, today, we can kind of go over some that, you maybe you can flip a little bit of a switch to help increase the number of patients coming to the practice.

I think anything that will get more bums on seats is a good thing.

Yeah. Absolutely.

So so where do we start? What's what's number one?

Yes. Number one is to kind of optimize your Google search ads. You know, like we talked about in previous podcast, you know, when people are in need of certain types of services or need kind of, you know, answers to questions, one of the first places they're gonna go to is Google. And, you know, you wanna make sure whatever you know, maybe number one, are you running Google search ads? You know, maybe your clinic isn't doing that yet.

And it's an opportunity for you to kinda get some of these people that are researching online for podiatrist near me or, know, same day appointment podiatrist. You know, if you can increase if, let's say, you're already running some ads, maybe it's time to increase the budget a little bit during those, you know, two to three months when things are a little bit more, you know, a little bit more lagging in your practice. So that's that's one option that you have is that, you know, kind of, you know, increasing that budget and then also just kinda seeing you know, working with your marketing just to make sure whatever they're doing is is getting results because maybe there's some campaigns that, you know, can be either turned off or they can kind of, like I said, just increase the budget, those ones that have been drawing in new patients to your practice.

Yeah. Well, I think it makes sense, that's why it's it's important to understand the numbers of your business. So as you're before you get to that point where you go, oh, Jesus. It's really quiet at the moment. Usually, there's indicators that it's starting to drop off, whether it's new patient numbers or return visits, whatever it is.

So I think if you can keep an eye on that, then as it just hits that peak where it's starting to drop, you know you can actually increase your budget, and hopefully, just keep everything a little steadier. And then if all a sudden it starts to go too high, like you said, you can switch it back off, and it'll drop back down again.

Yeah. I mean, if in the springtime or or summer or whatever you're kind of things start to ramp up, you know, it kinda usually ramps up. It's okay to maybe back off a little bit on the ad spend, but, you know, with every kind of ad campaign you run or the different types of ad, you you have the opportunity or the person you're working with has the opportunity to kind of, you know, create some some copy and some compelling writing in the ad to really kinda highlight, you know, and differentiate yourself from others. You know, we've talked a little bit in the past about, you know, what what are those ways to to kinda showcase who you are and what's it's what makes you different. So, you know, writing some ad copy about, you know, same day appointments or, you know, we'll get you within you know, get you in within twenty four hours.

You know, when people are searching on Google, like I said, they're of they're kind of ready to go. They're ready to kinda make a a buying decision or choosing a podiatrist decision. So if you have copy that kind of reflects exactly what they're hoping to see, they're more likely to click that make an appointment button or to call on to your practice. So, you know, kinda differentiate yourself through some ad copy and making sure that they land on a page on your website that makes it really, really easy for them to make that same day appointment. Or like I said, maybe you want them to call in in that case, but making sure that that kind of route or that kind of journey towards your clinic is is super nailed down so that they don't, you know, send a message and then three or four days later, a staff member gets it.

And you kinda had promised, you know, either same day or within twenty four hours. You know, those things matter, but you're not gonna see that all that kind of terminology in a lot of you know, when you look at Google search ads, and it can set you apart from others. So something I would definitely consider if you're doing it yourself or you're working with the marketing providers, Think about, you know, same day appointments and highlighting them in kind of the writing in your ad or, you know, we'll get you in within twenty four hours can be a huge differentiator.

Yeah. Well, this to be one of our biggest things that we brought patients into our clinic when it came to orthotics. A lot of our markets are guaranteed they're made within twenty four hours. Same day appointment. If you lived out of town and we we promoted that we have a if you come in by 11:00, you can have your orthotics on the same day because we had our own milling machine.

And that really set us apart from everybody else. So when people were searching for things, got podiatrist a, orthotics, podiatrist b, which was us, orthotics guaranteed in twenty four hours. I'm sure they would ring the other place as well and go, how long does it take to get orthotics made? Oh, we'll have them for you. Oh, we're we're really quick.

We'll have them for you in two weeks or a week or even five days, and they're in pain, and they know they need them. Yeah. So I think that same day, twenty four hours, even for appointments is really important.

No. It's a no brainer like you talked about. When you have that kind of comparison between someone that's gonna take two weeks or twenty four hours, I mean, it's just it's a no brainer to kinda pick, you know, the the twenty four hours to get those orthotics and kind of help relieve the patient's pain. So they're gonna be looking for the best interest, and if you can provide that convenience for them, they're definitely you know, especially in nowadays when people

Oh, convenience.

Movies on demand.

Yeah.

Amazon Prime get the same stuff that you know, get their purchases the same day delivered to them. You know, that this kind of especially the younger generation expects that kind of on demand service.

Yeah. Actually, I heard something recently that, you know, how, like, might ask, could you take a photo and you had to wait two weeks to get the film back to find out half your photos, your eyes were closed, someone hit the thumb over the lens. So about four out of 24 photos would turn out. They reckon that these young people today are buying cameras and sending them off to places and waiting the two weeks. It's like an exciting thing to do.

Yeah. I've seen some YouTube channels or I've seen some TikToks where people are like, hey, here's this disposable camera. Like, take pictures at on your trip, and then send us the the photos, and we'll make a video for you of it or something. I've seen some different social channels where that stuff has happened. So, yeah, I think the kind of novelty even like, I think sometimes at weddings, people will sometimes give give away those disposable cameras and hopefully get some interesting shots that, you know, you wouldn't normally get.

We used to take,

you know

the toilet.

That's too much information for the podiatry marketing podcast, Tyson.

I just just remember being at a couple of weddings and they had the cameras on there. Not me. I'm talking about other people. I would see them wander off and come back, and they would just be laughing their heads. I forgot.

What are you doing? They said, oh, we just went to the bathroom. That'll be some interesting pics for them. And and then they got us all thinking, oh, what else can we do? So yeah.

But that would be funny. And that's like when Polaroid photos came in. The convenience of when Polaroid cameras came out, I reminisce how big they were purely because you could take a photo and straight away within a couple of minutes, you could see the photo. So convenience is huge.

No. It's huge. I would say the the next kind of point to make is enhancing kind of a local search strategy. This is something we talked about a lot previously. These kind of areas we serve pages or we know that patients are gonna be searching for podiatrist near me.

So if you don't currently do that in your Google search ads, that's a huge opportunity to kinda implement to get more local traffic quicker into your practice. But if even you do have, you know, maybe five location you know, five different ZIP codes or five different neighboring towns where you're doing that, you know, what about those other three or four or five? You know, can you expand that campaign and try to see if you can get some more of those high quality patients from those place other places that you hadn't previously advertised for? It's just a it's kind of a no brainer because you wanna make sure that you're you're kind of kinda casting the widest net during this time when you normally aren't seeing as many patients you'd want to. So, you know, by kind of either enhancing your current, you know, local search strategy or, you know, if you don't have one, you know, implementing it can be a huge win for you and your practice.

So is this something if you're talking to a provider who's doing this service, this is something you have to remind them, or is it something because it sounds like with you, this is just be something you would do automatic.

Yeah. This is kinda like my main strategy to try to get, you know, people into practices. Obviously, we can kind of make some adjustments that people are looking for specific type of care, you know, but it is for me, it's a no brainer. But I think for other folks, other marketing agencies may not offer this, but you can kind of ask, you know, what do you do as far as getting local patients in and you can make some suggestions that way if you're working with a provider that initially know about this. Obviously, we have podcast a couple podcast episodes dedicated a % to this.

So if you're doing it yourself or even if you're working with somebody else, you know, feel free to let them listen to that podcast and or, you know, reach out to me and I'm happy to provide some information about, you know, a little bit more detail about what this Aries We Serve pages are and how that can have a huge impact on driving some traffic to your clinic.

Okay. So what's next? Yeah. So I'd

say next is, you know, we kinda getting away from the Google search ads, more talking about targeted email reactivation campaigns. So something you're very familiar with, Tyson. It's kind of a bread and butter thing for you.

I love your reactivations.

So, you know, when we're talking about reactivation, just for those who haven't listened to either read Tyson's blogs or, you know, listened to his video seen his videos, what we're talking about is, you know, if someone has, let's say, diabetes, they have orthotics, you know, they have previously come to your clinic for wound care and neither they haven't followed up for a period of time, you know, kind of looking for those different diagnosis codes and associating, you know, emails of those folks to remind them it's time to come in for that six month foot check or, you know, it's time to replace the top cover of those year old orthotics. There's lot of way to kinda stimulate some business into the practice during those those slow times by kind of knowing knowing their diagnosis code and kind of tying that to an email, and kind of making it easy for the patient to come in, and encouraging them to come in for follow-up care. You know, at that time as well, maybe, you know, by you sending that email, maybe someone else in their family has an ingrown toenail or heel pain or maybe themselves they have something going on that they wanna have addressed.

They didn't really you don't really for whatever reason, you're really top of mind, but now that you sent out that email like, yeah, actually my foot, I've been hobbling for the last week. I I I definitely need to come in and see you. So these reactivation campaigns can be very powerful ways to get people into your practice that, you know, so you're kind of filling up the clinic during those slower times.

Yeah. Well, we used to use a lot of tagging with their patient files that when people came in for certain problems, we'd go through and tag specific problems. So, yeah, if all of a sudden we're going, hey. We've got this new treatment for this particular problem, we could send something out really specific, really targeted to those patients. But also, like you said, using item codes, we knew who the orthotic patients were.

You were having them coming back yeah. Whether they'll come back for their orthotic review as scheduled. But if not, if they had missed their orthotic review straight away, you could retarget them and get them back in again, whether it's covering, just general maintenance on it. Yeah. I I do I definitely agree that email is underutilized.

No. It's it's underutilized from the reactivation campaign, but it's also underutilized just in general from, you know, kind of just sending out, you know, clinic emails either monthly or quarterly. What I find is that maybe during that slower time you send them out monthly and maybe during the the peak times, it's not as important to just send out something on a quarterly basis, but kinda getting it to your, you know, regimen to send out, emails that talk about the type of care you provide. Maybe there's like showing some of your clinic personality. Maybe it's like you talked about, you love burgers, maybe you're doing something in there to show off that personality, but also letting patients know that you have availability in that email.

But like I said, you wanna kinda lead to those educational emails. We've talked about that in previous podcast as well, but you'd be surprised how many clinics don't actually have a clinic newsletter. And I think that's a huge opportunity lost for those that don't have one

because if

you have 5,000, 10 thousand emails just sitting there and you haven't reached out to those folks, you know, what does it take? You know, 1% of 10,000 is what? Is that a hundred? So like, you know, if you do that, you get you know, 1% of people, you know, reach out to you. It's probably gonna be a half a percent.

So maybe

I don't know why they don't do it. I just don't understand when why people do not do an email and use it. It's cheap. Yeah. And, yes, you you do.

You get people unsubscribe. Every time I do, I send out a, like, a weekly one, and I'll do it right through until about closer to December, then I'll take a month off. But every time I send out, yeah, a few people unsubscribe, and I'm like, great. You don't have you don't have to get the information because I put different things in the newsletter that I don't put anywhere else for for a certain period of time. But it's the people who don't unsubscribe.

That's what you don't realize. If it ends up in your patient's inbox and it has ABC podiatry that it's come from, and even if they just delete it, if every month it's turning up there, if they're not unsubscribing, it's remembering that, oh, that's right. My podiatrist is ABC podiatry.

No. Absolutely. I think it's a huge opportunity for being top of mind. Like I said previously, if you maybe their husband, maybe their neighbor, maybe their daughter, someone has something going on and it just they remind it reminds them that you are there to provide great care for them. So, you know, don't be shy.

If you haven't started a newsletter, it's not very hard. You know, obviously, we have some podcasts that will help kind of walk you through some of those options and opportunities, but I definitely recommend that every clinic has these because, you know, you have 5,000, 10 thousand patients you can reach out to that, you know, some of the some percentage of them needs your care. And by reminding them that, then, you know, it's a great way to fill up the appointment agenda.

But even putting something simple in there, if you're selling retail products, if you've got a new retail product and you put it in your newsletter and it's going out to 5,000 patients, say, hey. We now have this new strapping tape or this cream or we've got this footwear that's now in our clinic. I knew every single time we did it, you got a response. Every time. So newsletters don't take a lot of time to do, don't cost a lot to do, but you return on any time you mention a new retail product that's worth every cent.

No. Absolutely. It's a

great point. Okay. So what is the next step after this or the next thing they should look at?

Yes. The last thing I would consider is leveraging some paid social ads to kind of reach reach it, right, kind of a broader audience. I think you have to be with these social ads, it'd be pretty straight into the point about, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be like make appointment, make appointment, but you have to have some kind of offer for them. Mhmm. It can't just be a general, you know, we are, you know, ABC podiatry and look how how interesting we are.

You know, anything like that isn't, you know, this is not the time to be doing that. Maybe you have a new way to treat warts, a new way to treat heel pain. You wanna make sure that that's front and center, you know, if it's some new way of doing it. Or this, you know, if, know, like you talked about previously, maybe you just wanna highlight the fact that you do provide, you know, same day treatment or treatment within twenty four hours, and then putting that in either a video or a visual way instead of just search can be a way to let people see it. You know, obviously, people aren't looking for it as much, so it is kind of more you know, it's it's something that's more kind of broad and and it's not that kind of highly correlated kind of high intent when people are searching for things.

But, you know, if you if you keep that area, you know, maybe it's five miles or 10 miles or 20 miles around your clinic where people are you're showing people these videos. Like I said, it can lead to potentially more appointments. But just like I said, make sure it's really targeted on very specific type of care you wanna provide and really helping yourself stand out from the others, whether it be a new type of treatment or the fact that you will get to see you know, you'll get patients in within twenty four hours, which is not something that other clinics are putting out there. So, you know, these these kind of created targeted ads, not only will can I create some general awareness, but hopefully your proposition is enough for them to kind of become a lead and, you know, make an appointment with your practice?

Yeah. And I think the other part with social media ads when they're doing it is when you're on social media yourself, what comes through in advertising? Because there's always heaps of ads on there now. But what makes you stop? So you're scrolling through it, and all of sudden, something will pop up, whether it's a video.

What is it about that video that makes you stop? Or if it's a visual image, what may what about that makes you stop and look at it or click on shop now or learn more? And I think whatever intrigues you, you gotta try and think about how can I use that in podiatry, do the same thing? Because a lot of the times when people are on social media, they're there to catch up with friends, family. They're there for fun.

They're not there to be interrupted. But I get interrupted all the time because there's some really cool ads on that. I buy so much stuff from social media. They skip me because if something stops me and gets my attention, then I'm gonna look at it a little bit further. Sometimes I look and I go, know.

Total waste of time. But I think you just gotta remember when people are on those platforms, they're there for entertainment, so you've gotta gotta really interrupt them. Whereas the Google Ads we're talking about before, if they're searching for that, so they're actually actually looking for that wart treatment. Whereas yeah. One thing I've never seen I don't know if anyone still does.

Does anyone still hificate warts?

I don't think so. I think people have moved on either to chemical irritation or to the the swift type stuff.

Yeah. Like, I haven't not seen anybody even talk about it or do it for years, but I remember the visual when that used to be done and people would go, and you see the smoke coming off and the smell was horrendous. But can you imagine a close-up video of that? Like, you're scrolling through Facebook and there was a close-up video of that. That would make you stop.

It scare you too. Yeah. But it also make you stop. So I'm thinking

I don't think I would call a clinic, though. It looks like it looks like a form of torture, not a not a not a

yeah. I know, but you would stop and at least look at it because you wouldn't there's no way you would scroll past a water on someone's foot and smoke coming off of it that you wouldn't at least stop and go, my god, what was that? What's that barbaric thing they're doing? And actually, I don't think I've seen it for over twenty years.

Well, I think those, like, I I sometimes see on Instagram will sometimes hide certain posts usually like surgery or kind of a mangled foot or something. It'll put kinda like a a grayed out box with like an x through it. And if you wanna see it, you can Oh, yeah. Click on it. But I'm pretty sure that video like that would probably

Yeah. It makes makes me wanna click it over time. I've got this one page I follow called things that should be banned on Instagram, something like that.

Okay.

And I'll watch your most go, yep. Yep. Should have been banned. Yep. That one should have been.

Yep. That should have been. But I'm just thinking, if you're gonna do some something social media, whether it's just something visual, it's it must capture their attention.

It's gotta stop them from scrolling for sure.

Yeah. Because if it just says ABC podiatry, unless someone just happened to be talking, yeah. I think I might see a podiatrist scroll through. My phone listens to me. See?

I told you we're they're listening into us when we're when we're talking. Have you heard people say that?

Yeah. I mean, I I I think I've experienced that a few times. I think we're giving a lot of if anybody has a a clinic named ABC Podiatry, give me a lot of plugs today. So

hopefully Yeah. Well well, every now and then, we'll be talking about something, and then the next day, it'll pop up, like, your phone or on the computer. But it's also your reticular activating system's working so you you're more aware of it. So every now and then, we will jokingly we'll have a conversation about something totally relevant that we are not interested in, and we put our phones there to make sure our phones are listening to us. And not once is it ever the next day showing us what we're talking about.

So Yeah.

Yeah. I'd really like to go on an elephant safari. It it hasn't turned up. Okay, Jim. What else anything else you wanna say on this before we wrap up?

No. That's pretty much it. I would just say that, you know, just make sure that, you know, whoever you are working with, either you're doing it yourself or you're working with some provider, you wanna make sure that they're kinda implementing these target approaches, whether it's, you know, boosting your Google search ads budget or, you know, reactivating patients with tailored emails or expanding your reach with paid social. You wanna make sure that your clinic stays busy and these are some of the ways of doing it. So if you have additional questions about it, you know, definitely don't hesitate to reach out to me and to Tyson.

We can, you know, put you in touch with some good resources, some of our either previous podcasts or some other blog posts or some resources that can be really helpful for you because there's no reason to have to deal, you know, like we talked about in a previous podcast, you don't you don't have to deal with, you know, make sure you're planning that these things are gonna happen. But if you're stuck in kind of in a rut, there are definitely some ways to to fill up the clinic book and and to move forward. So don't hesitate to ever reach out to us if that's something that would be helpful to you.

Yeah. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please click the subscribe button so that they'll just come through on your phone automatically. And if you happen to be watching the video on our YouTube channel, which is podiatry marketing as well, click the subscribe button, which should be down there where I'm pointing my finger before it goes to the lane. Okay, Jim. This has been fantastic, and I look forward to talking to you next week.

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

Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.