Step-by-Step Guide to Planning a Podiatry Clinic Photoshoot

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 is my cohost, big Jim Mac. So Jim, how are you doing today?

Doing well, Tyson. Doing well. Enjoying 2024. It's a it's a good year. First the first month of year always gets me hyped up and excited.

So now things are going well here in Montreal.

I do like a new year. It's funny how people will just start, you know, like, oh, yeah. I need a new year to a clean slate so I can just settle my goals. But I always think you can really do that anytime of the year. You don't need to wait till the beginning of the year to do it.

But I must admit, I do like just that it's almost like a whole refresh for the year. It's like everything that's happened to the past is the past. My future is looking bright.

Well, here in in Canada, right, November, December, the days are getting much shorter. And now we're on the other side of where days are starting to get a bit longer. And I like as much as I enjoy the snow and the cold, I like longer sunnier days. So so, yeah, the sunshine is very welcome.

Yeah. No. It's what I like here at the moment. Middle of summer, it's like 05:30 in the morning, sun is up, and 07:00 at night, you can still be outside and it's great. What are we talking about today?

What is today's subject?

Yeah. So we've kinda talked about this subject in different different podcasts in the past, but not for really how to like, kind of a step by step guide about how to do it. But today, we're gonna be talking about a step by step guide to plan a podiatry clinic photo shoot.

Okay.

We've talked a lot about the importance of photos, a lot the importance of images to Google and to other places, but we haven't really told people what we think is a good way to go about and approach this opportunity to get, you know, real authentic photos of them treating their ideal patients.

Okay. So where would where would you start with this if you were taking people through the steps. So obviously, you've got us a guide that you're gonna take everybody Yeah. Through.

For sure. So I think of the, you know, like talked about, you know, creating a successful authentic photo shoot really involves kind of some careful planning to start off with. It's not something where you just wanna call your per a buddy or a family member who has a camera, they just come in and start taking pictures of your empty clinic. You really need to make Yeah. Sure you're you're planning it.

You know how to hire the right photographer, ideally somebody professional that's done more than one of these in the past. And also you wanna know kind of what are the key images you need to capture during the shoot. So the first real step is to know what your goals are and kind of what who your audience is. Right? So obviously ideally, you know, these are these photos are being taken not not just for you, but for to appeal to a specific ideal patient, to the people you want to treat, to demographic in your local area and really maybe it's for to show the professionalism to other referrers, to other healthcare professionals in the local area.

It's order to kind of build trust and reputation for yourself. So you kind of have to decide what you want to achieve with these photos. Know you're gonna what treatments do you want to showcase? You know what type of care do you provide that you want to really highlight? You know if you need to highlight kind of what is it like for the patient experience, right.

So what is the office look like, what is the front of your office look like, what is kind of the their career, not the career but the patient journey they're going to walk through when they go from being you know online on your website into your practice. You know there's ways of taking photos to really help them get familiar with your practice and with your staff and with you to make sure they're feeling very very familiar and very comfortable once they get into a real life appointment situation.

So I'll go back a step that you said have a professional photographer, and and if they've done similar clinics to yourself, they might have an idea of some of the shots that you probably should have, But

Yep. Yep.

The other part too is we're we're talking about doing a professional photo shoot here, not something where all of sudden you just happen to have an exceptionally interesting case that you wanna take a photo of, which is why I always say to people, you should always have a good camera handy just in case something cool turns up. But I do agree that you said so would you suggest people go back to, say, the last, say, hundred new patients that came in and have a look at what they actually came in with, and maybe then we'll give them a guideline of some of the things that they should be taking photographs of because those new patients coming obviously an idea of what people are looking for.

I think it goes a bit deeper than that. I think it would start with what do you want to treat? Like Yeah. You could have had, you know, 50 like a clip and chips, but like you're starting your practice and that's not what you want to be known for. But a lot of these things, you know, they seem pretty, you know, intuitive, right?

Oh, yeah. Just of course, would take pictures of I want to do orthotics, then I would take pictures of me doing orthotics. But you'd be surprised if you don't have that written down or if you don't have that communicated well to the photographer that these are the things that you want to do. So you really need to get into that planning process, know what you want to do, know what type of patient you want to treat. And then, you know, I think it makes sense to to look through those 50 or 100 of your last patients to see what you did.

So maybe there are there is some stuff that you can highlight along the way. But I think there you bring up a good point as well, you know, having a good camera on hand could be helpful for some some other non photoshoot photos, you know, if you're before and afters with surgery, some other aspects that you may wanna highlight in your website or other internet properties potentially. But for right now, I'm really more focused on how do you get those really professional looking images for your website, your social channels and other places to make sure that you're highlighting your expertise and really looking professional to not only your patients but also to other healthcare providers in your local area that maybe wanna refer patients to you now that they see how good of a clinic you have and the type of modalities and treatments you provide patients that come in.

Yeah. And I think that's where the advantage of the professional photographer is too because they will know yeah. They'll do multiple angles, and they'll be able to see what actually looks best when when you're doing it yourself. Even when I've done presentations and I might hand my camera to somebody, say, hey. Can you get some photos for me?

And they go, yeah. Yeah. Not a problem. And I try to direct them on, I want this photo here, and I want it from this angle because this is what I wanna use it for. Whereas professional, if you say this is what I'm after, they will probably nail their shots a lot more.

No, you bring up that's exactly what I'm trying to get at here is that you wanna look for professional photographer with healthcare experience, right? You don't want, I mean, if there's someone that's younger than a couple and maybe they, you know, you're just starting and need a better deal, maybe that's, it's fine to go with. But there's someone that worked with that local hospital system or other clinics in the local area. Some of your friends and colleagues and other specialties probably have had a photo shoot in the past, you can get some different types of referrals, but you can look you know online, like I said, you can ask the hospital who they use, know other other friends, but kind of in professional roles. But you really want to have that person vetted, right?

Because you want to see their their kind of portfolio. Yeah. What are some, you know, examples of photos they've taken in the past? Do they have those different angles? Are they using different lenses to try to capture things?

Because, you know, if everything is a close-up of the foot and you that, you know, websites can be large and, you know, maybe need a wide angle view. So there's you wanna make sure that you don't have to worry about those specifics that the photographer has a portfolio that really shows that they know what they're doing. And then once you do that you can start kind of maybe interviewing one or two people or maybe three people you think would be a good fit to see whether you want to work with this person or not. Obviously personalities, the way they work, pricing, different things come into to account there. But you know interviewing some few folks to see what's a good fit for you and your practice.

And then you know looking in to see you know what are the cost for the photo shoot, you know the post image processing, know giving you those kind of original files. You know, these days you don't have to have the actual physical photo anymore. It's something that can send you a link to a Dropbox. But those are the kind of things to think about when you're looking for that professional photographer to work with.

And what what sort of money do you reckon people should be budgeting to actually have a professional photographer?

Yeah. Generally, I'd say somewhere between the the $500 range to $2,000. That's gonna be based on where you're located at. You know, if you're in New York City or San Francisco, it might be on the the higher side. And if you're in a smaller, a more rural community, it could be, know, as low as $500 but you don't want to go with a super cheap option like we talked in the past.

These are images that you want to, you know, do well and look professional in for, you know, maybe five, seven years for that kind of first go. But then you obviously want to update, you know, I've seen clinics and websites that have clearly have photos from twenty years ago.

Yeah.

And and you don't or videos on the website, which is like a doctor, you know, like 50 pounds ago. And you wanna make sure that it's a kind of a gradual smooth transition from the online world to what's reality. So, know, updating these photos every five to seven years is definitely recommended.

Yes. I got the photographer, they should do my photos for the last website they did, the update. And I said to him, camera hates me. He goes, I am a professional. He said, don't leave it to me.

He takes a few shots, and he kept looking at his camera. He's going, oh my god. That's why I guess, you're right. The camera doesn't like you, does it? It's not camera hates me.

Absolutely hates me. Despises me. He said, but leave it with me. And he did, and he eventually took took enough photos. He earned his money.

He took enough photos to finally get the right thing. Whereas, that's the difference between using someone who's not a professional. I reckon they would've just given up on mine. They would have just gone, yeah, no camera hates you. We'll move on.

Do something else. I thought I'd get somebody else for the photos. No. That that's why you

hire a professional. I think it another point you brought kind of touched on briefly there is that this isn't like an episode just for those new people coming into practice. People that are in clinic, know, that have been in practice for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, it's just as important for those folks to have professional images as well that are updated. Because we talked about on past podcasts, if you're going to be selling your practice, if you're you have some new modalities, you have some new ways of treating patients, you need to have those things highlighted on your website, on your social accounts, and other places. Know, because if it's, you know a wart burner from thirty years ago, like you know that people are going to shy away from those types of treatments.

But if you can show that your modern, know that you look the same way in real life as you do in your images, that's gonna go a long way to building patient trust. So that's a really, really important component.

Yeah. And it's also the quality of the images from, you know, ten years ago. Some of the images that you would've used on your website, some people are using bigger screens now. Sometimes people are using TV sets to actually do the searching. So if your quality or image wasn't very good ten years ago compared to an updated photo now, it's obvious.

Sometimes old photos are just really, really obvious.

No. It can be for sure.

So what about logistically? Is there certain things that they should be preparing for that way?

Yeah. You really need to prepare some logistics. Right? So you obviously what what's the location gonna be? Ideally, this is gonna be inside your clinic and outside of your clinic on a nice sunny day.

So, you know, there's that logistics of trying to, you know, you can't predict the weather as Tyson knows well. Yeah. But, you know, it's it's one of those things where you want to, you know, you're showing you in your clinic with your staff is a great way to kind of build genuine, you know, kind of build trust and really show that you're an authentic, you know, caring medical provider, right? So also, when are you going to schedule this, right? What is the date and time?

Obviously, you want to cause a minimal disruption of your clinic operations. But, you know, do you have a half day admin day on Fridays that it might be able to fit into well? Or maybe that's something where, you know, you just don't want to do it during the week. You're just going to take off one half day on the weekend to do it. There's different ways to kind of approach the the scheduling aspect of it, but those those two kind of lead the way.

Obviously, props and equipment. So you want to make sure that you have the the kind of the necessary medical equipment ready to go and in good condition. So it's highlighted well in these photos. And you want to make sure that you have permission of the people taking part in the photo shoot. Right?

So, you know, either you're gonna select participants, we'll get in this a little bit, but you know, you want to have everyone sign a waiver to make sure that you have a use of these photos. Right? If they don't sign a waiver, they could come back later on and say, hey, I didn't want you to use that photo of me. And it could be, you know, cause for litigation or just, you know, bad publicity for you and for your practice.

Yeah. We used to call them the talent. So when you brought the talent, we we we have them sign something to say that they'll they'll fine with everything. The other part, it's interesting people to realize too. Whoever takes the photo owns the photo.

So if if I had my camera here, Jim, and someone ran past you, picked up my camera, took a photo of that, and then gave the camera back to me, and I take another thousand photos, that one photo that you actually picked up the camera and took the photo with, you actually own the rights to that photo even if it's on my camera. So the photographer technically owns the rights to every one of those photos that they take, which is why you need to get them to make sure they sign them over to

you. Exactly.

Important. And with the talent too, I'd say whoever you have in your pictures and this yeah. Don't take this the wrong way, but try the better looking they are, the better. Yeah. And it's not that have to be a supermodel, but they just need to they need to look like the type of ideal patient that you actually want in your clinic.

Yeah. That's the next step is really to select those and kind of brief, know, participants in the in the photo shoot. Right? Yeah. You need to choose the staff, like make sure the staff is on board.

And then you can decide whether do you want to have actual patients? You know, if you've been in practice for a while and you have these kind of go to patients who are kind of that ideal patient persona that are trustworthy, that are gonna dress well, present themselves well for the photos. I mean, like you said, they don't have to be supermodels but they need to take care of themselves, they need to

be Have all their teeth.

Wearing clean clothes. Yeah. Have all their teeth Yeah. All those kinds of things to make sure that they know the purpose of the the photoshoots about and they're willing to be flexible with their time in order to make it happen, right. So, you know, kind of letting them know how to prepare as far as, you know, maybe it's staggered, right.

They don't have to be there for the entire thing but for this this one hour slot you're expecting them to be there so they can get those photos taken. So, you know, kind of the arrival times and scheduling the people to be available for the shoot is really really important when it when it comes to, you know, selecting and you know, briefing your participants in the photo shoot.

Yeah. And I think that like you said, the timing of when you're start, when you're gonna finish and make sure that they're quite flexible with that because I don't think I've ever done a photo shoot yet or a video that's ever run on time. There's always No. There's always interruptions or and because you're usually still doing it during a workday and your business is still actually going, these phone calls that come through, there's something that happens. So they they can be distraction.

So they're gonna be prepared that they may need to hang around just a little bit longer.

Nope. That's a perfect example. I think it's really important too that, like I said, unless you're just cold starting a clinic, you need to have people in all of your photos. I see too many websites with empty waiting rooms, empty front desk, no staff at front desk, empty treatment rooms. Get away from that if you can.

Obviously if you're brand new to an area, you don't know anybody and you don't want to hire some fake models or something, that's your call. But just know that seeing something empty, it doesn't feel quite right when we're looking at images. So do your best to fill those treatment rooms, the waiting room and that front desk office scene at least for a little period of time to get those photos to look more genuine and authentic.

Yeah. Especially empty rooms. I don't think there's anything worse. You see a beautiful reception area and it's just empty. Whereas they could have a receptionist there, the podiatrist standing there, and a patient at the counter.

And even if even if no one's really looking at the camera, it just looks like it's a real photograph of what's actually happening in the in the waiting room. I think always always looks better. So what's next? So what about setting up the shoot? You're like getting prepared or get getting everything lined up the right way?

Yeah. So I'd say like the the next couple steps are kind of intermingled and that's just kind of like, you know, you've gone have done the planning beforehand probably with the photographer as far as setting up the shot list and kind of where those key areas are you're gonna take photos at in the lead up. So then it's kind of it's I wouldn't say it's hands off from you. You need to obviously make sure that they're going through that agreed list of shots and angles and those things, but leave it in the hands of the professional, right? You're hiring this photographer to kind of be the photographer to guide participants yourself.

They'll be the ones that take care of the, you know, if you're a type a person and you're you're getting too stressed out about stuff, just back off and let the photographer do his job. If you're stressed out and you know freaking out that someone's you know, I don't know. Just let them do their job and let them kind of guide the participants through the photo shoot. That's the most important thing. They're gonna capture that mix of different shots and different angles.

You know, for some reason if the, you know, usually they're mark things off a list. Right? Just make sure they're catching all those things. But just, yeah, let kind of rely on that professional and, you know, obviously they need some help, they'll they'll reach out to you. But just kind of work in concert with them and let them take the lead.

Yeah. And a professional too, they will probably have a meeting with you way ahead of time to know what it is you're after, an idea of the shots that you wanna do. They may even come out and scope the room and everything beforehand, so they'll know whether they need to bring additional lighting or whether the natural light is going to be fantastic. I know we had certain consultations that had beautiful natural light, but, yeah, other ones had no natural light. So if we're gonna use both rooms, then the photographer be prepared for this, you know, lighting in this room, don't need lighting in the other room.

Now that makes a lot of sense. I think yeah. But it's like letting them decide, you know, where where things should be at. Like you said, either they're gonna do probably a walk through or you're gonna have a very clear understanding before the photoshoot even starts exactly what's gonna happen. And once that photoshoot ends, they're gonna tear down, they're gonna walk out of the clinic and they're gonna spend some time doing some post production and post processing of these images.

So once they, know, maybe a week or two later once they're done processing the images, you know, they're gonna do things like make sure the lighting is correct. They're gonna select the best shots, you know, kind of make sure that the angles and those things are as good as they can be. You know, they're gonna send you kind of a maybe some proofs or just the entire photo shoot in a Dropbox image and you can kind of go through those images and you know if you have questions about them or the angles if there's you know how much has been manipulated or how much you know is there certain photos that you think that should be a little bit different? You can obviously, stylistically, they can kind of color change colors a little bit here and there. But, you know, obviously, like when you when you take a look at the photos they've done before, kind of select them for the reason.

So there probably won't be much of that has to be done but they'll deliver those images to you. And then once you have those images then it's up to you if you're working with a marketing consultant or agency it's able to kind of like start utilizing those images across the different marketing platforms you have, your website, you know, your social media, any kind of physical brochures or collateral you have that you've been waiting on to create with these these new images. And really is a chance to like take these, you know, when you when you do go through the photoshoot, it's a it's a rare opportunity to, you know, really kind of tell those patient stories and really have kind of you can work on some different captions or some, you know, if you if you if you write for yourself or you write with a marketing consultant, you know, what are the stories you need to tell behind those images? And it's a great opportunity, like I said, now you have those images, you can kind of get them out there into the world over a gradual period of time.

Yeah. And I just want to go one background step too about setting up for the shoot is the people that you you have turning up, give them some sort of guidance on what you'd like them to wear as well. Because if you've got quite light colored walls, you don't really want them wearing really light colored clothes that they're gonna sort of blend in. The bed to wear something that might be a little bit darker, but also have the appropriate clothing for whatever it is the shoot you're going to be doing.

Yeah. That's what really comes into like selecting your participants. Right? Like and then giving them clear communication about what to wear and what makes sense for the lighting and, like you said, the colors of the walls. That makes a lot of sense.

Okay. So once you've got all the photos, you've done this great photo shoot, the photographer's given them all to you, you've got 400 photos to go through that you so many different angles of all your equipment, your services and everything you've done, then where do they where should they start using these photos?

Yeah, like mentioned, it's time to kind of hand those off maybe even to your marketing consultant or someone that handles the marketing of your practice and working with them to update the website, go onto social media, create different collateral on social media. Obviously if you need some new brochures or pamphlets for your clinic, it's a great opportunity to kind of keep those updated as well whether it be the way you treat certain things, whether it can be kind of online ways to like the ways that you like kind of your patient protocols in a way can be updated utilizing some of those things. Let's say you have a Swift wart machine or you have some new type of modality or medical equipment that you want to make a Facebook ad for. So I think it's I don't think the podiatrist or the clinic owner necessarily has to decide what to do with all 400 of those images that come through. But working with someone you trust in a marketing capacity can be a great help to get those to where they need to be.

And then once you have that that kind of the feedback from your marketing, know, consultant that you work with, then you can kind of like decide you know what are the kind of next steps that make the most sense. So like I talked about previously the kind of images you want to capture are you know the treatment in action right, so shots of the podiatrist treating patients, highlighting those kind of key services that you want to provide, super important. You really want to have that doctor patient interaction where there's some kind of authentic interactions between the staff and the patients just so there's kind of like you know everyone's seen images like that but just making sure they're capturing those images. Yeah. You want to showcase your clinic and your facility.

So obviously having people in the clinic, in the waiting area, in treatment rooms, obviously showing off the equipment. So if you have specific modalities you want to show having image of that. And then like talk about what is the patient journey right? How do they go from your parking lot into the waiting room, from the waiting room into your treatment room and even on the way back out and kind of those angles can really help tell a story for a patient And then obviously photos of your team that look super professional wearing your clinic attire and, you know, really kind of showcasing the staff and the team that you have altogether.

No. I reckon they were all good ideas. The only other thing I'd add to that too is maybe organizing a couple of patients and having the same patient that you're using for every single photo because I've seen websites where I've looked at it and I've gone, my god. They've got warts. They've got this.

They've got this. It's the same patient every single photo. So, you know, even though most people know a lot of these photos may be staged, but I think it'd be you know, one person that you might use for biomechanical stuff, somebody else for the swift treatment if that's what you're doing, and just mix it up a little bit so it's it's not the same person all the way through. I don't think it's a problem having you as the podiatrist all the way through. I think the business owner should be in as many photos as possible, but I think mix the patients up a little bit so it doesn't look like, everything was shot on the same day.

No. I totally agree. I think, know, somewhere between three to five either real patients or family members or mock patients that are a little bit different demographics or, you know, maybe you want to just treat certain types of athletes. Right? So maybe it is more of an athletic type.

But just three to five different people like you talked about. It'll help lead to more kind of, like you said, this game of, well, I saw the patient there. I saw the same patient here. I saw the same patient there. And it just gets a little, yeah, it's a little strange in some ways.

Like, we our minds work you know, we're visual creatures. Right? So you may not be able to, like, put that into words the way it makes you feel, but it just feels a little bit off or a little strange in a way and that the humans we can recognize that.

There's one particular one that I know that I looked at all these photos and then, oh, there she is on the examination meds. Oh, she's also got this problem. Oh, she has that as well. Same person all the way through, and then when you rock up at the business, they were also the receptionist.

Yeah. I would I would advise against that.

And I sort of went, okay. So you couldn't get a real patient, and so you've used one of your team one of your staff to pretend to be a patient all the way through, and it may it just it felt a bit a bit tacky.

Yeah. Well, we're about ready to wrap up. I just wanna leave like three kind of tips

here Yes.

Go for close close-up on this topic. And I would say, like you've mentioned, Tyson, we wanna make sure that you kinda have the legal compliance not only with the patients that you're going to use these images, so have them sign a waiver, but also you want to get ownership of those images from your photographer. Really, really important stuff. You don't want to have him take all these photos and then you didn't sign that over now you're trying to license them from him or something like that. You don't want that.

You want to own those images.

Yeah.

Make sure that the images are consistent. Right? For some reason if he has, you know, that the camera breaks in the middle of the shoot or something happens where the light, you know, gets really messed up in some ways, you wanna make sure that they're doing the image processing so it looks like a coherent photo shoot. So things aren't, you know, obviously, you're gonna have maybe different rooms, you know, in your practice that have different light, but I think it's really important to try to keep a consistent feel because the more consistent images are, more kind of trustworthy they are, the more less kind of that kind of weird, you know, things feel off. Right?

There's no disjointed yeah. The vibe or the disjointed feelings if things look very strange. Right? If you do photoshoots photoshoots on two different days and you're like, you know, you did something drastic to the office, it's just going be kind of a strange situation. So last but not least, would say that once you have all these images, 400 images, consult a marketing specialist.

Work with the person that builds your website, work with someone who does marketing for your practice and make sure that you get the most bang out of the buck. Like I said it's really not that expensive of an endeavor. These are images you're going use for five to seven years. Like I said I think it's important you refresh those but you want to make sure that you get the most you can from these images because they're a huge way of really showcasing what you do, how you do it, who you treat and that you are that local expert in a way that words can't do, right? You can't write a set like a three page bio about yourself about how great you are and expect people to read that.

They're not going to. But if they see you treating your ideal patient with these images on your website, on your social, in Facebook ads, it's gonna lead a level and really kind of grow trust and respect not only from potential patients but also from other healthcare providers. So it's definitely worth the investment in getting a professional photographer to help you with these things, but then also working with a marketing specialist to make sure that you are projecting and showing that professional image that you are the local expert in your community. So definitely if you have questions about you know how to get started or you want these written better obviously we'll have a transcript of this episode. Well, you know, you can rewind and and listen to it both on you know Apple Podcasts, Spotify and on YouTube, but that's pretty much it from for me today.

Yeah. And if anybody is looking to getting a website done or talk wants to talk about it, they talk to You're doing websites?

Yep. I'm doing websites. I'm doing, you know, different types of paid advertising, blog posts, things like that. And if they need some coaching, they need to kind of understand the the kind of the the psychology behind why of stuff that I do is important, they can talk to you to Tyson. I'm I'm sure you're still taking taking on clients.

No. When I say people like this time of the year, especially the new year, this is a new start. If you've been thinking about coaching, are you going, oh, I should've go for one of these big coaching companies where I'll get handed off to an employee after the initial call, or you wanna work with someone just one on one like myself, yeah, give me a call. Just reach out. So I think I think we've I think we're done on this subject.

The whole photo thing, I think, is such an important part of everybody's business, and just getting your your partner to do a few shots of you around the clinic just doesn't cut it anymore. You need you need to get a professional in get professional photos, and I tell you, it'll make a massive difference.

I I couldn't yeah. I couldn't put it any better.

Okay, Jim. I look forward to seeing you next week.

Sounds great, Tyson. Okay. See you. Bye.

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.