Stop Giving Away Pens - How Promotional Products Can Market Your Podiatry Business

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 with my trusty co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's it going today?

I'm fantastic day, big Jim, and officially spring where I live in Cairns. The weather is absolutely spectacular. Couldn't couldn't be any better. You're out in the sun. It warms you up very quickly, but when you're in the shade, it's still just a little bit cool.

Yeah. We're kinda getting towards fall here, so it definitely is a little bit different than what you're dealing with there.

It's a snow. What what time of the year does it snow in your area?

Usually December. I mean, it really depends. Okay. You know, sometimes it's it just it kinda it kinda varies.

Okay. Well, let's dive into today's topic. And the title of this is Stop Giving Away Pens, How Promotional Products Can Market Your Podiatry Business. We did do an episode, I think it was about two and a half years ago, just about using promotional swag in your podiatry business. I'm sure everyone that listened to that one is like, oh, you're covering this topic again?

Yes. But in a slightly different way. And as we all do, Jim, every time we touch on another topic again, we do it even better.

Absolutely. I think there is benefit to not just repetition, but like bringing up topics that are important, emphasizing maybe some different aspects that we didn't go into too much depth with or not enough depth with on the last one.

So the first thing I wanted to mention was that promotional products are marketing. It's not just merchandise. So don't stop by asking what can we put our logo on, which a lot of people tend to do. But what you're gonna really think about is what are you trying to achieve with each item that you're putting your name to? Is it is it brand awareness?

Is it patient loyalty? Are you trying to get more referrals? Are you promoting a, like, a niche service in your particular business? Or is it just starting a conversation to get people to ask a question? The item is simply just a delivery vehicle for the marketing message.

And if there's no strategy behind it, you're probably just buying something that is just clutter for somebody else's desk or their cupboard or it's just gonna get tossed out.

Yeah. I've seen a lot of, you know, clinics offer different things and you're like kind of, yeah, what's the purpose behind it? Like you said, I think there's it's always good know, to I mean, I don't mind the occasional little stress ball or something like that, but like what is it really trying to get me to do? Or is it trying to remind me about some specific type of service that you have? So I think that when it has a little bit of meaning behind what the item is, it can go a lot farther than just having, like you said, just another mildly kind of useless piece of swag that's just kind of cluttering up somebody's cupboard or or drawers.

Yeah. And it's just like I said, you don't if it's if it's of no use, it will get thrown out. Useful beats clever. The best promotional item is something that people keep and they use. I actually have a few here that I'm gonna show you some of the things that I've accumulated.

Not over the years, just I I just randomly grab these off my desk, actually. Cheap doesn't necessarily mean cost effective. Some people think, oh, if we get this really cheap, it's it's gonna be good. But if it goes straight in the bin, your cost per impression is just terrible. There's no point.

So think about items connected to podiatry. It could be shoe horns, it might be a foot roller or a massage ball, some form of sports towel, even water bottles. And I always say, do I really need another water bottle? It's it's one of those things. We've got so many water bottles from different places that we have been given at certain times.

However, if they're really good, then people will use them. They'll discard some of their other ones. I've got some water bottles that if you put cold water in them, within three or four minutes of having it, all the condensation builds up in the outside. So you can't put it in your bag. It doesn't matter where you put it, it leaves wet marks everywhere.

And it's got that company's name on there, every time I used it, it annoyed the crap out of me. So I sit there going, that's not what you wanna do. Whereas I've had I got another water bottle that doesn't matter how cold the liquid is. It is like a thermos type thing. It doesn't get any condensation.

That is a fantastic water bottle. But it could also be we used to have disposable ones in our clinic. Used to have Promotional Podiatry, keeping you hydrated since 1992. We had them in our clinic in a fridge with a big glass door. Patients could come in and take as many of them as they wanted, and I encouraged them to take them.

They used to cost us 80¢ a bottle to get made up with the label. But people would walk back to work drinking those bottles. To me, that was great advertising. And the bottle that I take to the gym all the time, which is this one, is from Dollcast. It's one I picked up at a conference years ago.

So this is my one that I take to Muay Thai because I don't put cold water in it, so I don't have to worry about the condensation. What about you, Jim? You got any favorite things you picked up?

Yeah. I mean, like you, I kinda like the water bottles as well. And it's always it's one of those things where when you have a good one, you're gonna use that one. Know that sometimes my my kids get I know there's just something about youth soccer, youth sports. They tend to, like, get really cheap water bottles.

So either, like, the clasp that kinda, like, locks it down, doesn't work well, or, it's just kind of a weak rigid plastic if someone like put something on top of it, it breaks. And you're just like, what was the purpose of even making something of that like delicate that's not that useful? But I think like you're talking about, I think when your name is on it, you want it to be to a certain level of quality, so they don't look at that thing thinking like, oh, I hate that water bottle. Now, you know, by kind of a secondary intention or just by the fact that your name is on it, they don't like you either. Right?

So I think it there is some benefit of having it. I mean, doesn't have to be like premium premium, but it should be something that is really useful and of good quality.

Yeah. And once again, I think it also depends on who's the audience you're giving it to. If you're getting a really good quality water bottle that costs us a certain amount of money to have them made, you're gonna use them strategically different to if you have one of those cheaper plastic ones that's just got the flip top. So I remember going to a junior sporting event here in Cairns. I knew they were gonna have 200 kids at this carnival.

We approached them and said, can we provide all the water bottles for this competition? So one year, we just we just took cartons and cartons and cartons of our disposable water that had our logo and business name and details on there. We went around to every esky in the event and dumped in 24 bottles of free water. It cost us about maybe $400 to do it for weekend. Okay.

That's 400 bottles of water that we're saving kids that they weren't having to go and buy one. And that we got some really good positive feedback on that.

I can imagine that does look a great plan.

But some other easy things, reusable shopping bags, think are a great idea. Just shoe bags in general. I have one here that got from Business Black Ops. This is the one. This is my gym bag.

And inside, I have my see, sound effects and everything. I have my gym towel, is also branded from a different company. To me, things that the main part about it is the longer somebody keeps it, the longer your marketing survives. And therefore, if you do something good, the Diatry Legends hat, for example, nobody is gonna throw out the hat. And because it's it's usable, it is actually a running cap.

It drives really fast. Great for travel. All those sort of things are good. So that's Absolutely. Why you're be bad.

So the third thing is turn your patient into walking billboards. If they leave the house, then therefore, their value has actually increased. A fridge magnet, for example, it'll stay at home. It doesn't actually go anywhere. People will see it when they come over.

But like I said, a really good water bottle that will travel around, and it will go everywhere. Branded socks, caps, I just showed you, whether it's a gym towel, drink bottles, reusable bags, they expose your business outside of that person's house, and other people will see it. Ask yourself, where will this product be used? A product that's seen by 20 people has potentially more marketing than something that only sees that one particular patient. But the branding needs to be attractive.

Nobody even if you were doing shirts or hats or something like that, if it's daggy and nobody's gonna wear it outside of the house other than in their front yard to do gardening in, then it's sort of pointless. It's got to look the part as well. I think that's really important.

Yeah, think that's important. I think you bring up a good point about the marketing value of it, right? You have to kind of put that into account with whatever you're doing and the types of things you're going to buy from a promotional perspective. It's like you said, if it gets out of the house, it's definitely more value than something that's just going to be sitting on a person's refrigerator magnet.

Yeah. And that's why you want to create promotional products that people talk about. There's another level beyond just being useful. It's conversational value. Can you create something that might be a little bit unusual that makes somebody ask about it?

There could be funny podiatry socks. I have seen some classics over the years that I know podiatrists have done that you knew if you wore them somewhere, people are going to ask questions. But it might be you have a water bottle that has just a fantastic design on it that is very unique, that makes people ask questions about the water bottle. A shoe horn that's got a clever message on it, or a foot shaped stress ball. I have seen have ever seen a foot shaped stress ball?

Yeah. There's definitely some people give those out at different conferences.

Yeah. Actually, I got this stress ball sitting here from Tempe Mission Palms, which is funny that you get a stress ball from the most relaxing hotel I've ever gone to. It's one of my favorite hotels in the world. Whenever I'm there, I am so chilled out. Yet, they give people stress balls, and I go, I don't even know why I need it because I'm never stressed.

But as soon as I leave, this thing sits on my desk. It gets used a fair bit. So consider the wording, not just the logo that you're putting on the bottle. And so instead of simply having ABC Podiatry or your podiatry business name, try writing something clever on there. Then add your clinic branding.

And then you've created something that's unique, a little bit different, a little bit more personable to to you. Get together with your team and try and come up with something clever.

If you can make something a little bit more personable or at least a little bit more memorable, you know, it's gonna be a much more effective thing than just kind of something that's easy to forget and put into, a drawer or something. So yeah, I definitely agree with you. There's some benefit of a little bit of originality, a little bit of nuance or novelty that can make people interested in it and didn't think of you in that light.

Yeah. I think things that are that are different are a little bit novel. People do talk about them. The fifth thing is use promotional products to reinforce patient education. So your promotional item can do two jobs.

It can promote your clinic, but it can also educate the patient. You might have a fridge magnet, and it says five signs when you need to see a podiatrist. Or if you've got water bottles for runners, it might say, yeah, a five minute pre run foot and ankle check. So it could be on the side of the bottle. If you had a shoe horn, you could say, your shoes shouldn't hurt, neither should your feet.

And if it was a kid's item, growing feet deserve room to grow. These are just little messages just to remind whether it's the patient or whether it's the parent. So it's like when I go to Business Black Ops, we also they give us these notepads. But in the notepads, a lot of the diagrams that are used throughout the day are actually all in the notepad as well. So it's a preview of what we cover over a couple of days, and that is a fantastic thing that podiatrists could do something simple and actually try and educate the patients as well.

Yeah. There's a huge benefit if you can improve the overall quality of care through some of these promotional products and help educate the patient about ways they can improve whatever's going on with them. I think it's a win win there.

The other thing, I'll show you, I think I showed you this once before, my Podiatry Legends lip balm. Yeah. You did? You've seen that one? Yeah.

Yep. That that's that's always very popular. So the next thing I want to mention is just create different products for different patient niches. So don't necessarily order 2,000 identical promotional products for everybody because not all your patients are recall. So match the promotional item to the patient you want more of.

And we're always saying that if you want more diabetic patients, then maybe that's where you should be targeting some of your promotional stuff. If you want more runners, that's where you should be putting your promotional dollars. So running patients, they want water bottles. They will want sports towels. They want running socks.

They want bags that they can put their shoes in. If you're targeting children, you're gonna have stickers, you're gonna have coloring in sheets, you might have pencil sets, or you might have fun shoelaces. If they're older patients, you may have shoe horns with extremely long handles. But reusable shopping bags, very popular with your older patients. In Canada where you are, I'm sure it'll be in The United States, but in Australia, plastic bags have been you can't get plastic bags now at shopping centers.

Is it the same there?

Same in Montreal. Yeah. There's no plastic bags in in in Montreal.

That is one of those things. Those reusable shopping bags, especially if it's a good quality bag, will not get thrown out. It will get used again and again. But if it's cheap, it will end up hanging off a door in someone's house, and they'll throw rubbish in it and toss it out when when the the bins are being emptied that week. If you've orthotic patients, once again, shoe bags would be popular.

Footwear guides would be handy. Or you might even have spare lacing kits, heel pain patients, massage balls, simple exercise cards. This reinforces the positioning in that niche. So you're giving a runner something that you know a runner is going to use. To give a diabetic patient something that a runner is going to want, to me, wasted it's opportunity.

Yeah, I think the relevancy is a huge thing. I think we talk about that a lot in different types of things we do in marketing. Right? How do we become relevant and seen as the expert by patients and by giving these promotional items that are a little bit more tailored to who they are and what their needs are. It shows a different level of care and understanding that just by giving someone, you know, like you said, the 2,000 of the same thing just can't really do on its own.

I remember in 2018, I went to a podcast conference. And when I was there, I ended up with nine t shirts that I was given at that podcast conference. And some of them were really good quality shirts, which I still wear to this day. And I put them on, and I look good when I put it on. Everyone would look good.

It's just the style of the shirt. Everyone would look good on them. But I've got some others that after the second or third wash, yet they ended up in the in the drawer that I only wear when I'm mowing the lawn. That's that's about it. And and some of them were only used for that once or twice and ended up in the rag bin.

Yeah. It didn't do that company. They didn't really get any value out of it. Whereas the other companies, the shirts that I constantly I still wear and still look good today, they're they're getting benefit. I got these back in 2018.

So eight years later, they're still getting the benefit of that promotional product.

Yeah. So we talked about some of that quality, if it's long lasting, people are much more willing to wear it or take it out of the house. So there can be some residual benefit to getting the right patients, some of those maybe a little bit more premium products.

Oh, definitely. And that leads me on the seventh point is don't forget your referrers. Promotional products shouldn't only be aimed at patients. Think about your GPs, your physios, whether it's your gyms, running clubs. Give them things that they will actually use, but always think quality over quantity.

If you're giving something to a professional referrer, you want it to be really good. I don't think you should be giving professional referrers a coffee cup. Do they really need another coffee cup? They may. They may not.

Like, I've been given some coffee cups over the years, which I absolutely love, and some of them I keep in my office just almost like trophies than anything else. Like, I don't necessarily drink out of it, but I have it sitting on my desk here, and every time I see it, it brings yeah. It puts a smile on my face. I'm definitely not gonna throw it out. But think quality drink bottles.

Could be desk items, notebooks, could be a phone charger. Nobody throws out a phone charger unless it's out of date because they're constantly changing. Umbrellas. I think we've four umbrellas. I think every single one of them has got some form of branding on it.

I don't think I've ever bought an umbrella. You should pick them up. Just pick them up at different events. You want your clinic name to be visible when someone asks, do you know a good podiatrist? You want them to be seeing your brand or your name at at different times.

So when when it comes up, they think podiatry straight away, even if that that item isn't right in front of them, because they see it on a regular basis, it it just happens. It's like we used to do the prescription bottles filled with M and M's that every single doctor, surgery, physio, chiropractor, osteo, healthcare professional in Cairns had multiple of these sitting at their reception counter. And we would go around, and we would just be filling them up on a regular basis. And it had a QR code on it that they could scan, and it would come through at us with a message that, hey, we've run out of M and M's, but next time you're nearby, can you stop stop in and fill them up? We got so many referrals because of that.

It was incredible.

Yeah. That's that sounds like a great good idea.

It's a silly idea, but it works.

No. I mean, it's I it's making me it's making me want M and M's right now, so it definitely works.

Yeah. They're pretty good, aren't they? So the eighth thing is community events are perfect for promotional products. Think fun runs, school fights, sporting club events, health expos, charities, whether it's a running event, local business events, are another one. And never rule out every event.

The weirdest one we went to once was the Banana Farmers Conference. I didn't realize Banana Farmers had a conference. But we got invited to say, hey, do you wanna have a stand here? It's for free. So we took up the offer, and we had a few items in that there, and it's surprising how many Banana Farmers had sore feet and asked us questions.

So never rule anything out. But once again, do not become just another table that's handing out cheap pens. Nothing worse than a cheap pen. That is absolutely terrible. But match the item to the event.

So if you had a fun run, it's going to be cooling towels. It's going to be water bottles. Shoelace clips or something or sunscreen is also a good one. You might hand out cards to look over their feet. Create something that people want to actually come over to you to get.

If they see somebody else with it, like, where did you get that? I've got it over at that podiatry clinic stand. You want them coming over to talk to you. So the promotion becomes an invitation really to actually start a conversation.

For sure, I think it's a it is a great icebreaker. Right? They they come over and you can engage. They can learn more about who you are and then how you might be able to help them. So, yeah, these these promotional products can be that great kind of jumping off point.

Yeah. The nice thing is measure more than just the cost per item. So some business owners will often ask you, how much does each one of these cost? But the better question is how much marketing value could we get from each item? A $1 item thrown away costs more than a $10 item that is actually going to be used for years.

You produce a dirt cheap pen for 50¢, and I'm sure you've picked these up at different places. You you go to write with them, and it's horrible. It's such a bad experience. You feel violated. You use a little bit of bugger this, and you bang, you toss it straight in the bin.

Other times, you'll pick up a pen and you write with it and you go, oh my god. This is so nice. There's one particular podiatrist that I know. I got one of their pens one day or used it, and they said, the next time I'm at your clinic, can I pop in and grab five more of those pens? My wife just loved these pens.

And they said, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. And I actually posted a couple of them. That that's how good when an item is good and the person likes it, it'll keep them coming back to you to to actually get more.

For sure. It it just continues to make people aware of who you are and associate you and just you'll have those more interactions with people if you have something good.

I'm on the home straight now, Jim. The tenth thing is create something people would hate to lose. Have a look around on your desk right now or the next time you're in your car or you're picking up your your gym bag. What branded promotional products have you kept over the years? What what is it that you constantly use?

And ask yourself, why did you keep them? You usually because they're generally useful, and they're usually good quality. And that's a standard your clinic should really be aiming for. Don't ask what's the cheapest promotional product that we can buy. Just ask yourself, what could we give away that someone would be annoyed if they lost it?

If they actually lost that thing, they'll be going, damn it. Because I remember one stage, it used to be the little ball openers. There's a little aluminum or, I'll just use that, aluminum bottle openers that And people would keep on the we were in an event only about a month ago. We couldn't find a bottle opener. And all a sudden, about four people pulled out the keyrings.

It all had one on the key ring. So they are still very useful. People don't throw out little ball openers even if you have a couple of them. So here's my closing thought. Your promotional product shouldn't remind people that you bought promotional products.

It should remind them of your business. And a task I want everyone to do is before you order another 500 pens with your clinic logo on them, ask your team to come up with five promotional products your ideal patient would genuinely pay for. Think about things that here's your ideal patient. What's something that that patient would pay money to actually get hold of? Because if you'd pay for it, you'll probably keep it.

And if you keep it, you'll probably use it. And if you use it, then the marketing keeps working time and time again.

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And it actually some of the best promotional things I ever received is when I was working with Athletics Canada. So whenever you go to a big world event, usually get a free backpack from one of those sponsors. So I have so I have basically backpacks from 2011 until like 2017 when I went to Athletics Canada.

Each year or each time I went to a world event, have an Adidas backpack. I have an Asics backpack depending on who was and it's one of those things, like you said, I use them all the time still. It's got the little logo of the event, but then like the amount of visibility that Adidas gets for that. And, I have some brand affinity because I like these backpacks. It reminds me of this this moment going to those events.

So, yeah, sometimes they can have an emotional pull as well with some of these promotional items.

Yeah. And backpacks are fantastic. I'm glad you brought that up because I do have a couple. Many years ago, the Podiatry Association had a conference on, and they actually everyone got a backpack. And I still have that backpack now.

It's with my other backpacks, but at certain times, I will I will grab that because it suits the task that I'm doing at the time. Or especially if, like, when I go to America, I will take that backpack in because it's really it's not cheap, but it's just light. Doesn't take up any room, but it's really handy that when I'm then out and about during the day, I can actually pile a put a lot of stuff in there. I know if you gave patients a quality backpack with your logo, you could incorporate that cost into your business somewhere that patients would use it. Absolutely.

I think it's yeah. It's like I said, this is the promotional item that I use pretty much on a daily basis.

Really, guess that's what people people could ask. What would they what would they pay for? They'll keep it. If they keep it, they use it. If they use it, the marketing is just ongoing.

So there you go big Jim. Here's my done and dusted.

No. That was great stuff. I definitely As someone that goes to a lot of conferences, know, no shortage of promotional materials to to grab every once in while. While a good pen can be helpful, there's definitely a lot of other stuff out there, I appreciate you bringing that to light for the listeners today.

Okay. I look forward to talking to next week.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. See you later. Bye.

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