The Difference Between A Sales Funnel & Marketing Funnel

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 cohost, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's your 02/2024 wrapping up?

Oh, it's gone. It's pretty much it's over. So if anybody is listening to this as it's just been released, you know, it's very close to New Year's Eve. And like we said previously, if you're listening to it afterwards, happy New Year. I've I thought 2024 went fast.

I'm feeling good, feeling fit, and healthy. So, yeah, life is good, Jim.

That's awesome. That's that's good to hear. Things are good here in in Eugene, Oregon as we ready to ring in the New Year. And just a quick teaser next week, we'll do a little discussion about some things to do in 2025. But what are we gonna talk about today?

Today, we are talking about the difference between sales and marketing funnels. And it's one the things most people would have heard about what a funnel is, but we'll get to that. So sales and marketing, they're they're very much interrelated to each other, which is important, but they also but they actually have a different objective, and that's that's the biggest difference between the two. And the marketing funnel happens way before the sales funnel. And you have to create because you have to create awareness with the patient before they will ever choose to do any form of business with you.

And and I know some people listening to this might hear the term sales and go, oh, oh, I don't like that. And they're putting up the cross like I'm a vampire, and they wanna put a a wooden stake in my chest. But I think if you don't like the word sales, and I've said this to a lot of people I know, I say, change the word from sales to solution. So it's really a solution funnel. Patient comes in, they eventually come into your clinic, and you have a solution funnel that they can actually move through.

So maybe you should call this episode the difference between solution and marketing funnels. There's a thought.

That is a thought.

It's a totally different concept. But I think it's really important for people first. If you don't know what a funnel is when it comes to marketing or sales, pretty much just think of the funnels that you'd use around the house, whether it's in the kitchen, where you got a big container of olive oil and you're putting into a smaller container or the funnel the idea of a funnel is to capture something a lot bigger, but narrowing it down until you get it specifically into a particular spot, a bottle or a jar. So when it comes to your podiatry business, you're taking large groups of people and you're running them through a funnel until you're getting what it is that you want at the end, is ideally your ideal patient.

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think you have like you mentioned, you have to get that awareness out there to start off with because if people don't know you exist, then you're not really an option to them at all. So, you know, before you jump into trying to create a solution for someone or, you know, create a sale, you really have to work on that marketing funnel to make sure that people know who you are and kinda what kind of services you provide.

Yeah. And what you're gonna think of it, you know, what is the goal of the marketing funnel? And it's pretty much the idea is to use targeted marketing campaigns to build awareness of your podiatry business. Because like you said, if people don't know you, there there could be somebody limping around today who is one street back from your podiatry clinic. But because you do no marketing, because you don't feel you need to, that person could be in pain for another six months, another year, or it could be it could be effect it could take ten years off their life because you decided that you didn't wanna do marketing because you didn't wanna do marketing and then you didn't wanna do sales.

So the other part with it is with marketing is the consistency of your marketing message. And if you do this, if you repeat that same message over time, it will build trust with those patients. And that's why just doing a one off marketing campaign that wasn't thought out very well will normally fail. And that's when some people say, oh, I don't do marketing because it doesn't work. It won't work in my area.

Yeah. Well, when you do it badly, you do it once. Well, of course, it's not gonna work.

It's definitely a hurdle people need to get over. I think we've talked about this maybe previously, but, you know, sometimes when you you feel yourself doing the same thing repeatedly, kinda putting out that message and being consistent, Sometimes you hear, you know, a % of the time when you're putting it out there.

Yeah.

And you start not actually feeling self conscious about it, but you feel like, okay. They must have heard it because I said it, you know, for the last two months or three months during this quarter when I was doing this campaign. But in reality, people are busy. They're not paying it. You know, you're paying attention to your own business, your own practice, but people aren't really paying attention to you.

So you need to make sure that you do you are consistent. You're putting that consistent message out there so you attract those right fit patients.

Yeah. I remember one of our sales reps from maybe the radio station in the day, and she came up to me. She said, Tyson, when are you going to change your ad? You've been using the same ad in the same time slots for, like, two years. When are you gonna change it?

And I said, I'll change it when it stops working. I said, but at the moment, it is still working. And and people would come in, and you say, oh, how did you find out about us? Oh, we heard this particular ad, which was an absolute ripper on the radio, and we go, oh, hey. Hadn't you heard it before?

The only first time I'd heard it, and we've been running it for two years. So and that's why I think sometimes as business owners, we get really bored with our own processes and our own marketing way before the your patients or the community does.

Yeah. Sometimes those bright shiny objects can kind of blind you to the reality that it's about consistency and having the same messages is really gonna resonate with people.

Yeah. And I've had coaching clients where they'll say, oh, we ran this we used to do this marketing. Years ago, we did this, this, and oh, it works so well, but we haven't done it now for six months. We go, why'd you stop? Oh, well, you know, because it because we were doing it for about six months.

But it was still working. Yeah. Well, why would you stop? And that's that's the consistency part. And sometimes you've got you've got to try different ads to find out what works, what doesn't work.

And this is the tricky part. Stop doing what doesn't work and do more of what does work. It it sounds really obvious, but a lot of people don't actually do it. The the other part with marketing though that people gotta understand is when you're marketing, your marketing should qualify your patients or your potential patients or the leads that you're actually that's the whole idea of doing the marketing. So you're you're doing something.

It might be directing them to your website or from to to get more information. After they read the content that you provide, there should be some form of call to action. And it might be yeah. They might need to make a phone call to make a booking, or you might have a free book offer that they can download, or it could be just a section they click on to learn more or, hey. Send us an email if you want more information or if you if you've got any questions.

And this is why it's really important to really know who your ideal patient is. Who do you want in your clinic? Because if you want more runners, doing a marketing campaign at a local retirement center will not work. There might be a few people there that run, but that's not where you're usually gonna find your runners. So you wanna know who it is that you want, and then do a bit of your own research to find out where do these people hang out, and then how can I actually tap into that?

Yeah. Absolutely. You gotta go where the money is. Right? And whenever, you know, you're looking for runners, go places where runners are or talk to people that also, you know, run-in the same circles as runners.

Yeah. I remember do you know who Zig Ziglar is? Probably said Yep. Yeah. So Zig Ziglar still is my favorite all time motivational speaker.

He he was fantastic. I remember him say one of his recordings, and he said something to this guy. Why do you read pornographic magazines? The guy said, oh, sometimes there's some really good articles in there. Zig Ziglar said, do you know what?

If you look in a rubbish bin, you might find a good apple, but that's not where you should be looking for apples. And and that's what I think about marketing too. If you want runners, go where runners hang out. If you want good articles, there's a lot of magazines out there other than pornographic magazines that you could be reading. I don't even know.

Do they still make do they still have pornographic magazines, Jim? I have no idea.

The big one in The US is Playboy. That was the one that, like, people said they used to read for the articles in

The US.

Yeah. I don't know if it exists anymore.

Yeah. I've never I've never had a subscription to a pornographic magazine. Just put that out there. Haven't yeah. Because I remember the news agency, they said the the magazines tucked away in a certain spot.

Jeez. We digressed, Jim. Anyway, so the top part of your funnel is building awareness about your business. And then the next level down is where you start sort of targeting to specific needs. So some of your marketing might just be it's an awareness campaign.

You're trying to build up your brand, let people know that you're there. And depending on where that person is on their journey, then you can start targeting your ads to to being a little bit more specific.

Now that makes total sense. Like, to you're gonna wanna start out wide, but then as people kind of get awareness to you, then you can kinda be more selective about the type of patients you wanna you see and the type of care you wanna provide.

Yeah. And that's why you so your marketing funnel basically leads people into your solution funnel. It does sound pretty good, doesn't it? Solution funnel, not sales funnel. And and then think of it and think of each funnel as a separate journey.

I used to talk a lot about the patient journey. Part a, part b, and part c. So if anyone's ever done my workshops, I'll sort of know what I'm talking about. They might know what part c is because that's something that I'm just working on at the moment. But anyway, there's like an awareness journey, and to me, that's your marketing.

You're making the patient wear and depending on where they are, how much pain they're in. So you might have your ideal patient is a say, example, very brief, 42 year old running male. There's a difference between a 42 year old running male and a 42 year old running male who actually has heel pain. So even though they're both your ideal patient of 42 year old running male, depending where they are in their journey, one of them has pain, they're going to be looking for solutions. That's where your marketing is like an awareness journey for that patient.

And then the next part is almost like a buying journey. So when you're offering solutions at certain points through the solutions that you're offering, they will say, yeah, yay or nay to the solutions that are on offer. So it's really important. Where are they in that that total journey?

Yes. Not only it's not only where they are, but how can you meet them at that that specific kind of point in time with different marketing channels you're providing. Right? Obviously, we've talked about in the past about Google search ads is a great way to get those people that are searching, you know, and kinda comparing different providers. But if you're able to get ahead of that a little bit as far as providing, you know, additional information or maybe they just became aware of you because you're known to be the podiatric treats runners, Maybe you kind of they became sold or they they know that you're the right person for the solution earlier in the funnel than having to wait down and to, you know, to click on that Google search app potentially.

So there's different, you know, kinda meeting patients where they're at and that different parts of the journey sometimes requires different marketing channels.

Yeah. So so what I want everyone to imagine, just have this image in the head. You got this big sales a big marketing funnel, collecting all these people, you're running them through your different marketing journey where they are, and at the bottom of it, you're gonna you're gonna pop out, and they're gonna end end up in your sales funnel at one stage or another. And I've got six stages that I've sort of come up with where well, the six stages that I think as you move through the sales funnel. The first one is awareness.

Once again, awareness was also at the top of the the marketing funnel. But when you do broad marketing well well, when you've done your broad marketing, if it's worked, your potential patients will enter the funnel. So it's still the awareness. It's sort of like your your marketing awareness drops people into that funnel, and that's the first part. The second part of the funnel, though, is even though they've looked at the game, they're now aware that you exist.

They go, okay. I know that that podiatry clinic is down the road. There's John the podiatrist. That's who I might see. But they're gonna start to investigate you a little bit further.

They're gonna investigate you online. That's what everybody does. So they're gonna look at your website. They're gonna look at your social pages if you've got them. They're gonna Google you, and if there's other if on your website, there's certain team members there, they're gonna do a Google search on those team members as well.

And they're also gonna compare you to other people that are on the market. She may have done an amazing marketing campaign. Person's gone, that's exactly what I need. They get to your website, and it looks like a dog's breakfast. And they go, this is just horrendous.

But you did enough good marketing to make them aware, I know I need to see a podiatrist. So then they'll get they'll look at your competitor's website, and that's where they may end up. So what you'll realize is when they when they're looking at the information, when they're doing their research, it's do you offer the solutions that they are actually looking for? If you know you treat a lot of runners, do you have the common running problems there? Is it really highlighted?

Is it easy to find? If you've done your marketing, your marketing might have been on heel pain. When they follow that information, are they going through to a a heel pain article that they're reading, or are they reading something about bunions and they're gone, well, you've you've just basically lost me. So they're do the research. And if they do find the solution they're looking for, then they're gonna if you do have it there, then that's great.

That's exactly what they're they're after.

Yeah. I think I think that's a great point there. You have to, like if you just have a generic website with the top 50 diagnosis and top 50 treatments and people have to spend minutes kinda, like, surfing through your website to try to find if you're the right person or the right, you know, physician for them, you've already kinda lost the the battle because people have short attention spans now. So you really wanna make sure whatever niche or type of care you're providing, it's blatantly obvious, kinda like you talked about in the past. You know, if if I look on your website or on your homepage, you know, could I convict you of that crime?

Right? So I think it's really, really important that it sound it sounds like a funny thing that we say probably every three or four episodes. But it's so true that, you know, if if it's you know, if if there's a picture on the homepage of of the doctor treating a runner or someone active, it's just gonna connect in a way that's more than words. It's something that's really important. So making sure you have the content on your website or other areas of your online presence that are gonna connect that potential patient is hugely important.

Yeah. It's it's funny. I have my newsletter that comes out every week. Every now and then I'll miss one. And there's always a few people unsubscribe.

I love it when people unsubscribe. And the reason I enjoy it when they unsubscribe because usually, most of the times you'll click on there and they'll be within the email, there are sometimes you can find where, yeah, where they work or their actual business. And I'm yet to have anyone unsubscribe who when I go to their website has an awesome website. They're usually just dodgy. The the old website doesn't look very good or you go in there, there's not much information or they've got photographs of themselves and they're they're outdated or everyone looks unhappy.

And it's really funny. So you go, now I understand why you unsubscribe from the newsletter because you're you're getting free information that you can actually use to to have a better podiatry clinic, but instead, you just you're real they put blinkers on. They're really happy just doing the things that they've doing it the way they've always done it, which I think is a shame. Anyway, the third thing is is what I call consideration. So they're not a % sure yet.

They've done a bit more research. They've dug in. They've read your articles. They've they've checked out your staff online. So they take the next step, and it could be they send an email to your clinic asking a question.

They might phone up. They might actually ring. They may need because they they want more information about pricing or other other treatment options available more than what they've just just read online. And this is why the person who is answering your phone or responding to your emails is so important and needs to be trained well because they are really they're your first salesperson. They're your first solution person.

When they send an email, whoever's sending an email back, if they sends back a stupid response, all that hard work you've done has has been lost. They can make or break your business and, you know, dumbasses are costly. You get someone at the front desk that you have not trained very well, and that's why when I hear some people go, oh, I I just use a call center, you know, just to make my appointments. How many patients you probably lose because of the call center? Because if I was ringing up more information, I would just go to some random person who's just, oh, I just make appointments.

I can't answer any of your questions. I'm like, oh, okay. I'll I'll I'll call you back, and I'm gonna ring somewhere else where I can actually talk to someone who knows what they're talking about. If you go to clinic, it's in a medical center. Those those receptionists at the medical center, they've got multiple doctors there and other allied health.

They've got better things to do than care about your podiatry patients. They start asking them dumb questions, and they're like, yeah, don't care. I'm getting paid by the doctor. You just no. Bugger off.

And they just talk bring back. Ask the podiatrist. So they're they're not they're not gonna be engaged with that. They don't really care, which leads on to the fourth part, which is action where they make an appointment. That's the important part.

And and if they don't make an appointment, if they decide not to make an appointment, this is where your receptionist or the front desk person's important, you need to then move them into your nurture program that's designed for people who are not patient yet. So they rung up. They might say, I have heel pain. I have bunion pain. I have an ingrown toner.

You're collecting that information. The person at the front desk should be able to drop them, get a certain amount of information off of them even though they're not making an appointment and be able to drip feed them some information at a steady rate just to keep them in touch with your clinic. So when they decide they're ready, they'll basically re choose you or not somebody else.

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think there's definitely some information you can provide to patients if they're not ready to make an appointment yet so you can whether it's sending them a a link or maybe an opt in email to to get a little bit of more information about some of their concerns or just to kind of an opportunity to gain more trust in the clinic before they kinda pull the trigger and make an appointment with you. But I think that's a a huge point as far as, like you said, your staff being, you know, good on the phone, you know, providing a lot of helpful information, being positive to hopefully, you know, lead them down the path of making that appointment. But they don't, you know, nurturing can be a great way to continue to build trust there.

Well, it'd be no different if I rang a chiropractic clinic, for example, I wanted to make an appointment. And if all of I'm like, yeah. They answered a few questions, but I'm not sure. And my main complaint was they said, oh, yeah. What sort of problems are you having?

I'm a lot of trouble sleeping at night. Yeah. My back is hurting when I'm asleep, but rest of the time, it's not so much of a problem. But say I decided not to make an appointment. If that receptionist got off and then they had some form of nurture thing where I was receiving an email from them every week or every couple of weeks, she just said, here's some tips that might help you with your sleeping at night.

Yeah. Drinking plenty of plenty of water. You know, what do you do you find when you're eating certain foods doesn't make it worse? How old is your pillow? How old is the mattress?

If they were giving me this information and also I'm going, well, I'm finding this really helpful. I'm going to make an appointment to see the chiropractor now. I'm going to go there. I'm gonna just ring some random chiropractor that I that has not given me any information. Unfortunately, not just podiatry clinics, but a lot of health care providers and other businesses actually do that.

That makes total sense just to kinda stay top of mind with people, but also just, you know, providing some value to them that doesn't necessarily cost you any additional time. It's just something you set up as a a template, a nurturing template, and and it can be a a great resource for them.

Oh, you think of any business you've rung up in the last twelve months where you've asked a question about something, and they never ask you your email address so they can send you some information. It's almost like, make appointment or do this now or they don't care. And if they don't care, then you just move on to the next person later on. So the step five in the sales or solution funnel is the consultation, the consult. So and this is where the podiatrist must sell themselves as an expert, as an authority, someone that is worth trusting, and somebody that is worth following.

And I know, like I said, some podiatrists go, I don't like the words selling. If you've ever gone out with anybody, if you've ever gone out on a date with someone of the same sex or different sex or multi sex, whatever you wanna call it, whatever label they happen to have when you went out with them, if you've been able to convince them to go out with you, then you're a salesperson. Yeah? If you're married, you are a salesperson. You convince someone just to commit that they were gonna spend the rest of their life with you.

That is being a salesperson. So when someone says, oh, I'm not good at sales. If you're married, you got you you're able to do it at least once. But it's really important that that long term, you gotta be someone who's trustworthy, someone they wanna follow. If they follow your advice, they're going to follow the the treatment journey.

And if they're not ready, then they have the consult. You give them all the information. You give them the solutions. They they they think you're an expert. They they think you're an authority figure.

They trust you. They they wanna be led by you. But if they're not ready, then you put them into another nurture program that's a nurture program for someone who's actually a patient. So you can have different types of nurture programs once again depending on where that person actually is on the journey. So it's so it's important to note that there's two actual points of sale.

There's two almost solution funnels that run side by side. One is the front desk person, and one is actually the podiatrist.

That makes total sense. You have to, like, be all on the same team with your with your staff. Right? If you're not you know, if you just see yourself as the only salesperson and they're kind of you're not holding them accountable, it's it's bad. And then also if you're counting on them to to be the closers, you're gonna be disappointed.

It's a real team effort there.

You know, I know I'd be talking to coaching clients and they'd say, oh, Mary's really good at contacting people for one year recalls. Joanne is awful. But they but they share the they share that task. You go, why would you get them sharing it? If you know this front desk person is awesome at doing it, then that's their job.

And and try and figure out why the other person's no good, and can you train them? You you shouldn't just she's better than this one, and just just let them do it. To me, you just don't

do that.

It doesn't make any sense. So the last part or the or the sixth part of the solution funnel or sales funnel is just loyalty. You you need to have contact points or touch points. Anyone who's done my reboot knows what a touch point is in place to keep them coming back, which is why afterwards you have your newsletters. You have special deals at different times of the year.

You have a good recall system. You have a reactivation system for people that have so it may have fallen out of, yeah, one of your other systems. So it's just really important that if you don't make con contact with them afterwards, that's why two, three, four years later, you'll bump into them somewhere, and you'll learn that they're now seeing a different podiatrist because they couldn't remember your name.

I think that's huge. You know, the loyalty is a huge component of you you know, you've already kinda spent maybe some marketing dollars to get them in the door in the first place. So now you just have to find ways to stay top of mind and keep them happy. And these people can be, you know, kind of practice multipliers. Right?

If they tell two people, if every patient that came into your door, you know, told three to five people, you'd have an explosion of patients coming into your practice. So those people have already done, you know, the hard thing of making an appointment, coming and receiving care, being followed by you, receiving great care from you. So do everything in your power to keep those people feeling, you know, as a part of the practice and not just like, well, that doctor saw me twice and then I never heard from them again.

Yeah. And I find most of the businesses I'm the most loyal to are the ones that maintain contract with me the most. In Cairns, and I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before where we've got there's a number of barbecue shops in Cairns. And the one that I was going to for for ages, I know he'd saying to him, gosh, you need to do your newsletter more regular. It needs to come out every week.

And I've actually you know, I've felt I've been really tempted to say, can I do your newsletter for you? Because they're they're such a nice couple. They're only a small business, so I wanna support them. But leading up to Christmas, they hadn't sent me any newsletters. And I'm thinking, hang on.

This is one of those times here where everybody's out there buying little gifts and things, and you're not telling me what you've got for sale or what's on special or Christmas bargain. They did nothing. A new place opened up, I think it was February year, and it's a Weber barbecue place. They are so heavy in social media. They send me a newsletter every week without fail on time.

They tell me what they're cooking on Saturday morning. So, yeah, even leading up to Christmas, they said, hey. We're we're baking a ham in the Weber barbecue. Do you wanna come in and taste it? Hell yeah.

I do. So I found that I'm now going there more buying stuff, and they're probably the same distance from me. So this is the whole thing about loyalty. You you need to maintain contact with your your patients. So I better wrap up.

We're going up going a little bit long on this one. What a way to end I know. So in conclusion, to me, the difference between your marketing funnel and your sales funnel is really the end goal. It what are you trying to achieve by doing it? And you've gotta keep that you gotta keep that basically top of mind.

With your marketing funnel, you're creating, like, broad awareness, capturing the attention of your potential patients, and eventually giving them enough information for them to contact you. So that's what the marketing funnel is all about. Your sales or solution funnel is to take them from being a potential patient to a paying patient, and then eventually, you want them to be a loyal patient. And that's what you basically that's the the funnel that you're actually taking them through. So if you got anything to add to that, Jim, before we wrap up for the year?

Wrapping up 2024. It's it's gone by pretty quickly now. But overall, I thought that was a great example and a great way a great framework to kinda look at, you know, the process of taking people through those different stages. It's hugely important, And and I think you really explained it well. And I think, you know, it the more you can kind of understand those stages, the more successful practices it can be about attracting the right people, using some good channels to bring them into that marketing funnel, and then, you know, some good processes as well as far as getting them, making the appointment, and and keeping them happy.

So they'll refer other patients and come back and see you to receive great care.

Okay. Well, Jim, I hope you have a fantastic New Year's Eve. Don't get up too much. You look like

a bit of a rebel. Rebel around I

don't wanna read about you, and I don't wanna see you on the Internet doing any or Facebook doing anything too crazy.

I'll try not to.

I don't know. Okay, Jim. I will see you in 2025.

Yep. See you next year, Tyson.

Okay. Adios.

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 dot marketing.