The Top 3 Ways to Market Your Podiatry Clinic

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 one of hosts, Jim McDannald. Tyson, how are things going today?

I am fantastic today. Jim, as I told you earlier on, had a late night. So I'm lucky we're doing this like mid morning. We we weren't doing this recording like at 06:30 in the morning when I do some of my other podcasts. So now I'm I'm all cheaper.

That's good to hear. That's good to hear because I think we've some some important stuff to share today with the audience. Do you wanna talk a little bit about what we're gonna talk to today?

Okay. So today's topic and I did a I did a webinar on this a long time ago to a podiatry group, and it was received really, really well and got a lot of questions from it afterwards. So the topic is what I said, there's only three ways to actually market your podiatry business. And people sort of go, oh, but you don't need the six pillars of marketing? Like, it's sort of a bit confusing, which totally when when they said that, I went, yeah.

Okay. It is confusing. So I said, pretty much, the first way is, like, paid advertising. The second way is partnerships. And the third way is content marketing.

So pretty much, there's tons of different ways of market within each of those three, but they basically are the the main ways to actually market your business.

Now that makes sense to me. I think, like like you said, those are kinda like fundamental principles, and there's definitely lots of new technologies, lots of tactics, lots of strategies that can be, you know, offshoots of those fundamentals. But but those three are definitely things I talk about with with clients and with podiatrists when I'm, you know, looking to find ways to, you know, raise awareness and to spread some information about what they're trying to do. So so getting into paid advertising, how how do you approach that that aspect of these three kind of fundamentals?

Well, wait. So when people think of paid advertising, obvious thing that pops into their heads like Google Ads, Facebook advertising, any yeah. Even LinkedIn, YouTube, and that's probably a lot of businesses doing it, and it obviously works. But even your old school stuff like newspaper, radio, magazines, that you're you're paying money to a company to get in front of their audience is is pretty much paid advertising. And the problem with it is when you soon as you stop, the audience stops.

The newspaper or even Google. Google is like, well, you've been advertising with us for now for two years. Oh, you can't pay us this month? That's fine. We're we're gonna still let our audience know that you're there when you when you want.

It's like, no. Show me the money or get out. So that's that's the problem with it is you don't own it. And when you look at, say, partnerships, it's sort of like where you're teaming up with another business that may have a be in front of your patients. So, for example, for a podiatrist, it might be it might be physiotherapist that is treating the same sort of patients that you're treating.

You've got a lot of things in common, and you might say, hey. Can I write a an article for your for your newsletter? It's the same thing that you're you're borrowing their audience. And the good part with partnerships, if you set it up right, you don't necessarily have to pay money to do it, but sometimes you may. Like, when you're sponsoring an event, if there's a running event on it and you wanted to be one of the sponsors, you're pretty much paying money to be in front of their audience.

But the following year, when it comes around, if you said, hey. Look. I sponsored you last year. Can I just, yeah, turn up, tell everyone I'm awesome? They're gonna go, no.

No. Show me the money or basically get out. So paid and partnerships, both times, you're just borrowing their audience. As long as you're paying money, they don't mind you sharing your message with them. But the third one, content marketing, which is everything that you do, that is the main thing because you own it.

Yeah. I think that's a huge important aspect of things is when you you kinda own that home base, whether it's the the blog post you write or the content on your website that you can continue to refine and show to your audience, you know, that's the SEO and the search engine traffic and all those things will grow over time that, you know, it's but it is a slower growth, you know, way of doing things. But like you said, it does pay pay dividends that you don't have if you're you're on these kind of more paid channels.

Yeah. And it's not that it's there's like, there's advantages and disadvantages for all three. So the advantages for the yeah. For one and two paid in partnerships is if you've got a new service or you've got a new associate with you and you want a fast, quick result, it's a great way of doing it. You spend money, get in front of an audience.

Hey. I've got this new service. I've got this new person. Bang. And everybody comes in.

The disadvantage is it's expensive sometimes. Sometimes it's expensive depending on how you do it, but, also, this way, if you're getting a good return on your investment, nothing is expensive. Yeah. If I said, Jim, hey. Spend a thousand dollars a year.

Every time you spend a thousand, you're gonna get 5,000 back. You'd be go, what if I spend a million? You get 5,000,000 back. You would go, that's you you wouldn't say no to that.

Yeah. I think it's trying to find that line. Right? We're kinda like, where does that one that five x stop, you know, or where does that that return on investment stop? But yeah, you're you're totally right.

Yeah. And like the advantages of the content marketing is you're putting everything together yourself. Yeah. Like you own the audience and it but it's more of a long game. So so one of the disadvantages with would be it's a slower way of doing it.

So if somebody said, well, I'm just gonna I'm not gonna do any paid advertising. Purely just gonna work on my website, work on my SEO, write articles, shoot my own videos, put them up there. Long term, they're probably gonna be benefit from that a lot, but it's it's slow. And that's why when you talk about the three ways of advertising, to me, it's it's good to be doing good to be doing everything, not just paid, not just partnerships, and not just your own content.

And I think you're totally right. Sometimes you just need to, like, lead in with some paid stuff to get some positive momentum going. Because if you have 10 people to visit your website every week, you know, like, it's gonna take you a really, really long time. Or if you have five new you know, email newsletter subscribers that week, you know, that's good that you got one or two or five, but you just gotta find ways to put yourself out there, make people aware that the care you provide. And not that it's gonna, like you know, paid is gonna need I mean, automatic results, but at least you're putting yourself out there in a way that will help facilitate that kind of that kind of chasm between that fast momentum with paid Yeah.

And that kind of gradual build you have more with the organic or with the kind of, you know, the SEO and the different types of content marketing like you mentioned.

Yeah. Well, the thing is you can have blogs, you can have frequently asked questions on your website, you can like I said, you can shoot videos, but even audio, you could create your own podcast within a within a town, and every podcast you create is content. You could run information webinars on particular topics. So if you're a podiatry clinic that focused a lot on runners, then you could say, hey. I'm doing a webinar.

Yeah. You could do a monthly webinar series on different running problems and give advice there, and you might need to get a few people at the first one. But if they enjoy it, they'll be at the next one, but they'll tell some of their friends. But then you promote those webinars to different places where runners hang out, and and then you could do you could do sometimes you, like, you can combine things. So you might be doing the webinar, which you own.

It's your content, but you bring in a guest that you might partner with who could be a a physical therapist who has an expertise in a certain area. He comes on as the expert. Therefore, you're exposed to his audience because he tells everybody, you're the one that did the webinar. You're the one that has the recording, which you can then put that on your website, put it on a YouTube channel, multiple things you can do with it.

I think that's a huge point. I think, you know, taking these opportunities when you do a webinar or you do something that you put time and effort into, finding multiple ways to repurpose that content, whether whether it's a replay, whether it's a mini course that you make, whether it's a you pay someone, you know, on one of these kinda, like, outsourcing, like, Fiverr or someplace where they can turn those slides into, like, a mini book or something where, you know, providing different forms of that same content. Maybe the audio was even good enough from that webinar that it could be turned into something like a podcast. So there's there's no shortage of ways to kinda, like, create valuable content. I think the problem becomes that people just, like, they see it as that webinar.

I'm do that one live webinar. Right?

Yeah.

And they did that thing, and then they're kinda move oh, they move on to the next topic or to the next webinar. But honestly, once you do one of those things, you need to do, like, you know, either work with someone on your own team or work with someone outside of your team to make five, ten different pieces of information around that so it can really you know, your time and effort was worth it on that one thing, and it wasn't just jumping from rock to rock to rock. You know, whether it's a partnership, whether it's, you know, in in you know, more content that was already kind of you already created the the bones of it. It's just how you kinda sometimes play with it and how you repurpose it can be hugely beneficial.

Oh, I think that is that wasn't a point I was really talking about, but that that is perfect. It's all about repurposing. Because someone will shoot like a video or, like, the webinar. They do the webinar and think, oh, well, that's that's basically it. And but it's sitting down with, like you said, with your team or or somebody else, your business coach if you have one, and say, how can I use this information elsewhere?

Give you and how this can actually attract business? Give you a perfect example. We did a a media release. We had done an extension on our on our podiatry clinic. So I contact the paper.

We brought in some new equipment, and I thought, oh, this is a good community story. We're expanding. Paper always likes good news stories. So they came out, and they took a photo of my wife and I. And then they took a photo of my wife as well because she was because we had a shoe store attached to the clinic, and we'd sort of revamped that.

And there was a photo of my wife there, and she was holding this particular shoe. So media release ended up in the paper, you know, in the business section that week. So I contacted the paper and said, oh, can I get eversion of the tear sheet? So it's an electronic version of what was in the paper that day. I then cropped out the photo and part of the article, and I chopped it up a little bit, and then I used it on social media and I also put it on our website.

When I put it in social media, the shoe that my wife was holding, the supplier of that shoe went, oh, like, and they shared it on their site to say that, hey. Look what one of our our suppliers is doing. Then a lady in Country Victoria who follows that particular page saw the photo, rang our shoe shop in Cairns, and said, that shoe that that lady's holding in the ad, do you have that in a seven and a half black? And we went, as a matter of fact, we do. She paid it up for all over the phone, and bang, we shipped it off.

Now that was just me coming up with the idea I wanna do a media release. At the time I was doing it, at no stage, I think, I'm doing this media release because I'm gonna sell a shoe to a lady in country Victoria who's from a small little town that I didn't even know had the Internet. And even when that media release came out, I could have just gone, well, we had the media release in the paper. Isn't that awesome? It was there for a day and it's gone.

But I squeezed it for as much juice I could get out of it, And we used it multiple times. And even when I was doing talks, I would prefer oh, and in this media release, this is what we were talking about.

But I think you also bring up a good point there. It's not only just like how can I, like, promote businesses or or my business or my services, but it's also, like, what are those kind of, like, interesting ways to kinda create win win relationships? Right? Like, you know, you didn't have to, like, have that shoe there or you didn't have to, like, you know, maybe tag the name of that, you know, supplier or that shoe company within the post or wherever you put it at. But when you do those things, you know, whether you it's a mention or it's a tagging of a photo that's you know, maybe you have a partnership, maybe you're hanging out at, like, a you know, the the finish line or the medical tent with, like, a physio and then another, you know, sports medicine professional, you happen to tag them or write a little, you know, byline or description on social media or somewhere else.

And, you know, there's that potential that that gets in front of those people's audience as well. Right? It's Yeah. Not in, like, a very helpful and relevant way. It's not, you know, just a complete, like, shilling of your services in a, like, a really spammy way.

It's not that way at all. Like, your association with others, and you're you're promoting these other people on your channels, and they're very likely to to kind of do the exact same thing for you in a very helpful, relevant way. So I think you bring up some good points there, I think that's something that, you know I know people are just nervous about it or they're just, like, so focused on what they're doing and their practice and their services. But the more you can kinda find those, like, like minded individuals to create win win relationships with, I think it's it has kind of an exponential effect, like, on your on your practice in ways that may not seem totally, you know, you don't know how it's gonna work out, but a lot of times you'll be surprised by doing those things kind of like the results it can create.

Yeah. But there's been a lot of times where you might do something for somebody, you know, you really think you're not doing it for any recognition, but then they give you some recognition for it, and they tag you in a post, and also it makes you feel good. So I think when you're doing something or if you've partnered up with somebody else or you have the opportunity to thank somebody else for something that and you're not doing purely just for the just to sort of say, hey. Look. I'm thanking you now.

Do something back for me. But it's just it's that whole what goes around comes around, you know, paying paying things forward. We were in a driving through Starbucks. I don't know if I told the story or not. Anyway, we went to Starbucks, car in front, paid for a coffee, my brother and I.

And my and the lady said, oh, you need to pay for this car in front, pay for it. My brother goes, why? Belong. He said, no. No.

They just just pay for it. He goes, but why would they do that? I was going, Tony, it's it's called paying it forward. He goes, what? Am I supposed to pay am supposed to pay for the pricks behind me because the tunnel in that car are not paying their bill?

And I tell him, no. You don't have to pay their bill. It's just something nice that somebody does. He's gone, never bloody heard of it. So anyway, I explained to him afterwards.

He goes, oh, that's pretty cool. And it made me think I've talked to my wife about it only two days ago. I said, imagine doing that same thing, and you've got your business name, ABC Podiatry on the back of your car. You go through the drive through, you look at the car behind you, there's not 15 people in there. So you're thinking, okay.

Should be should be okay. Actually, was telling my daughter, and she said, what happens if the person's just a single person in a car, but they're doing the coffee order for the office? And I went and so I'm sure when you ask them how much is their bill and they go it's $12, you can just pay that. If they say it's a hundred and $22, you might go, oh, good for them. But I said, if you had ABC production in the back of your car, there's a car behind you and you look at the car, you look at the person and go, that's my ideal client right behind me.

Just based on the car they're driving, how they look, how they're dressed, groomed, and you said the person, oh, what's what's their coffee would be how I wanna pay for it? And they said, oh, she got $10, and you pay for it. I reckon as you drive off, if you honked your horn and just waved, put your hand out the window and just waved as you drove off, they would look and go, why is that podiatry clinic waving at me? But when they get to the window and they don't have to pay, they'll remember that that podiatry clinic paid for their coffee. To me, that is cheap advertising.

That's and and, like, okay, that is it's not creating content, but it is creating goodwill. And if you're gonna get the coffee and for $10, to have someone who is gonna probably go to work or go back home and say, oh, the local podiatry clinic just paid for my coffee today. That that's a win win.

Yep. That's excellent word-of-mouth.

Marketing is all about regardless of which way you're doing, whether it's paid partnerships or content, it's really just thinking about who who is your ideal client, what are they thinking, how can I how can I connect with them, and what's the best mode of doing it? So Google Ads may be the best way for at certain times, partnerships may be the best way. But I think content long term is really beneficial, and and as long as you're creating content that is relevant to your ideal client because I've seen people, yeah, write blog articles on some rubbish that nobody cares about because they go, oh, I've gotta write a blog article every week. Don't write crap. No one reads crap.

No one wants it. Don't do it. But if your ideal client's like, wants to know more about ingrown toenails, bunion problems, then that's what you need to write about. And and write it from so many different angles that when someone's typing something in the computer, go, yeah. Why yeah.

Are my bunions hereditary? Do I need to get surgery? Why is my bunion painful? Think of all the things that they're typing and that's what you need to write about.

Yep. It's great way to get that organic traffic and really build authority and honor your expertise.

Yeah. Or shoot a video or create a podcast, you know, the the world's greatest bunion doctor. That would be a crazy show. So so I think I've covered I've covered this area or what I wanted to say in this. I think I've pretty well covered.

I did have a couple of notes down here. And, yeah, the last thing I was gonna say was just if you looked at, say, $2,000 and you put $2,000 into online advertising, you're gonna get a certain response. When you stop when when the 2 thousand's used up, it's going to end. You put 2,000 into creating content, whether it's written, audio, video, there's a ton of content you can create for $2,000 that you could use for probably the next two years. It is slow, but it can be very beneficial long term.

But I think it's it's all about finding that right balance for your particular business and for your audience.

No. It makes total sense to me. Think you're right. You have to find that what stage are you on in your practice, what stage are on in your career, and kind of like, you're never gonna go wrong with content, but you know, who's creating it and how much you can create and how relevant it is is super important to to making progress.

Yeah. And if you can't write, get somebody else to write for you. If you don't wanna be in front of a video camera because you reckon you look like a goose or you sound like a goose, then find another team member that will basically do it or sit down and write the script and just somebody in front of a camera just to to share that information. Or if you don't like a camera at all, then just do audio. Get yourself a microphone.

We did this create an audiogram. You can have a my my wife we did a lot of audiograms, and my wife wasn't not that she wasn't comfortable in front of a camera, but she didn't always wanna do it because, oh, how's my hair? Here's my makeup. And so we started doing these audiograms where we'd just take a photo of a shoe and we take that that photograph and my my wife would then talk about it. We'd write a script.

She would we record the thing. I just put them all together and create a small video of the shoe and we could change the pictures and and just have the audio over the top. So if you don't wanna be in front of the camera, then create audiograms. It's a brilliant way of doing it.

Yeah. There's there's no wrong way to go about doing it. There's and there's so many different options with the the tools online and the Internet. It just so many ways to share and create content these days.

Oh, definitely. So I'm gonna sign off. Jim, I will talk to you again next week.

That sounds great, Tyson. Okay. Bye. Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim Mcdonald. Subscribe and learn more at podiatrymarketing.

That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.