Understanding the Trade-Offs With Different Marketing Providers

You're listening to Podiatry Marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Welcome back to Podiatry Marketing. With me as usual is my cohost, Big Jim Mac. How you doing today, Jim?

Fantastic, Tyson. I'm excited to jump in today. I think, you know, last week we had your kind of fired up rant, but

What

are proclamation and today today's my turn. I'm not gonna maybe be quite as, you know, high strung or excited as you were last week, but we'll see what happens.

Yeah. I do. I get fired up sometimes, and it's more more fired up. It's I wouldn't say it's fired fired up. It's more frustration when you see the potential of what podiatry as a profession can do in so many areas and and how you can help so many people in so many different ways.

And there's a lot of these anchors that are wrapped around the profession sometimes. They're just dragging through the mud, not wanting to see change and and slowing things down. And I just get the shit big time. So anyway, it's not about me this week, Jim. This is about you.

This is this is your episode. So what are we talking about today?

Yes. Today, we're gonna talk about kinda understanding the trade offs with different marketing providers. I think we've talked a little bit in the past about what different type of marketing providers are. Someone like myself who's kind of a a one man consultancy that does marketing services, and then kind of some larger agencies in kind of the provide marketing websites and do SEO, Google search ads, and those things. But I sometimes get asked by potential clients, you know, why you instead of them or and and I try to be diplomatic.

Right? I

You say why not? You. Why not? That's what you should be asking.

Well, I think I'm good at what I do, but at the same time, I think it's know, each clinic kinda has their own needs. And I definitely wanna kinda lay out some of the kinda pros and cons of of myself and pros and cons of what I see of some of the other ways to get marketing for your practice. Because I don't think there's necessarily one size fits all. You know, there's definitely some some benefits and some limitations for each of these things. And I think just being completely upfront from my and this is only my perspective.

Right? Maybe someone else in the in the industry would have other things to point out. But I think it is helpful to take a look at what are these some of these pros and cons before people jump into it. So when you're having discussions with someone to provide marketing services for you, you have kinda at least a baseline of information to kinda go from.

Yeah. But I think what you're gonna bet to cover too would apply to business coaching exactly the same. You know? I'm one one person that I do business coaching, and there's big companies out there that do business coaching. And And they're gonna be different people are gonna be suited different things for for different reasons.

Yeah. I know which I think is better, but I'm also biased. So and but I know what you do, and I know what some of the other companies do. So let's run through it. Where where where would you like to start?

Yeah. Like like like you said right there, I think it's all about kind of educating the audience, and that's why we're talking about it. That's actually why I got into podiatry market in the first place is to make sure that, you know, people have the pieces of information, the knowledge to feel educated so they can make these decisions. So first, we're gonna start off with the pros of what are the benefits of working with a smaller podiatrist that does marketing like Podiatry Growth or myself?

Yeah.

And the first is really kind of specialized knowledge. You know, I I have a deep understanding of podiatry, you know, kinda offering tailor made marketing solutions that, you know, really kind of resonate with a clinic, and kind of what type of practice they're trying to build. You know, that that's kind of where what my focus is. I don't have, you know, I'm not like a wound care only site or I'm not gonna use a bunch of stock images. I really wanna build authentic genuine sites for each practice that I work with.

I'm not gonna have 50 different clients, you know, if I can get to 10 or 15 people I'm working with, that would be fantastic. So this kind of the individual knowledge, you know, I'm a podiatrist, so I don't have to necessarily, you know, outsource any of the writing, any of the website stuff, any the Google Ads. I take care of it all in house. So that's that's kind of my advantage as far as a pro when it comes to the kind of the the the single consultant side of things.

Well, a simple term like, if somebody doubts whether you know a little bit more than the average, say, marketing company, is go to your marketing company and say, do you know what a planter plate is? And they won't. They'll have no idea what you're talking about. So there there'll be terms that they can talk to you. You're talking in the same language that they they need to actually talk to the the patients as well.

There's a better understanding because you've got that podiatry knowledge.

For sure.

So what's next?

Yeah. So next is, you know, it's a one on one situation where the doctor can work directly with the person doing their marketing service, it's a much more personalized service. Right? You have the attention of the kind of sole attention of the provider and the doctor working together, as opposed to different layers of bureaucracy. If someone if a company has 500 podiatry clinics they're working with, then there's all kinds of customer management agents.

There's the people that are building the website, the people that are doing the SEO, the people that are doing the social media. And not all these entities might talk to each other. And they kind of, you know, you're not talking to the person that's actually doing your website. So if you wanna have a a change made, it can take you know, days or sometimes a week for the these things to happen. So you really wanna the benefit of that kind of smaller consultancy is that you get these kind of custom strategies that align with your unique goals in a timely manner.

Well, I remember when I used to work with you know, doing marketing in Cairns. And I mentioned this to you off here before, where there there are marketing companies that look after online, offline, websites, social media, newspaper, radio, all the different types of marketing. And what is really funny is these people that own the companies in Cairns now all used to be reps at, like, say, the newspaper or the radio or something. And I remember when I was talking to them initially about something, and I'd say to them, what's better, to work with you directly, or should I go to a bigger company that looks after everything? And they're like, oh, no.

Never go to one of these big companies because they just they know a little bit about a lot, but they can't really offer the unique service that you need. But it's really funny now that they own the bigger companies themselves. It is totally changed. So I look at the the pros working with you is it's the individual personalized service that you could offer me. Whereas if I went to a company, potentially, I could just be handed an employee.

Yeah. Their care factors is they'll care as long as they're getting paid every week. They'll care about if they stop getting paid, the care factor stops.

That's usually how it works.

Yep. What's the what's the next pro?

Yeah. So the next pro is kind of some flexibility and adaptability. You know, this can kinda come into, you know, the marketing plan, also some of the different tools you use. You know, know in marketing and in the podiatry itself, you know, things change over time. And, you know, a smaller agency can be a bit more nimble when you're working with a consultant.

You know, some of that has 500 different clients, they're just not gonna be able to be as responsive. It's just the size of the thing won't allow them. So if there's things that are changing you know quickly or market trends that need to be taken care of, you know one of them I would say that I I found recently is something called local search ads, and maybe we'll do podiatry, you know, podiatry marketing episode about this in the future. But, you know, there's certain things that are only, you know, you can kinda get in front of the curve if you're working with a a smaller consultancy that's flexible and adaptable to these things. Know, that that that's one positive of a smaller consultancy.

Okay. And what about the ability for them? They have a question or concern about something that they can just get on the phone and ring you, contact you?

Yeah.

That would have to be a lot easier. I have Jim's number. I will ring Jim.

Yeah. So there's something that's going wrong with the website or, you know, something that they have they some small change they need to make, you know, I'm an email or a phone call away, you know, get me directly. And usually, I've built time in each day to work on patients' websites or their digital marketing. So that's something that can there's pretty quick turnaround when you have that direct communication. Like I said, usually in some of these larger agencies, there's gonna be, you know, three or four different layers.

You know, one person has to talk to this person, to the the website designer, to the person who implements the change. It's just gonna take time. And if there's something that's glowingly wrong, the quicker you can get in contact, you know, someone like myself, the quicker things can be taken care of.

Yeah. Especially if you want changes made and you want them made fast, bang, quick phone call to you, you can get it done. Whereas, yeah, you're ringing a company, and then if that person's out with another client or doing something, then there's a message waiting there for them. And then what's their system of getting the message to them? And then if it's a decision that they can't actually make because they're an employee, then they might have to push it up the chain a little bit before they finally get the response.

So, yeah, it's very it's not not as nimble, I don't think.

For sure.

What else? And

yeah. So the last pro would be kind of an exclusive focus. So myself and other consultants in this area that know, we're we're gonna work with one person in a local area. We're not gonna try to get every single podiatry clinic in, say, Indianapolis, Indiana to come on to my services. I think it's really, really important in some of these larger companies that work, they necessarily see the they wanna get all the clinics, and they don't have these kind of exclusive service agreements.

So there can be a real conflict of interest if you're not, if the clinic down the road is being taken care of by the exact same agency that you are. So just be aware of that. And, you know, especially smaller consultants are very aware of this and don't want to kinda set you up you know, they wanna set you up for success and not in some, you know, conflict of interest situation.

Yeah. But I know I'm exactly the same with coaching. I won't I won't coach two people that are in the same town or who I know are gonna be competitors because even though I'd like to think that I would never that there would not be a conflict, you don't know. Not and it's not that you would deliberately do it, but it would be really difficult. So I could picture a marketing company that's really big that's got four or five clients in the same town, and they know individually what each one of them are trying to do that would have to influence how they speak to another client.

It would just have to. And and if it doesn't, if it doesn't influence them, then I don't know. It would just be a really I've never been in a situation. I've never had to worry about it. But I know with the bigger bigger companies that it just happens.

Well, there's only one number one ranking in Google. Right? Or on Google Maps or Google Ads. And if you're if you're doing those types of marketing, you know, you're basically bidding against yourself in a way.

You know, you're Your four clients, I'll get you on. I'll be I'll get you at number one. And you're saying that to your four clients.

I mean, you're being honest, you might have say, I'll get you to number I'll try to get you to number two, and then the next person number three, and number four. But yeah, everyone's gonna say, I'm gonna get you to number one. Right?

So Yeah. So are there any are there any cons?

Yeah. There's definitely cons. And I wanna be transparent about this. Right? Like my like a single consultancy is not for everybody.

But for example, there are kind of limited resources. I'm not gonna get I'm not gonna be at the point where I'm gonna see you know, have 50 clients on my roster. That's just not something that I have the time or the resources for. Yeah. Maybe someday down the road, ChatGPT and some different online tools will make that possible.

For right now, you know, like I said, I'm some like most consultants that do marketing exclusively for podiatry clinics in this way, you know, maybe ten, fifteen is kind of the max when it comes to that.

Yeah. It would it would be because like you said, you you're doing everything yourself. So there is a a limited amount of space. No different to coaching. You have a limited amount of time that I have.

I don't wanna employ anybody else as same as you don't wanna employ anybody else. You wanna work one on one with the client and get to know them and and and them get to know, like, and trust you over a period of time as well, which is the idea of keeping it small.

Yeah. And that's the kind of the it kinda leads to the next one is there's just capacity constraints. Right? Like, handling fewer fewer clients allows me to really get to know each clinic very personally, understanding what they wanna have in their practice, what they don't wanna have in their practice, what's going on in their local area. And, you know, by having that limited availability, I'm kind of a bit of a scarce resource in a way.

You know, you know that you're gonna have a quality onboarding, so you know what's happening. You're gonna get the, you know, kind of the hand holding or the kind of information you need to make good decisions as we move forward together to try to build your practice. So, yeah, that's capacity constraints is kind of the next one.

What about scalability? Yeah. So that's definitely gonna be

a challenge with scalability. Right? Like I said, you know, I'm not gonna be able to onboard five five clients all at once. You know, for me, it's generally I like to have maybe one or two new clients every quarter, Just like I said, to really kind of gradually ramp up to make sure that I can take care of people and make sure they have the information they need. So we can really get off on a great first step together as we build out their podiatry marketing plan and their their online presence.

Okay. Are there any any others? Any other

Yeah. The last but not least is, you know, if you you gotta make sure that when you do have conversations with someone in a single consultancy like myself, you know, just understanding what their how much time do they have for you. Right? Because and making sure they don't overextend themselves. Whoever you're working with should be completely honest with you about how many clients they have, what their week looks like, so you can have a general sense of how much time they can energy they can put into practice.

But it really comes down to it. It's that the revenue and seeing the patients you want to see, those should be the kind of KPIs. And there's obviously other objectives you have. But that's a natural to me because someone's spending twenty or thirty hours a week on your clinic that you're going have success. Are they doing the right things in a very, you know are they leveraging their knowledge to get you the results you wanna get?

So, you know but but having honest conversations about experience and, you know, making sure they don't overextend themselves is important.

Okay. So if you did get marketing done by a larger marketing agency, what are the what are the pros of doing that if that's the way the person want to go?

Yeah. So some of the pros with that is that they have a diverse team. Right? They're they have kind of different experts in different parts of of marketing potentially. You know, if you have two to three you know, two to 500 different websites you're working with, you're probably gonna have a website specialist, a Google Ads specialist.

So there are some benefits that those people are doing those types of things, but it it really is important that they are experts when it comes to podiatry in these areas. Just because someone knows these different topics or how to build a website, are they willing to make it authentic? Do they know, you know, trying to do trying to make search ads in a local area for a podiatry clinic? What are the kind of ways that will attract kind of ideal patients? So they definitely have a wider range of experience, but you gotta make sure that that experience includes podiatry.

Yeah. I saw this fantastic video. I've I've just seen you the link, and it's a marketing agency. And having a meeting about their new client and how can we increase their customer numbers. And having this argument around the table, and they're all trying to come up with different ways that they could weigh it.

What's the best thing for the client? And the next thing has got them with blindfolds on throwing darts at a dart board. They've got post it notes on turtles having a race down the room, and the turtles got social media, Google Ads. It's got all these different types of marketing. And it's like so even though you can have a bigger company, yeah, it might have all these extra people there, but do they understand what you need?

And and how are they coming up with that decision? So what what else what's another pro?

Yeah. Another pro I would say is like sometimes scalability. Right? Like like I said, I'll try to bring on maybe one to three clients a quarter. You know?

So if if you're number four or five, I might have to say, just just so you have a great experience where you can't start until, you know, two to three months from now or something or a month and a half from now, just to give you reasonable expectations. You know, someone that has kind of a more fully built out team, they might be able to onboard you a little bit more a little bit more quickly. So they might be able to scale up your website and some of your social media platforms a little bit more quickly.

Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Anything else? I would

say that another one is like sometimes they have more you know, they kinda dive into the reports and the data a little bit more. You know, sometimes I wouldn't necessarily think that these reports are always the best thing because as podiatrists, we'd always know what all these CPC and click through rates and all these other things, but they do usually provide kind of robust reporting whether or not that's, you know, that great. I'll I'll let the people that have these audit agents decide, you know, whether it's an online website or these PDFs that are sent to them each month, that's something that they find value in.

What about the, you know, they they're working with different types of clients so they could be picking up information outside of podiatry that they could basically bring into podiatry as well?

Yeah. At least in the podiatry space, I don't see a lot of people working with dentists and podiatrists or chiropractors and podiatrists. It's usually pretty podiatry specific. You'll sometimes see other people who do dental websites. Think he no longer does it, but Jimmy Marketing was a guy that did orthodontics and podiatry a bit.

So there can be some good crossover. I know that I've I've gleaned a lot of information, some interesting ideas recently from, like, the aesthetic medicine community as far as when it comes to before and after photos on a previous podcast. So there are definitely skills you can learn when you're working with the other industries. But, you definitely wanna have someone that knows podiatry and and knows how to attract those ideal patients to your practice.

Okay. Are there any other any other pros? Because I know there's definitely gonna be some cons as well.

Well, we'll jump to the cons. I think we've talked a lot about the pros there. Number one is talked about with when it comes to single person consultancies. You know, on the large on the large agency side is that they just won't have time for the personalization and attention. And that's just the the state it's just the facts.

If you look at some of the websites that are created by larger agencies, they're going to be stock images. Generally they're made more for, I would say, a general podiatrist. They're not very niche. So if you want to be known for wound care, for example, you might have one picture of wound care from some of these larger agencies, but it's not gonna be a picture of the doctor taking care of that wound care patient on the homepage or really built out pages that describe what they do. You know, expect a little less personalization if you work with a larger agency.

Okay. Any other any other cons? I'm sure there has to be some more.

I'm not gonna like dig in too much here Go hard. If you I would

say Dig.

When you have a larger agency though, right, there's gonna be just more standardized strategies, right, to kind of be able to keep things consistent across all the different websites they're doing. They're probably gonna look a very similar way

Oh, yeah.

And use similar stock images. And they're basically going to have almost the same kind of diagnosis and treatment pages from one clinic to the next. So like I said, it's a bit of a standardization. And they won't be able to adapt a little bit more slowly than a single person consultancy was. Because you know, know, they just can't roll out things as fast as they have a larger roster of clients to take care of.

So that's that's another trade off.

Now, and that happens in the coaching world as well. I've seen it where I've spoken to clients who used to be with say some of the larger coaching companies, and when I talk to them, we go, show me what they took you through. And you get a clinic that was, like, right into sports medicine, another one that's, say, into wound care, and when they show me what they went through, it's like this cookie cutter approach. This yeah. Because it's an employee that they're working with, and they just take them through the steps.

And there is no personalization. It's just moving through, whereas I might have, say, five different people I'm working with in one week, and I'm working on completely different things of all five because they're all individuals. It's not a cookie cutter sort of approach. Are there any other cons with bigger companies?

I would say that the bigger companies are probably more prone to try to like get you at a low price point and then try to upsell you significantly throughout your relationship. And that's not necessarily a bad thing because maybe as your practice grows you might need some more things. But just to be aware that if you're paying significantly less for a website, there's probably a reason why you're paying less. And that's probably because they're going to want to keep coming back and selling you more and more things. So that's just something to be aware of.

And then last but not least, I would say that there are there's this kind of bureaucracy in a larger agency, right? So if the website goes down, you have a bad patient review that shows up on your Google reviews, how long is that going to take to get taken care of? Because very likely the person that you're gonna be put in contact with is not the person that's gonna actually do make that change or make that improvement on your website or respond to that work with you to respond to that negative review and make sure you stay HIPAA compliant and you don't, you know, you stay kind of ethically above board. So just realizing that, you know, this kind of lack of direct communications is something you'll deal with when you work with a larger agency.

Yeah. Okay. And I just wanna go on back one step too when you're talking about the higher costs sometimes of dealing with bigger agencies. It's usually if you have a bigger agency, one, yep, they're paying for employees. They're paying for their in Australia to be superannuation.

You know, they're part part of their retirement fund. They usually got if they got a a brick and mortar business, what you're paying is paying their rent. And there's a lot of other expenses that just goes with a larger company, that's what you're you're paying for. Whereas if you're dealing with yourself when it comes to cost wise, you don't have all those other expenses. So therefore, I I feel that the money that they pay, they're getting more value.

All that money is actually well, it's a simple fact. All the money is going to you, Jim. So therefore, you can take that money, and you can use it to to help the client. It's not they're giving you the money, and you go, oh, well, this is for the rent. This is for my employees, for my receptionist.

This is for all these other expenses.

No. I definitely have a bit more wiggle room when it comes to making sure I'm using tools that are really effective and and kinda having that adaptability is what I think is the most important thing. Because, you know, even over the last, you know, five years that I've been doing podiatry marketing, just some of the tools, how they've shifted and changed over that period of time is pretty striking. It almost looks completely different, for example, like Google Ads or Facebook Ads or some of these different platforms. If you don't stay up to date with them, they can really change on you.

So I think there's definitely trade offs here. I wanted to try to be as transparent and nonjudgmental as possible. I think, obviously, I'm biased being a podiatrist who now provides

And so you should be.

Digital marketing consulting. But I think I offer personalized, tailored, and flexible services. I have a deep knowledge of podiatry. And obviously, I'm not for everybody because I can't take on 200 clients. But at the same time, I think there are some opportunities with larger agencies.

There's some people that are doing good work out there. There's definitely some trade offs like we talked about earlier. But it's really up to the clinic owners. Really consider what your specific needs are. Do you want more personalization?

Do you want more direct communication? What resources do you have? Where are you at in your practice? And then what are your objectives? And finding that marketing provider that's going to provide the best overall service for you and for your clinic is really imperative, especially in these days when that's how patients find you is by doing things online.

So definitely consider those options. If you have questions, I'm definitely open to discussing with you. So don't hesitate to get in contact. But that's pretty much it today, Tyson. I think it's important that people know, you know, what their options are out there so they can make the right decisions for themselves and their practices.

Yeah. Just the last comment I wanted to make, I heard somebody once say, oh, I'd rather work with a big company because I have a better buying power. And I'm like, yeah, they might. Doesn't mean they're gonna pass the buying power onto you. Yeah.

They might have better buying power at buying somebody at a cheaper price, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to pass that onto the client. If they if they can save money themselves, that's gonna go towards rent and other expenses they're gonna actually have in their business. So no. This is a good subject. Only got fired up a couple of times there, but it was good.

Okay, Jim. So That's awesome. I look forward to talking to you next week.

Alright, guys. Tyson.

Okay. Okay. Bye. 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.