Unexpected Ways Podcasts Can Grow Your Practice

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

Hi. I'm Tyson Franklin, and welcome back to this week's episode of Podiatry Marketing. With me today is my cohost and friend all the way over in Canada. It is big, Jim McDannald. How you doing, Jim?

I'm doing great. I'm glad that I've gotten large enough that you you correctly announced me with my big Jim that that it warms my heart every time I hear it.

We should have t shirts.

Doing fantastic, Tyson.

That has podiatry marketing and I know it has Tyson and Big Jim.

I'm not sure we could keep those on the shelves, Tyson. I mean, you know, there's a there's there's big global supply shortage, you know, you know, these these chains just can't handle all the merchandise around the world. So I'm not sure, you know, from Australia to The US to Canada, I'm not sure if they're ready for it yet. But, you know, if we get enough emails, maybe we'll have to fire something up with the the old podiatry marketing merch.

I think it'd be funny. It'd be like my my shirt's by Nachos, average podiatrist. Oh, Nacho. Nacho average podiatrist and heavy Mexican on the front. So anyway, Jim, what are we what is the topic of discussion today?

Yeah. So today we're gonna touch a little bit about podcast marketing. There's some different opportunities within podcasting. You know, I think maybe what when when I mentioned podcasting, probably people think like, oh, you're gonna tell me I need my own podcast, but

No. No. You don't. We don't need another podiatry podcast.

I mean, we've already got podiatry marketing and podiatry legends. So, I mean, I don't know what else you would need, but we'll touch base about some Yeah. Some out of the box ideas or some different opportunities within podcasting that can maybe gain some awareness for the services you provide. It's just some general ways to get your name out there in audio format that may connect with potential patients, gain awareness to other, people in your local area, whether that's other medical professionals or other just regular professionals in your area. Podcasting is a way to have a exponential reach of the right audience if you kind of do it the right way.

So that's what we're gonna jump into today.

Okay. So where are we gonna start? What what what aspect of podcasting do you wanna start on?

Yeah. So I'd say the first aspect is, you know, we're kinda gotta go from, like, the easiest, like, the least amount of work to the one that, requires the most work. So we'll get started with basically just paying for advertising. So, you know, this is probably a model that's gonna work best for people that, you know, every location, if you're in a city, if you're in a and you're a university, maybe you listen to some local podcast from your local area. Maybe they either they have some advertising opportunities on that podcast itself.

So that might be, you know, sending an email to that local podcaster asking about I think you probably gotten pitched before about you know, have heard advertising on some of your shows. Right, Tyson?

Oh, I've been approached about people wanting to yeah. Could we be a sponsor on the Podiatry Legends podcast? And because my audience is quite global, split I used to say it was split between pretty evenly between America, Australia, and UK, but UK have sort of dropped the ball a bit the last three or four months. So if there's any UK people listening here, you need to tell around The UK to lift your game. But it's sort of the numbers have dropped a little bit, but because it is still it sort of it depends on the guests that you have too.

Ideally, it's suited to a guest that covers all areas. However, if I was approached by someone from, say, a gin distillery in and you might think, why would a gin distillery wanna sponsor a podcast? Well, podiatrist drink gin, so I found out. But it could be a whiskey distillery. If they ship globally, then that would be that'd be great for any episode.

If they ship just within Australia, then they might say, well, okay. The next four or five Australian episodes you do, we might wanna advertise on that. However, knowing that one third of the audience is still Australian, just that repetition of of being heard puts them top of mind. And if you know that you can order something online, then the world gets a lot smaller.

No. For sure. That's a great point to to point to make there. I think, like you said, there is kind of two different types of advertising, I would say. There's that, like, going after, like, let's say that gin distillery, the whiskey distillery, like, contacted you directly.

You know, they're basically doing that one to one outreach where it's just, like, hoping to get on your show. So that would be you like, if let's say, I'm based I'm a podiatrist based in Lexington, Kentucky, and I wanna be on that University of Kentucky sports show or the sports podcast is popular. So you just probably just email that person. They probably have advertising opportunities. The step beyond that is something where, you know, whether it's sometimes it's through things like Spotify, other types of streaming services, they can actually take care of that geolocation for you.

So maybe it's not only one specific podcast, but it's like all the podcasts that, you know, if people, you know, obviously haven't paid for Spotify, they they run local ads sometimes in different markets. So whether it's the basketball podcast or the, you know, the sci fi thriller serial podcast, You know, anyone that downloads and listens it in that local area might be a potential person to listen to your advertisement on, their podcast player. So there's those two different types of advertising, which are, you know, relatively low a low lift. You might have to have, either pay someone to to do an ad read for you, to write an ad for you. But there's not gonna be a whole lot on your side from a a time perspective.

There are different kind of online services. If you Google, like, podcast advertising, where you can you know, whether it's Spotify, these other places that will do it for you. So it is this kind of thing that there is ways to outsource that type of stuff. But if you're just looking to do something really nontechnical, a low lift, but have some kind of local impact on podcasts, that advertising those two different types of advertising are probably your your two best bets.

Yeah. And he's when going back this step too, when you said if you've got, like, a a local podcast, there was a guy that I I helped set up a podcast, said it was UMiner podcast is what he set up. He had UMiner podiatry, so he set up UMiner podcast. It was just for his particular area. See, the only people listening to his podcast really were people from that UMiner Central Coast sort of area.

A sponsor getting onto that particular podcast would be very beneficial because it's really nobody in Sydney oh, not Sydney. Nobody in Western Australia is gonna be go, might search for your minor podcast. They're not gonna do that. But people in your mind, if he's promoting it well, will get local advertisers, which can make the show extremely appealing to advertisers as well.

Now that's a good point. I think you said like those local shows that have either local ad spots, and we'll get into this next is really like the next step after advertising is to basically don't have to have your own podcast podcast. You can guest on other people's podcast. So that's that's probably the next and actually, I've actually been a guest on your show, Tyson, on the Binaigans Legends So that's how I actually got into it in the first place.

I've been a guest on over a hundred shows now, I think, on a hundred different podcasts. Everything from I've been on whiskey podcasts. I've been on a lot of business podcasts. I've been on the no. I wasn't on the ice cream.

I wasn't on the no. I wasn't on the ice cream podcast, but through the ice cream podcast, I met the the people at a podcast conference in Philadelphia. And then from there, we did an ice cream crawl through Philadelphia. I was more destroyed after that than I was after a pub crawl because I'm lactose intolerant, but I refuse to back down on what we were eating. But through meeting them, they then set up another podcast that I ended up on there.

So I've been on I was on a wounds podcast, and everybody knows I don't like wounds. They make me sick. So thought it was funny to get somebody on who does not like wounds to talk about wounds. So but guest podcasting is if you got an area in our in your in podiatry that you are really interested in, getting on other people's podcast is a great way for building your profile.

I I totally agree. I think there's there's so many benefits of pod like guest podcast. We could probably have an entire episode.

Oh, yeah.

Just just the quick rundown of, like, how I see it. Number one, it's a great opportunity to work on your public speaking in a very low risk environment. Because, like, how many times are you recording yourself? You're gonna feel a little self conscious, but it gives you a chance to improve there. The second benefit that I find that's really helpful, and this doesn't even mean you have to be on a local or even a podiatry podcast that there there's a clear SEO benefit for from you being on other people's podcast.

And you may say, like, what do you mean SEO benefit? That that sounds strange. Well, most likely, if you're a guest on somebody's show, they're gonna wanna link back to your clinic's website or to your bio page. And when you have links from, you know, good websites that are getting traffic that are seen as good actors by Google, the more links you have going back to your website, it really helps your overall rankings within Google. So whether or not you probably want to be a little selective about the type of podcast you would guest on.

But it doesn't actually have to be, your exact niche or your level of expertise or even something locally that's going to draw patients. It could be an SEO play for your clinic's website. So that's important.

Yeah.

Yeah. But yeah. The but that those are some just some ideas. How about what are your ideas?

It's all about it's it's increasing the social footprint. I had someone that was on the podcast, on the podiatry legends podcast. They're on. We spoke about the business there in Springwood in Brisbane. The show itself, yeah, did really well.

But then somebody from Rebel Sports who was, I'm pretty sure it was Rebel Sports, was searching for a podiatrist, looking for podiatrist in the area. All of sudden, the podcast came up. I went, oh, had to read through it. Oh, had to read through it. They looked into it.

Had to listen to it. Then he listened to it, and he ended up referring patients to that podiatrist based of what the conversation I actually had with him. So that but what got even weirder from that is the person from Rebel Sports then ended up being doing podiatry. They they were a podiatry student, and then I had them on the podcast as a podiatry student. So but this is all because of one person doing a guest spot just linked to patient referrals and then also other people coming on the podcast.

No. It's huge. I think that's a huge opportunity. Like, that's it's kind of a crazy inception of, like, layers of the onion peeling back and and kind of like sevens, you know, seven different steps or, you know, what seven steps of Kevin Bacon or the seven connections you have there. It's just weird how you'll make those connections.

That but that's what I like about guest podcasting is, like I said, it doesn't need to be podiatry. It can be something outside of podiatry. One of my favorite ones that I was on was Kids in the Tank. It was a group of high school students in Wisconsin invited me onto their podcast. But through that, this year, I'm going to Wisconsin, and I'm catching up with Jeff Peterson, who owns a couple of businesses who set up Kids in the Tank.

Like I said, it's it's just to me, it's building your social footprint. And I know right now if I was searching for a podiatrist and I googled podiatrist in the area and there was a podiatrist name there, and all of sudden, they'd be on three, four, five different podcasts, and you got to have a bit of a listen to me and you went, well, these people know what they're talking about. And you had another podiatrist that hadn't been on a podcast. I'm thinking it's a it's a no brainer. I think patients make decisions like that.

No. I think it's a huge opportunity to build trust, show off your expertise in a way that's is helpful to people. Like, I think, you know, the the like you talked about, like, you don't doesn't necessarily have to be within the profession, but there are definitely some opportunities there. I would say, number one, like, locally, if there's some pretty big local podcast, you know, based in and around where your practice is at, it's totally you know, it's a huge brand building opportunity for you and your practice to be on whether they're talking about you know, maybe someone hosts, like, a local, you know, diabetes podcast.

Yeah.

You can get on there and talk about that. Or maybe it's a local, sports or sports medicine podcast. Maybe some local athlete has a foot injury, and they wanna talk to a foot and ankle expert about why is this person out for eight to twelve weeks with this, you know, turf toe or something of that nature. So local, you know, it it can build your expertise, but also it could be, potential patients, in multiple different ways. You know, if you're looking to more build more like a national, international profile based off of you do a specific type of procedure or you really wanna be seen as the go to expert for a very small niche or specific type of patient, you know, things like the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgery has their own podcast.

I think APMA in The US has their own podcast. Some of these other podiatrists or different types of sports medicine or whatever niche or whatever specialty you're you are in with the profession, there's probably an opportunity to be on a podcast that'll be seen or recognized by them. So that's a great way of being visible. I would also say that this is not something initially you have to track down yourself. Kind of like above with the advertising, you can also there are kind of services that will help you find great guest opportunities.

Oh, yeah.

Obviously, have to you have to pay them a bit of a fee. But if you're too busy in clinic and you just wanna, you know, set aside those thirty minutes once a week or sixty minutes, every other week to be on some shows, there's people that will set that up for you and kinda have you scheduled it in there. And, basically, it's almost a concierge service as far as guesting for podcasts. And it can produce pretty significant benefits for your business, not only for, like I said, from a trust and expertise perspective, but for SEO, and kinda building the the Google rankings of your own website. So podcast guessing should not be undervalued.

And like I said, you don't have to have your own show. Right? You don't have to be a technical expert. You basically need, you know, a decent camera, a microphone, and a good internet connection, and you're good to go.

Yeah. And I was gonna touch on that too that just make sure you've got a decent microphone. You get you're going to do it in a room that hasn't got doors banging and and just so much noise going on or it's really echoey. But I've yeah. A lot of my guests have just had Apple headphones, and they have worked extremely well, but they've been in a really good room at the same time with good acoustics.

So you just don't because the thing is, obviously, the guest, I will tell you what you need to do. If you choose not to do it, it reflects on you, not me. So if you come across sounding like a really crappy guest, people can listen and go, wow. You sounded terrible because I can only do so much to to make the person sound good. But going back to about yeah.

You can use a a service to actually book you on. My tip would be do it yourself. That's you don't have to, but I get at least one a week from somebody saying, hey, I've got this person who would be great on your podcast, and they tell me all the stuff about them. I get it. That's really good.

If they really wanna be on my podcast, they can reach out themselves Because I have a number of people that already have lined up so they would be fitting in amongst it. Occasionally, I have seen got someone I've got. Actually, they would be good. But then I reach out to them personally through social media, and I go, I got this invite. Would you like to come on my podcast?

Let's let's chat. And the other tip I'd say, if you're gonna be a guest podcast is if you're gonna be on a show, make sure you also promote that show. If you're on there and you're as a guest, post it on your own social media. Tell people, be proud that you're actually on the show. Don't just go on multiple shows and just go out there put yourself out, but not actually give anything back.

Because if if if the host sees that you actually promoted the show and put in a good job, they will get you back because they know that you actually really care about the show. So that was a side note.

I think you just give me a hard time because I need to promote our own show more. So I think

Oh, you picked up on that. Did you? Sorry. Sorry. Yeah.

I was gonna get and by the way, Jim. No. But it's it's it's so true though that I've I've had guests that have come on. We've done it. And I I promote my episodes a lot, but I've gone to their pages and there's not one mention at all about the part I go to it doesn't matter I go to LinkedIn, doesn't matter where I go that you wouldn't know they're actually on the show.

And I I see those episode numbers struggle a little bit more to when I have someone on who I know posted on the homepage, posted in productive groups I'm not part of, and then they repost it three or four weeks later. Go, hey. Yeah. Four weeks ago, was on this show. That makes a massive difference to the actual how well that episode does.

Yeah. I'm not picking on you, Jim.

I know. I know. This is giving me a hard time. Cool. Well, last but not least, we'll jump into, like, the one that I probably would say, like, this is for the the crazy people out there, the people that have the the ability to basically do one thing and do it really well, and that's be, like, crazy consistent.

You can start your own podcast and be your own host. Right? I think there's a lot. That's basically an entire episode itself, so I'm not gonna hammer too much on the details of that. I think, you know, I I am this is my first, I would say, you know, consistent podcast series working with Tyson.

Obviously, me partnering with him and just his level of quality and consistency is, you know, I couldn't help but rub off on me a bit. So I'm extremely happy and and and, you know, the format we have together talking about podiatry marketing.

And we've avoided pod fading. So pod fading is where most most podcasts will fade away between nine to 12 episodes.

Yeah. Well, so knock on wood, I think we're a little further along than that. But at the same time, I think it does make a huge you think it having a an accountability partner or someone you do the podcast with, so that could be a a cohost like Tyson and myself. You have an editor or someone that you work with kind of as a pseudo producer, maybe that helps you with some stuff. Those are different ways to have that accountability.

But, yeah, doing it yourself can be a difficult thing. There are, once again, different types of concierge services that can help you do some of that stuff. It can be pretty expensive, to be honest, with the editing, producing, those things. So I wouldn't really recommend that. But if you have an idea and you're willing to be consistent over a long period of time and you know the message you wanna get out there, I think that's a huge important thing is that, like, if someone's already doing the exact same thing that you want to do and there's a thousand episodes of it already, well, like, great.

You know, maybe you can go for it. But you need to really find, I think, some either unique format or unique message to really help it get out there. And like I said, last but not least, the most important thing of any of these things, it doesn't matter the microphone, where you put your podcast, those things.

Yeah.

If you're not consistent in getting it out there, nothing else really matters. So I'm sure if if you have questions about podcasts or or more specifics about podcast success, I'm I'm probably not the person to talk to. Tyson's the the person that's probably the expert in that area, but I think this is it's definitely there's still lots of opportunities in podcasting, but I think, like I said, it's gotta be unique with a unique message, either unique format and the consistency is what tops everything.

I just like, I'm very biased on how much I enjoy podcasting. I just love doing it. Like I said, being a guest on over a hundred shows. With this and the other podcast I've done, I've produced close to 500 podcast now, episodes. I've edit I edit all my own shows, so I enjoy the editing process.

So I say to Bill, if you want to have your own show, you wanna do your own editing, I always say minimum. Whatever the amount of recording you do, it takes you a minimum of twice that amount of time to edit it. So if you wanna do an hour show, then you gotta find another two hours that you're going to edit minimum. That's if things don't go wrong, and then it can take three hours. But it's quite easy to have a somebody said to me once, if I set up a new podiatry clinic tomorrow in a in a town, what would be my number one marketing strategy?

And my number one marketing strategy would be I would start a podcast. Now there's a whole reason behind that. There's a whole strategy on how I would do it, which I'm not gonna share here because it's very valuable. But I just know the power of podcasting, and I know how to actually use it to market in a small town. I just think it's really valuable.

And I have I've done workshops where I've done whole day workshops just on audio marketing. I've done two day things where I sit down with someone for two days, and I show them from start to finish how to do a podcast. The trainings there, the people just if they're serious about it, they're just gonna reach out to someone whether it's me, you, Jim, or anybody else and just get, I wanna know more. Or they can just do it themselves and learn it the hard way.

Yeah. Yeah. I I highly recommend that they reach out to you, Tyson, to to kind of get get coached up.

Would highly recommend that to myself. Just being once again, biased.

Those insider tips and secrets and just really help fast forward their potential for success if that's the route they wanna go. So so, yeah, that's that's really all I had today. I just wanted to touch base off of, like I said, you know, the three option the three opportunities I currently see with podcasting are advertising, podcast guesting, and then, you know, starting your own show. So, yeah, that's all I have today.

No. I reckon that's fantastic and a great way to finish up. So, Jim, we will talk again next week.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. See you later. Bye.

Bye now.

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