Why Marketing Your Clinic Shouldn’t Be “Set it and Forget It”

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 to this week's episode of podiatry marketing. With me as usual is my sensible cohost, big Jim Mack. How are you doing today, Jim?

I'm the calm, you know, calm before the storm, calm during the storm. I got somebody's gotta hold this podcast together, I guess it's that weight rests on my shoulders. But no, it's I'm happy to be here, Tyson. I always enjoy our conversations and excited to chat a little bit today.

Like you said to me before, come on. You've done well over 500 podcasts, and you still giggle like a little kid at the beginning when we say something funny off air that we can't repeat. But

It makes things fun.

Like to keep things lighthearted. So what are we talking about today? Let's dive straight into today's subject.

Let's jump in. So, yeah. So today we're going to talk about why marketing your clinic shouldn't be set it and forget it. So for those who are my age and maybe a little bit older, you might remember Ron Papille from The US. This is the guy that's the mister infomercial.

You know, he would get the rotisserie chickens, put them in the that, you know, dollars 200 infomercial product and say, all you got to do is set it and forget it. And I think sometimes podiatrists treat their marketing like this. You know, they just think, oh, I'll build the website. And then once I have that website, I don't have to do anything for, you know, a decade. It's gonna just kind of send me patients or just gonna kind of be there.

And, you know, whether, you know, you pay you paid for it maybe just like as a one off or you're paying a small amount to some marketing provider to kinda keep it somewhat updated. It's kind of a false way to go about really building an asset for your practice, not only to grow it, but to to build trust in your community. So we'll kinda go over, you know, why would you consider, you know, utilizing marketing services that are more kind of ongoing on more like a retainer model with a marketing provider as opposed to just like doing one offs or just settling for the kind of cheapest option out there?

Yeah. I I spoke to someone two days ago, and they it was they were looking at some traditional marketing. And I said, oh, when was the last time you looked at it? They said, oh, but it's been running in this local magazine in their town. Oh, we've had it there for about last three years.

Okay. I said, have you changed the ad or done anything with it? Oh, no. But no. It's just been sitting here with it's just been same set and forget.

They just they renew it every twelve months, and it just basically runs. Okay. But is it working? This all goes back to last week's episode about doing an audit as well. I said, is it working?

They went, oh, we think so. So they've sort of just put it in place and just think, well, you know what? We'll just keep paying the the monthly feeds to the the newspaper or magazine where it was. Mean, don't need to do anything else because they're looking after it. And I'm like, they don't care.

As long as you're paying, they would have no idea how it's doing.

Well, sometimes you see it's like that thing to check off the list. Right? It's like, oh, are you doing marketing? Yes. We have this thing in a newspaper they've done for the last three years.

Check. Right? But there's no is it working? What kind of patients is attracting? Is it generating or turn on investment for what you're spending?

Is it capturing attention if you're doing the same thing for three years? You know, I'm it is basically becoming like the furniture. You just kind of don't know notice that it's there anymore, probably by some of the readers. So, yeah, that's that's concerning. And I think it is one of these things where, you know, you really wanna be doing things consistently, but obviously testing things consistently.

And you're going be much more effective when you do this as opposed to just kind of these one off things or, you know, it's like trying to run a marathon. Right? If you try to say, hey, I'm going run a marathon in six months. If you wait until the week before the marathon and you're just like, oh, I'm just going to do one workout and I'll be good. Yeah.

Well, you're probably going to have a bad bad day. But if you

That's true.

But if you're doing little things over a long period of time, you know, checking your fitness, recovering well, you're doing the little things on a gradual basis, it's gonna take up a little bit more of your time than just doing it that training for the week before the marathon. But you're gonna have much better results. You're not gonna get hurt. So that's my little running analogy to why, you know, consistency is key, not only in running, but also in your your podiatry marketing.

But it's also you can be doing the right thing and the wrong thing at the same time and also getting the results. You could be No. Exactly. Doing the running training and then sitting down eating fried chicken and chips and ice cream every night and still actually put weight on over a period of time, and you're not gonna have a great race.

No. You wanna focus on the right thing. So, when it comes to the right things and the reasons why you want to be consistent is number one, you want to build awareness of your clinic. You know your clinic exists, your staff does, your family, your friends, sure. But anywhere you're living at, you want to make sure you're doing regular marketing to help keep your clinic kind of on the top of minds of people, right?

Like you don't, if they think podiatrist, you want them to think your name, or if you like to do sports medicine, want them to think about you when they have, you know, sports medicine injury. And if you're not doing it out consistently, you're not consistently putting out all the kind of care you provide in your niche or the type of procedures you like to do, people won't know, right? You're in it every day, but you have to make people aware that you have these services and that your clinic does exist. Otherwise, you kind of fade into the woodwork. And this doesn't have to be major things, it's updating your website.

It's having sometimes Google search ads, sometimes it's putting out fresh pages on your website about different types of procedures that you do. This does take consistency over time. It's not something that, you know, you wanna every two years update the website in a massive way. By doing things piecemeal over time and getting this awareness out there, people will recognize who you are, what you do, and you're more likely to get patients coming into your practice.

Yeah. But I've seen websites though. You know they're out of date when you'll see the team photo and you know that team member left two and a half years ago. And they've got the same person, they've still got the same profile there, and the person doesn't exist anymore. Well, they might have a team, and three quarters of the team have gone.

So you know the web and the patients are aware of this, that those team members are no longer there. All of sudden, the credibility of the website just starts to diminish when they know there's no new information. All they've they've got all the effort of buying is really good piece of equipment, and it's not on their website. They haven't bothered adding anything about it.

Well, we've talked about that a little bit in the past. Right? Like the web like, I see the website as kind of your online home. And if you're not, you know, taking care if you have a messy room, if you have a messy house, you know, the front yard's not you know, you haven't mowed in in six months, people are going to recognize that, right? Oh, And same thing with your same thing with your website.

You will be judged.

You'll be judged or in ways that people just won't come to your practice, right? Yeah. So if they if they see old employees, old procedures, you know, updated photos that haven't been updated for a decade, that's a bad look. And you really want to, you know, kind of getting to the next point is you really want to establish trust and expertise with people. And, you know, by doing continuous marketing efforts, especially those where you kind of provide valuable information about, you know, foot and ankle health, you know, it's going to position the clinic as the expert in the local area.

And you're going to build trust gradually over time, right? It's really easy to to burn people and to lose trust, but it takes a long time to build trust with folks. So by putting doing consistent marketing efforts over long periods of time, you're establishing that you are trustworthy and you're you are kind of recommendable to other folks and you are that local expert. So it's really important to build trust with these potential patients. You know, they're more likely to to trust you if you've been around for longer and noticed for longer.

It's really, really important.

Yeah. It like, when you told me about the photos on the website. Imagine my website now. Every photo had me with hair. And then they meet me and they go, you look like a criminal.

So it's just straight away, they trust that's what it's a problem with my book. My books, I've got hair. But, yeah, I did when I had the books. I've gotta gotta write another book. Gotta Yeah.

I just have to have to get a no hair photo put on there.

Yeah. Version two point o, the the the it's no secret with doctor t two point o.

It's no secret. There's money in podiatry, world's greatest podiatry business book written, if I say so myself. Still, 95% of it is applicable today. So what's next? What what what comes up after like, obviously, so the first part, like I said, is building clinical awareness.

The second thing is establishing trust and expertise, which is why you want to be doing What's what's the next part?

Yeah. So the third part is really adapting to marketing changes, right, to market changes, right? So, you know, things are going to be constantly changing, right? Sometimes, you know, you got Tyson doing TikTok dances, right? Other times, there's different channels and different things that are available, right?

You know, this generation, this upcoming, they like to text. They don't like to call or maybe even fill out forms. So how are you, you know, the market and that is dynamic over time, right? There's new treatments, there's new technologies, there's new platforms to be aware of. So if you're not updating those things on a regular basis, you're going to seem like a dinosaur.

I think, you know, initially websites were kind of a business card on the internet, right? They didn't need to have anything besides your contact information and how to make an appointment and that was probably good enough fifteen or twenty years ago. But now it's different, People can watch videos of you treating people, they can see before and after photos, they can see the types of technology you use. So you have to be able to adapt to the market changes in ways that, and when you do this consistently with your marketing, it allows the clinic to stay relevant and it shows that you're willing to adapt to the newest and most effective forms of treatment for the patients. If you're doing the same things you were doing in residency now in practice, that's a bad sign, right?

You need to be constantly educating yourself. And then once you do educate yourself on different forms of treatment, showing those to all different people in your local area, to your patients, to make sure they're aware of all the services you provide.

And even when you're talking about the technologies as they're changing, and then say the different platforms, you're saying if there's a new platform at that and it becomes popular, that a podiatry business should be, you know, like, should understand where their patients are hanging out. Therefore, if they know a lot of their ideal patients hanging out on a certain platform, they should actually have some presence on that platform cause the patients are expecting them to be there.

No. Exactly. Like, you you want to show up where people are at. Right? If you don't if you're just doing marketing channels or just like you talked about that that aspect of the person who's doing the three years of a a magazine ad.

Yeah.

They didn't do any background research about who was looking at that magazine. That's just checking the box. But you really need to, like we talked about, when patients come into the practice, maybe it's in your intake forms, maybe it's having conversations with people. How did you find out about us? You know, when you have a medical issue, like who's, you know, who's that kind of trusted network of people you reach out to?

You know, what what time what you know, where do you spend time on different platforms? And by kind of connecting with those different areas, you're more likely to get in front of the right patient at the right time. You know, it's maybe only going be a small percentage of people that need a foot and ankle specialist at any given time, but, maybe the mother of a patient or the next door neighbor of a potential patient is aware of you and your services and can kind of be that source of referral. So it's about kind of developing patients in your local community to know that you exist and then be willing to kind of you know, either you show up where they're at or you're showing up to people in their network that will, you know, refer to you make referrals to you in your practice.

That makes sense. Okay. So what's the next next thing that they should basically think about?

The next step is really you engaging with your community. I think this this touches a little bit at the last topic we talked about, but, you know, what are the channels that you have, whether it be through a newsletter, your social media channels, what are the local events you can go to and either get talks at or volunteer at. Yeah. That's really gonna help you build kind of a loyal patient base. You know, when I was in practice, was big into sports medicine, so it was important for me to, you know, work at the local marathon, you know, kind of go to different track and field meets or different road races and be seen and be present.

Sometimes I was running in them, sometimes I was helping out, you know, at the the medical tent. So understanding where your ideal patients are at and how do you get in front of them and to build loyalty over time. It really allows you to engage with people on a different level, right? When we're in our clinic sometimes, you know, we're seeing 20 to 40 patients a day, it can be kind of a busy time. But just being out in public, being amongst the community, you know, being helpful, answering questions, and just becoming familiar and friendly to your neighbors and to your people in your local area can really build your reputation in a way that, you know, obviously things like Google reviews and other things help, but that real world connection can really really help your practice move in the right direction.

Yeah. We used say that all the time. It's really important just to be seen and be heard, especially in the community. And most of the businesses that I've had a lot to do with myself outside of health care, they're the ones that you it's not just their marketing. It's the ones you actually see in the community and connecting with the community at different times.

And even if I think within health care, you know, physical therapy, dietitians, the ones that I've seen that are at events that are volunteering their time, that have produced, say, a newsletter, for example, that you get it on a regular basis. It's always quality content. It seem they seem to be the businesses that do really well, the ones that are very well connected with community. They're at lunches. You'll see them there with their their shirt on, you know, physiotherapy clinic, dietitians.

And I I think people can just learn a lot from that just engaging with the community.

Well, it's one thing, you know, I think a lot of people will think about advertising and marketing and to think that that's like you're kind of like barking at people to like, hey, at me, look at me.

Yeah.

You know, I am the greatest. And it's kind of like there's a lot of self aggrandizing, but when you're out there volunteering in your community, you're being helpful, you're being friendly, like and being genuine with other people, like, it's those actions you take are worth so much more than just, you know, words on a website or, you know, you trying to kind of like advertise your services. So I mean, I think you need to do some of those things when it comes to marketing your practice. But when you can be present in your community and people see that you care and you're taking action, you know, it just it speaks volumes.

Yeah. If you when when people see you, especially if it's a big event and you're in a medical tent and you're volunteering to fix up foot problems and you don't even have your uniform on, but people recognize your face. And that's what they that's what they don't realize. Or a reporter takes a photo and they go and they name the people who are there. People see your other marketing, They see that that, hey, you're giving back.

You're not you're not actually asking for anything in return for doing it. You're just hoping that you're building up goodwill long term.

Yeah. And not only do you build up goodwill amongst, like, potential patients, but, like, other health care providers as well. Right? Like, it just Yeah. It can be a real multiplier as far as goodwill and your reputation locally.

Yeah. But when I think of some of the local podiatrists in Cairns, and I think of the ones that have got the most successful businesses in Cairns, they're the ones that I see out and about helping and doing things in the community. The people that I've known here for years who have probably got some of the worst clinics, the most complaints, and the people I wouldn't send my dog there to get their toenails cut, are people that I never see at community events. The only time you see them might be, I don't know, maybe at a racetrack gambling, pushing through the crowd to get a bet on it that last minute. So you sort of see it again, wow.

What helps? Helping the community, just helping yourself. So I think people can learn something from

Absolutely.

Okay, next thing.

Yeah, the fifth and final point that I want to bring up about why is it important to consider doing something consistently with your marketing is that you're able to kind of better track and improve the performance of whatever you're doing, right? If you're just doing one offs, if you're, let's say you're having your website refreshed every five years, you're doing an occasional ad campaign here and there, or you're just kind of doing some set it and forget it type marketing, is that you're never to get that feedback loop. We talked, you know, last week about the OODA loop.

Yeah.

But you know, if you're just doing kind of one offs and you're not gathering data about what's working and what's not working, you can't kind of have that incremental improvement over time that really allows you to kind of fine tune your marketing to make sure you're connecting with your ideal patient. You know, implementing these types of strategies will really kind of ensure that your clinic is attracting the right kinds of patients in the most efficient way possible, right? You want to make sure that whatever money you're spending on your marketing, your advertising is going and being spent efficiently. And you can't really do that unless you're doing it on a consistent basis. If you're just doing one offs here and there, it's a scattershot approach.

You're never gonna really kinda get into a good rhythm and know what to expect and know when you can kind of turn certain things on and turn certain things off. So it is that consistency over time that really helps you determine which channels are working and helps you determine your overall performance.

I think it's really important. Like you were saying, like, we were at a there's a stand up comedian over here in Australia called Heath Franklin. He does this impersonation of this ex, like, sort of small time gangster Chopper Reed. That's really funny. If you know who he is, it's actually quite funny.

But, anyway, he was in Cairns not too long ago, but he was testing out material that he was gonna do on a national tour. So he was really testing and measuring, tweaking things, seeing what was working. So there's only 30 of us in the room. He came in, ran all these jokes past us, 50 or 70 were rubbish. Absolutely terrible.

They weren't even funny. And what was funny, he'd say the joke, and then he'd go, okay. We'll put that one in the shit bin, won't I? And that made us laugh. So so I think he might actually hang on to some of the crappy jokes so he can tell a joke about them.

But that was doing the same thing. He didn't just write it, and then you don't see a comedian well, actually, you'll see average comedians today are the ones that tell me the same jokes from twenty years ago. The good comedians are the ones that can get up and do a performance, and it's constantly evolving new material that is constantly coming out. And I think as podiatrists, it's the same thing we've got to evolve our material that we're we're delivering.

That's a good example. I think the like you said, you just have to be out there working on things consistently, making gradual changes over time, and it's gonna yield significant results. And like I said, know, not to get back to the marathon running thing, but it's it is just little steps over time. Right? If you try to, you know, how to eat a whale, you know, one bite at a time.

I see.

You have to just like just just do little things over time because, you know, rather than being kind of a know, I think a lot of podiatrists will still see marketing or advertising their practice as this kind of thing that's on the expense list, right, or either to cut or just to check off, oh, I'm doing my marketing. But really consistently high quality marketing, it should be seen as an investment in your clinic's growth, in your reputation, and really kind of with your connection in the community and your connection to the community. So it kind of overall, I would say, think about what you're doing. Obviously, if you have questions or anything that we can Tyson and I can help, we're here to kind of give you some feedback as far as, you know, what we think what we've seen works well with the clients we work with. Definitely happy to help you out.

But that's kind of a my main spiel today is like, don't see the marketing advertising as this expense. But if you do it consistently over long periods of time, you're gonna see the value and you'll get a compounding return on your investment over time when you're being consistent with these marketing efforts.

Yeah. And and working and if you get it right, this is the sound that you will hear. Yep. The tool will be turning over. Not that we have tools like that anymore.

Everything's electronic. I don't think anyone pays with money anymore. Is cash. No one pays with cash. Everything's card.

Apple Pay.

Apple Pay. Yeah. Everything's like that. So no. I thought this was a really good topic, Jim.

So is there anything else you wanna say to to wrap up on?

No. I think that's a good spot to leave it. I think, like I said, just consistency is key when it comes to anything in life, especially when marketing your practice. Practice.

Okay. Well, I look forward to seeing you next week.

So look at plan, Tyson.

Okay. Bye. Bye now.

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