Why Word of Mouth is A Dangerous Marketing Strategy

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald. Welcome back to podiatry marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald. Join us always my trusty cohost, Tyson Franklin. Ho ho ho.

How are things there in Australia?

We are fantastic over here, big gym. It's warm for us because it's now officially summer, and which means it is cold for you. So I would rather be where we are.

Yeah. I I can't imagine having a a summer Christmas, but I guess on the other side of the planet, that's what happens. So

Well, what's funny is because we since it hits the December 1, this is just a family. We have so many traditions that we do in our household. And and one of them is from the December 1 all the way through until Christmas, we watch a Christmas movie every night. And god damn, some bad ones. And there's so many new ones that come out every year, so it's surprising we can find And we watch the recent Jack Black one called Dear Santa.

Okay.

And and the kid writes a letter to Santa, but he's dyslexic, so but he writes it to Satan. So Jack Black turns up and says, oh, we don't normally get too many little letters sent to us requesting wishes. So it was it was a bit funny. But That's good. Yeah.

But it's funny. Like, being here in Australia, we grow up seeing everything with all the snow and all that type of thing. So next year, we're gonna be in The States for Christmas.

There you go. Have a proper North American Christmas, I guess.

So it will be fun. So we should get on to today's topic, not just not just Christmas movie reviews, but check out Dear Santa. It's worthwhile.

Okay. I'll I'll I'll write that one down.

Okay. Today's topic is word-of-mouth is a dangerous marketing strategy. And how this came about is I was talking to a podiatrist recently, and while we were chatting away, they said, oh, I don't do any marketing. I do no marketing at all. They said, I don't need to.

My whole business has been built on word-of-mouth. And which wasn't exactly true because I said, you have a website there, don't you? And they were, well, yeah. And I said, well, you do realize that is part of your marketing even though it's dodgy and it's it was a really bad website. And I'll get onto websites a bit later.

But in their mind, they were just saying all they do is word-of-mouth marketing. They don't need to do any other marketing, and I think it's a very dangerous strategy.

Yeah. I think if you're putting all your eggs into that basket, I mean, you definitely wanna have a great reputation in town. It's not taking that away. But if that's the only thing you're hoping on, just kinda like put your head down, work hard, you know, obviously treating patients and providing great care is the foundation of any successful practice, but at the same time you have to let other people know about it and word-of-mouth can travel pretty slowly especially when you're first getting started.

Yeah. And the biggest problem with word-of-mouth marketing is it has built in limitations because you're relying on your current patients to basically spread the word, and you can't always be sure exactly what they're saying. You're not actually there when they're saying it. And you gotta you gotta think about whatever's being said, is the message consistent? Is it the same message that is being said by all your patients?

Or have you got different patients saying different things purely based on the experiences that they have had? So are your patients aware of all your services? Because they're not going to talk about some of your services if they're not aware of it. They're only going to talk about what they know, which is another thing. That's what sets the limitations if you're only relying on that.

No, absolutely. I think we've talked about this in the past and then some of the colleagues I've talked with, you know, they want to kind of get away a little bit from some of the routine foot care and do some of the more fee for service or cash pay types of treatments. And you know, if the elderly person that you treat, you know, that you it's like maybe you have one half day a week where

you

do routine foot care. And you treat them well and you're really happy, maybe just have some person that just like, oh, he's the best at doing, you know, routine foot care. And you really don't want more of that service. Right? You have to find some way to you know, that that's a way that, like, word-of-mouth can be a little, you know, I wouldn't say detrimental, but definitely not aligned with your current practice goals are.

So you do have to sometimes shout it from the rooftops and let people know all about the different types of care you actually want to provide.

Yeah. And and it's especially dangerous too if you don't control the narrative like you were saying. Yeah. The messy and the narrative is what is the message that's being talked about about your business? And if you just leave it to your patients, I'll give you a real you know, one, think it can be really scary, but you also don't want to be known in town as you're the best toenail cutter.

And to give you a story, I used to play rugby union in Cairns, and I remember this one particular game. We'd finished the game. We were all there in the dressing room covered in blood and guts, and and a trainer came in, and the trainer and the trainer's mom was a patient of mine. And the trainer had turned to me and said, oh, Tyson, my mom just wanted to let you know that Shirakans, out of all the people she's ever been to, you are the best toenail cutter she's ever been to. And I looked, and I went from being six foot tall and bulletproof.

I I just went, oh, that's that's fantastic. Yeah. Say hello to your mom for me. Luckily, though, half the the guys in my team were also patients. And and I'd made orthotics for him before, had done shockwave therapy, had done a lot of other things for them.

And a lot of them looked. When they looked at me and they heard that comment, they were actually really confused. They went, oh, Tyson, didn't. Do you cut toenails? And I went, yeah.

Some people can't reach them. Someone's got to do it. And they went, oh, okay. Didn't know you did that. Fortunately, like I said, they had been exposed to other areas of my business, so that was what I wanted people talking about.

But if they'd never been to my business before and that sports trainer had come in and said, hey, Tyson, you're the best toenail cutter in cans, all of a sudden, there would have been 22 guys who would have walked out of that dressing room that day going, Tyson is the best toenail cutter in cans. And that wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want to be the best. I wanted to be third best.

And then they would call their mother or their grandmothers and send them directly to your door.

Yeah. That's the thing. That's the scary part. All of sudden, they all would have gone out and would have got 22 referrals the next day. My grandmother, my great grandmother, she needs her toenails cover.

I hear you're the best in Cairns. There you go. The other part too is if other people are out there doing the word-of-mouth for you, is can you be sure that the patients are hearing the right message from them? So you may even have a patient who might be saying good things about you, not just you had the best toenail cutter. But are the patients explaining what you do properly, or are they explaining it poorly?

It'd be no different to I say shockwave therapy. You could explain you know, when I first heard shockwave therapy, the first image that popped into my head was Jack Nicholson with chewing on something with him putting electrodes on his head. That was the image. So you can imagine a patient saying to someone, oh, I went to the podiatry, got shockwave therapy for for my heel, yeah, it was a little bit painful. And all of a sudden, they're picturing a towel in the person's mouth and some shocks on the head.

So if things are not explained, probably, even it could be some of your better services, that can also be a bit of a problem.

No. Absolutely. It's kinda like the the old game of telephone, right? Like you say a sentence to one person next to you, the next person says another sentence, and by the time it gets, you know, three or four people deeper, even more, like the message has completely changed. So you're right, you want to control the narrative.

You want to be able to explain to patients, you know, the type of care you provide in ways that you you control that narrative and the information given because otherwise, you know, they might get some bad information along that chain.

What did you call that game? Telephone?

Telephone. Yeah. You just, like, sit in a circle and you, like, whisper a sentence.

Yeah. Used to call it Chinese whispers.

Oh, really? Okay.

Maybe you're not allowed to anymore. Well, we'll find out if this ever say gets an explicit rating on there or we get banned. It's probably a political correctness. I got to Google that. Anyway, so so some of the other dangers are while you're waiting on your patients to spread the word about, you know, how good you are, if there's a savvy podiatrist that's moved into town, someone that's a little bit switched on, they are placing their message in front of your potential patients with better marketing strategies.

So you're sitting and waiting for your patients to build up your practice, and they're sitting back going, who do we want to talk to? What message do we wanna get out to them? And they're using other marketing strategies. And while you're waiting for your word-of-mouth to build up, they're actually moving they're moving so far ahead of you.

Now that can be really dangerous, like, when you're just kind of, like I said, putting all the eggs in that basket and not focusing on other ways where you can really project your message and get it directly to the patients you want to treat.

Yeah, and it's also another danger is, are your patients talking to the right patients? You may have provided a fantastic service, say, not toenail cutting, could be something else. And you're after more affluent patients or professionals. You might want people who are business owners, whether it's white collar or blue collar, but you're after business people. You want people, families, people who've actually got money or who've got children.

Double incomes, that type of thing. But are your patients going out there and talking to Doris from the Bridge Club or a single mum? And not that there's anything wrong with single mums, but if that's not your target market so if your patient's there, they're doing a fantastic word-of-mouth job, but they're doing it to the wrong patients. You've got savvier podiatrists who are sending different messages to the right patients, and you're going to miss out on them.

Yeah. It's kind like we talked about when we're building a website or just any kind of thing under digital presence. You want to make sure that that, you know, is connecting with that right person, but you're also kind of repelling the people you don't want to treat. And this is you know, I think that's a great way of putting it, you know, that you really kind of want to attract that kind of right fit patient to come into your practice.

Well, one of the funny things I saw once was somebody said, yeah, would you let your patients pay your bills or do your taxes? And you go, oh, that's a silly question. Of course I wouldn't. But why would you let them control your marketing? If you really think about it, if you say, you know what?

I'm gonna sit back. I'm gonna let my patients do all my marketing for me. And I'm also gonna let Doris do my taxes. No. She's not an accountant.

Has no idea what she's doing, I'm

just gonna let

her do it. There's no way you would let them do it. So to me, I think when it's the marketing of your business, you you really gotta take control of it and not leave it in the hands of your patients. And the fourth thing I wanna mention that's also a danger, and this one's huge, people and you're gonna agree with me on this one too, Jim. People will do their own online research before making an appointment to see you.

It would not matter. It don't care how trustworthy your friends are. They are still gonna go and look online about you before they actually make an appointment. And therefore, your website, it has to be professional. Your whole online presence has got to be professional.

Because if it's if it's not, because it was a trustworthy friend that said to them, oh, you've got heel pain, you need to see a podiatrist, they're gonna believe that the friend that, yeah, you're right. I do need to see a podiatrist. The one you recommended, I'm not so sure about, but I think you're right. I do need to see a podiatrist. Then they'll bypass you, and they'll go and see somebody else because they have a more professional online presence.

I mean, I think that's a great point. I think the the kind of word-of-mouth referral is just the starting point. Right? It's just like that piece of information because I'm I'm pretty sure that your friend's not giving you the name, the address, the phone number to make an appointment. You're gonna people are gonna do an online search after they get, you know, doctor Smith's name, podiatrist.

They're gonna Google that. They're gonna look it up. They're gonna see where is that clinic located. Oh, it happens that the reviews are right there. Right?

Yeah.

It's it's all happens. There's a link to the website. So it's just natural curiosity as being humans. We're gonna go take a look and see, is that a right fit doctor for us? So we wanna see them.

Will they able to treat the kind of things that I have? So that initial word-of-mouth referral is just that it's the keywords that go into Google or into ChatGPT or something. It's not it's not the end all, be all. They're not like you said, they're not gonna just take their friend's word for it and just like because they don't have all the information they need to make that appointment to make it happen. So it is it is something to be aware of that that is the starting point, and it's gonna lead down a path of a Google search and then maybe looking at your reviews and then looking at your website as well.

Yeah. Well, I know my myself when I've been wrecking yeah. I'm I'm looking for a particular service and someone said, have you tried this place? I know when I go look at that place, at the same time I'm going online to look at them, you were seeing activity from other businesses that provide a similar service. So if what you find there, you're like, oh, okay.

I think my friend's right. This is what I need, but I'm not sure. There's something about this website. It's a little bit old. Then you're just gonna go to the next person, like you said, whether it's reviews, it's fresh, it's inviting, it's giving you the information that you want.

There was a statistic that I read recently. It said what is that? Get rid it. Five percent of customers start their purchases online. Therefore, the content you create could mean getting or actually losing them.

Absolutely.

And I would say that is pretty accurate. I rarely will purchase anything unless it's a spontaneous thing or happen to be at a shop. Nearly everything else before I actually purchase it, I go online and I do a bit of research first. At the moment, I'm looking for a something you're not looking for, Jim, a pool filter.

Yeah. No pool in Eugene or in Montreal. So, yeah, you let me know how that goes.

Yeah. So I'm looking looking for a robotic a robotic pill filter. So because I saw something advertised on Facebook, and I went, okay. They look pretty cool, but I'm not gonna just take that one. That one's saying they're awesome.

So then I went on to YouTube, and I said, are there any videos that are doing comparisons between different, pill filters or pill cleaners? So all of sudden, there were four different ones. So I looked at all of I'm like, okay. What suppliers do I have in cans now? I know I wanna go robotic, and I want having hooked up.

So then there's three different places that sell robotic filters. I'm doing all this research before I then select which shop am I going to go to and purchase the one that I want. All done online, and then that the person at one pool shop will go, oh, I don't need to advertise because I have word-of-mouth happening for me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

So, like, in conclusion, I'm not saying that word-of-mouth is not good or that you shouldn't use word-of-mouth as one of your, like, marketing tactics or or part of your overall strategy. Just don't rely on it to bring in all your patients. You you you gotta have multiple channels of attracting new patients. We've spoken about it on a 50 so episodes now that everybody knows that you need to be marketing a lot of different places. But I said, just remember, all roads lead to your website and your online content.

So just make sure it's professional, and it actually strengthens the narrative that you're actually trying to put out there.

No. I think that's a great point. I think it is just a starting off point. Obviously, you wanna provide great care. You wanna take care of the patients in your local area.

But, you know, for the word-of-mouth, they're go somewhere after they get that word-of-mouth. And the better your reputation can be online by focusing on getting more reviews, having a professional website that builds trust. Those are things that are, you know, obviously they kind of line up together to provide a great opportunity for those patients to come into your practice.

Yeah. So that's all I've got on this subject. I I've I've always personally been a good fan I've been a big fan of word-of-mouth marketing. I've always loved but it's always been it's always been a part of what I've done, And I have relied on it to help me when I have my podiatrist to build it up, but I was doing everything else as well. And, also, combining word-of-mouth with a lot of networking is also a good thing.

So it's it's just having these multiple channels. Look at all the six pillars of marketing. Use them all. Word-of-mouth is just one part of it. So that's it for me.

Jim, I look forward to talking to you next week.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. Look after yourself. Bye.

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