Your Packaging Is A Massive Marketing Opportunity

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. Joined as always with my favorite mofo, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are you doing today?

Oh my. There's a long story behind why we're laughing and and why he called me mofo, which will make far more sense when we get into this. I'm fantastic today, Big Jim. How are you doing?

I'm doing well. Doing well. Just a little humor to start off the podcast.

Yeah. Anyway, so I'm just gonna dive straight into this so people know why why we're carrying on our children. This week, we're not gonna be sharing any turkey facts. That was last week's episode. So if you wanna know more about turkeys and the difference between the turkey egg and the chicken egg, you need to listen to last week's episode.

There it This show is just so educational. Anyway, today,

we

are gonna talk about your packaging is a massive marketing opportunity, so you need to be thinking about it.

Alright. I'm I'm interested to kinda jump in to hear what have to say about this topic.

Okay. The reason this is well, the reason I wanted to talk about this is I ordered a carton of wine from this company called Vino Mofo. And their packaging, their box was was really unique compared to normal boxes. So I've ordered wine in the past. I'm not a big winery drinker or anything like that.

Maybe maybe every second or third month, I might order a carton of wine from somewhere. Normally, it's from auction houses. But anytime I've ever received wine in the past, the box arrives. Yeah. It's a brown looking box.

It'll have a label on it. It's got my name. It's got the name of the company that sent it to me. Nothing exciting. You open it up.

That's it. You can put the wine away, then you're gonna drink it all. But the box that I received from VinoMofo was quite unique. Their box itself, instead of just having a plain box and there will be a photo of this on the website. So I'll give you a photo of this, Jim, that you can put on the website with this particular episode because they need to see the box for it to to appreciate the box.

Sure. So you open up the box, and it's got riding around the outside. But when you open up the flaps of the box, on one side, it says, I'm quite a box. Even empty, I have many uses. I could be a new coffee table, an under demanding pet, and I actually mentioned that I have a demanding pet that sits under my desk.

It could be worn as a bike helmet. We accept no liability. It's proof that man's ability to make boxes. It could be contemporary art. You could build a house, but you need more boxes.

I think that's very important to point out. You could also use it to send wine, which is what they did with this particular box. It says, I'm a good listener, and leave on the porch to make your neighbors jealous, which I thought was was very unique. But then on the other side of the box, the other label that it has there, it says 100% happiness guaranteed. And then when you read down the side of the box, it's got more information there, and then it has nutritional facts.

Oh, it also has here has here, so forget the bow ties and BS. This is a place where wine is fun and the world is full of flavor. Underneath that, it says nutritional facts. Delicious, %. Confidence, it gives you a % more confidence when you drink this.

Makes you a % more intelligent. Wit and charm, a %. Bow ties and BS, 0%, and happiness guaranteed. So that's how this episode came about. When I received this box of wine, it just made me think about just the packaging here.

I saw that. I took photos of it. I've shown it to a few people already. Shown it to my wife. But I also I shot a video and put it on my YouTube channel.

I made a bit of a mix up with words, but that's alright. Nothing you can't edit. But from that, it made me think, what else do do we do as podiatrists that we give to patients that we can do ourselves to make it a little bit more unique? And I'm thinking with Venomofo, that's exactly what they've done. I'm talking about it on this podcast.

I'm talking about it with coaching clients. I talk about it on YouTube. They have paid me no money to talk about them, but I am because I thought it was really cool. So that got me thinking, what are you handing to patients or a customer that could have a little bit of marketing brilliance actually added to it?

Now that makes a lot of sense. I think it it's one of those opportunities. Right? You said, like, do you have the kind of you're you're excited about the wine, but they've kind of captured your attention for that. You know?

Initially, you know, if it's just a plain box, maybe for, like, five, you know, like like, one or two seconds, and then you're just kind of off to the next thing. But, you know, since you're opening the box, it is an opportunity for for you to, you know, to have some humor to kinda like kind of ingratiate yourself to the to the company or to the brand in a way, you know, make you laugh, but also maybe give you a little bit of information about them themselves in kind of a fun way. So I think it's, you know, people that don't do this or, you know, you know, very few people do this. Right? Because, you know, it's it's a way that they're kinda setting themselves apart from people that just kinda put stuff in a a brown box and don't really care about the packaging.

So I think it is, you know, you're reading it for maybe a minute or a couple minutes, and then, you know, you're talking about on the podcast. You're doing a video about it. It's definitely there's definitely some lessons that can be learned from the from our from our listening audience.

Yeah. I just think, like, it's one of those things. Like I said, I've ordered wine before. I've ordered wine from, yeah, a carton of wine when we were in Canberra on a trip. I remember the company that I ordered it from, but they're very rarely ever top of mind.

I'm only thinking about it now because we're talking at different wine companies. But the Vinomofo group, that box is just I thought it was so cool. It makes you wonder, do they keep the same box all the time, or do they have different boxes? So I'm curious now that I'm probably gonna drink that wine faster just for research purposes Yeah. And to see when I get the next box.

But, yeah, hopefully hopefully, they find out that they got mentioned on the podcast, on YouTube. They might send us a carton of wine as a thank you. Yeah. Gifts never go astray. Anyway, so it really got me thinking, what are we what are we giving to a patient that you could spruce it up a little bit?

Orthotic packaging could be one thing. What could you do with your orthotic packaging to make it whether it's more educational, make it a little bit funnier, make it a little bit different, make it something that when they handed the patient, it's not just a plastic bag. It's makes it more memorable.

No. Absolutely. I think there there's that opportunity, like you said, with the Venomofo to to kind of kinda add some humor or, you know, just kinda help educate the patients in some way that's really helpful to them that they would appreciate.

Even, say, an envelope, for example. Now I know a lot of people don't send a lot of mail these days, which is a missed opportunity. I'm gonna touch on that in a sec. But if you had envelopes and you went and got your own envelopes printed in your corporate colors So at one of our corporate colors was like it's Barcelona red, which is still the color that I use today in a lot of the stuff I do. And but if you had a, like, a Barcelona red envelope that you were using, and it may have had a a funny saying or something like that on there, Guarantee, anytime that envelope ends up in somebody's letterbox or on their desk at a referrer's office or something like that, as soon as they see it, they're gonna know it came from you.

They don't even have to think about it. They could look over at the desk and go, oh, there's another letter from ABC Podiatry, because we like to give ABC Podiatry a plug. Absolutely. An envelope's another thing where do you have just white envelopes, or can you spruce them up a little bit, make them a little bit different? And and talking about envelopes, because I know a lot of people, it's really easy for them to go, oh, I'm just gonna send an email.

And I had this conversation with podiatrist just the other day. That's why it's fresh in my mind. And they said, oh, whenever I I send these reports to doctors, I get no response. I never get any response. And I said, well, when a report gets sent to you, what normally happens is to it?

Your receptionist gets the email, attaches it to the patient file, and you never see it. I said, but what about if instead of just emailing the reports, why don't you print it out? And then on the letter that you're printing out, on the back of the letter, you can actually write some marketing have some marketing stuff on there about what you're doing next to a new piece of equipment or a service that you're offering. When a letter arrives at a at a place, the mail is usually always put in a particular area, and it's either open to it goes through a few more hands than just an email that's attached. So could you have an envelope that has that stands out more?

Could you then enclose a letter and ask them up? Maybe some other marketing materials in that envelope every single time you're sending a report that they just know when they get it. Well, let's look inside because we wonder what's gonna be in there. It just makes it more interesting.

No. I think the, you know, physical letter. I know that my kids don't care about getting emails. They wanna get physical letters from their friends in other words in The US or every day it's like, can I get a a letter letter? So it definitely is something where, you know, it just means more and it like you said, is an opportunity because if it's something, you know, electronic is probably like I said, it's gonna get filed away or archived and maybe they won't even see it.

But as a physical letter might have a more of an opportunity for you to, you know, expand on not only, you providing that referral in a helpful way to the clinic, but also helping educate them about maybe some of the care you provide or some ways that you can collaborate with that referring physician.

Yeah. I know. I just think sometimes old school marketing sometimes like a letter, like an envelope, something that's tangible that you can feel just kicks ass in a particular way, especially as part of your marketing. And I know electronic email and doing that type of thing is cheaper. It's faster.

But it doesn't matter how cheap and how fast it doesn't work. So sometimes, the the letter and envelope, it's gonna stand out. These things arrive. And when we had our clinic, we used to hand deliver our reports because they're delivering on the referred patient to us was in, like, a 10 mile radius. So we would once a week go and hand deliver all the reports, and we did a whole pile of other things at the same time that made us stand out, which I won't go into now.

But another thing that you can hand to a patient is business cards. I was at a friend's workshop two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, and Sam Harrop, who's a friend of mine, and on his business card, he's got his normal business card, which is great. But on the back of the business card, he actually has a 1234567, this eight point thing about becoming a creator. So it's not just a business card. It's something that you get it and you go, oh, I'm gonna hang on to that because that was really interesting.

The same thing. And once again, I'm sharing that. And if I zoom in on that, you can see.

Nice.

So I'm sharing it on this podcast. This podcast and the video of this podcast is going to go on YouTube. Sam Harrop is being mentioned on there. You never know what will actually happen, but if that was just a playing card with boring writing and nothing else, I'd get the card and go, yep. But it just get thrown on my desk and and lost amongst the whole pile of other things.

Absolutely. Another example over here, and I haven't mentioned I don't know if I've mentioned this before on the podcast or not, but when I was in The States last year or the last couple of years, I've been flying internally in America with Southwest Airlines. I've just found them to be they're not paying me to say this, but I found them to be awesome. But when we were there last time, I ordered a drink. They handed me the drink and gave me a napkin.

Now I've flown with Qantas, Jetstar, American Airlines. They give you a napkin. It's some crappy, cheap, white thing. But Southwest Airlines, when they give you the napkin, it's pretty cool, and it says, the best ideas are born on napkins. What's yours?

And then on the back of the napkin, actually has an outline of how they came up with their initial routes that they were going to take on their flight. Once again, this is being handed to me. So that's why the topic of this is your packaging is a massive marketing opportunity. They give it to me once. Again, I'm talking about Southwest Airlines on a podcast, which is gonna also be on YouTube, yeah, it's gonna go worldwide because we're famous, Jim.

Absolutely. Free flights for life.

Free flights for life. That's what it's all about. We'll be sponsored by Southwest Airlines. And so where this is important is I think anything you hand into a patient, if it's unique, if it's funny, if it's quirky, yet still professional, think it's really important to be professional. Like, they could give you this napkin, and it could have a large set of breasts on there.

That's not professional, And I probably would not be showing it on the I should show it to you personally, Jim, but I wouldn't have shown it on the I'll be talking about it on the podcast. So it's always gonna be more professional. Well, it's always gonna be professional, but I think if you make it unique, quirky, funny, then the more likely it will get shared on social media. People wanna share it. They'll show it to their friends, family, show it to colleagues.

They'll show it to podcast friends, and they'll talk about it like on podcast. And, you know, just like Vino Mofo, it'll be mentioned on YouTube and and everywhere else. And we'll mention again when they send us a carton of wine. Well, they'll send it to me because I'm in Australia, and they're Australian company.

Well, maybe when I come to Australia sometime, we can split a split some of, you know, mofo and enjoy the the fruits of our labors there.

It's funny you should say that when I was at the foot and ankle show, and I mentioned that you and I have never met. And everyone's going, serious? You guys have never met? Go, no. Never met, which is complete stranger to me.

And and they they just assumed that we had met numerous times, but now we've never met in the flesh.

Yeah. We'll have to make that happen at some point. We've had some opportunities, but definitely, I think, you know, sometime in 2025 or 2026, we'll definitely make it happen.

Almost. We almost met in Barcelona.

Missed it. Barcelona, Chicago.

Missed it just by times. By a fraction. But, yeah, I think 2026, it will it will definitely happen. Anyway, back to the topic, I just want everyone I just want everyone to think, and get your team involved as well. When the next time you're having a team meeting, mention this podcast.

Get them to listen to this episode. You know, watch the the YouTube video, and and then have the meeting and just go, okay. What are we, at the moment, handing out to a patient that represents our business, and can can we spruce it up a little bit? Can we make we add a little bit of spark little bit of marketing magic to it and make it better. And I think there's so many little areas of your business.

If can just make things a little bit better, people will talk about you more. Like I said, they'll share it on social media. It's no different to what we're we're doing now. I'm sure the the mofo guys probably had a meeting, and someone said, hey. We should put some printing on a box on the box.

Okay. And I'm sure one meeting led to another meeting, so I said, what about if we put this? And then they probably had a meeting, what funny things can we put up? And they probably got Steve in the corner and said, Steve, that was a silly idea. Steve's ideas never went on there because he probably wrote some really crazy stuff.

But I'm sure one person had the idea, and then when they talked about it, it developed into what it is now. So I think every every podiatrist and every podiatric clinic can do exactly the same thing.

Totally agree.

Okay. That's that topic covered. I can't wait to see. And if anyone comes up with something that's really unique, share it with us. Send us a send us an email.

Go to the podiatry.marketing website. Go on there. Send an email through the through the website, and just tell us what you've done, what idea you came up with. We could have him on as a guest. We've never had a guest.

Yeah. It'd be fun.

So okay, Jim. I will talk to you again next week.

Talk to you then, Tyson.

Okay. See you.

Bye now. 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.