Healthcare is an ever-expanding, ultra-competitive marketplace. It can also be very technical and jargon-heavy, which can be off-putting to most people. To remain competitive in an ever-evolving industry, it is important to employ creative marketing tactics that cut through the clutter. 

Take a look at these 6 successful healthcare marketing campaigns and start pondering how your company can leverage similar tactics.

Johnson & Johnson – Campaign for Nursing’s Future

Nurses are an incredibly dedicated group of professionals who tirelessly lend love and support to their patients. Unfortunately, in 2002, the U.S. faced the most profound shortage of nurses in history.

In response to reports of a dire shortage of nurses, Johnson & Johnson launched the “Campaign for Nursing’s Future”. It is a public awareness campaign that aims to encourage people to become nurses and nurse educators, as well as to retain nurses currently in the system.

The campaign not only helped increase the awareness of the value of the nursing profession, but it also gave nurses an opportunity to share their stories. 15 years after the campaign was launched, Johnson & Johnson profiled some of the nurses who benefited from this campaign. 

Campaign Sources:
https://nursing.jnj.com/
https://www.jnj.com/tag/campaign-for-nursings-future
https://www.facebook.com/CampaignForNursing/

The Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing

Dana-Farber Brigham & Women’s Cancer Center – You Have Us Campaign

A cancer diagnosis can affect much more than the physical body. Dana-Farber Brigham & Women’s Cancer Center created a campaign to help empower patients who are dealing with cancer.

To encourage a more personal approach to cancer treatment, they created the slogan, “Right now you may have cancer. But what your cancer doesn’t know is – You Have Us.”

By sharing confidence-inspiring online videos and words of encouragement, the campaign made a tremendous impact on their audience. 

The “You Have Us” campaign became successful because it built trust between the Cancer Center’s personnel and their target audience.

Campaign Sources:
https://www.youhaveus.org/


https://www.facebook.com/danafarbercancerinstitute

Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center - You Have Us

Arkansas Children’s Hospital – #100DeadliestDays Campaign

Dr. Sam Smith, Surgeon-in-Chief at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, shocked everyone with his claim that kids are more likely to get hurt, injured or die between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

The campaign’s purpose was to raise awareness of the dangerous time period between Memorial Day and Labor Day. They wanted to make sure that parents know the risks their children face during this season.

With the #100DeadliestDays, Arkansas Children’s Hospital provided a tip each day to help increase safety for kids and teens. They also shared some safety facts and other valuable information on their social media channels.   

This campaign has been very successful and has received a lot of attention from the media and the public. It is memorable, worth sharing, and it also had the shock factor.

Campaign Sources:
https://www.archildrens.org/health-and-wellness/happy-and-healthy-blog/100-deadliest-days-for-kids
https://www.facebook.com/ArkansasChildrens
100 Deadliest Days for Kids

UnitedHealthcare – We Dare You Campaign

Many healthcare providers encourage their audience to adopt healthy habits, but UnitedHealthcare took it a step further by adding a social media element to their campaign.

The award-winning UnitedHealthcare Campaign, We Dare You, is a great example of a wellness campaign in action. Each month, there are new fun challenges and quizzes that are aimed at encouraging their followers to take the first step to a healthier lifestyle and then document it on social media.

The We Dare You Campaign is one of the most successful healthcare marketing campaigns, as it won 8 awards – 2 Healthcare Advertising Awards, 2 Hermes Awards, and an Aster Award. 

Campaign Sources:
http://42cdev.com/client/wedareyoutoshare.com/?now=2015-09-01
https://www.facebook.com/UnitedHealthcare/

United Healthcare We Dare you

Carilion Clinic – #YESMAMM Campaign

When clinicians noticed that many women in Roanoke Valley were not getting mammograms, Carilion Clinic decided to launch the campaign, “YES MAMM, Say Yes to Your Annual Mammogram”. They also provided screening location throughout western Virginian.

The goal of this campaign is to raise awareness about breast cancer and the need for early detection. They used #YESMAMM to answer common questions about breast cancer from their audience. It also drove traffic to their website, where they urge women to make an appointment at one of their local labs. 

#YESMAMM is a perfect example of the power of hashtags to start a movement. In fact, it is one of the most successful healthcare marketing campaigns. 8 years after the birth of the Yes Mamm campaign, Carilion Clinic is still getting kudos. 

Campaign Sources:
https://www.carilionclinic.org/
https://www.facebook.com/carilionclinic
#YESMAMM

New York Presbyterian Hospital – Patient Stories

Nothing drives a message home like a well-told story. When they realized that patients wanted an outlet for telling their stories, New York Presbyterian Hospital harnessed the power of social media to share patients’ stories and connect with their target audience. They even created an entire video marketing strategy around this concept, and that’s something of a game-changer.

Patients’ stories and testimonies can trigger emotions of empathy. By showcasing raw stories on how doctors and nurses helped patients, the result is something even more potent than drugs: hope, trust, and peace of mind.

This marketing campaign creates a sensitive tone for patients while shining a positive light on the medical practitioners and the hospital’s reputation. 

Campaign Sources:
https://www.nyp.org/home
https://www.nyp.org/patient-stories
https://www.nyp.org/kids/stories.html
https://www.youtube.com/user/newyorkpresbyterian
https://www.nyp.org/amazingthings/

#NYPSTORIES

If you need help strategizing your next digital marketing campaign please schedule your free 30-minute consultation today! 

Podcast Script Below:

00:02 Amber Irwin: Hello. Welcome to Social Speak Network’s podcast, I am your host, Amber Irwin. Today, we’re gonna be covering six successful healthcare marketing campaigns that may be able to inspire you to create a new marketing campaign for your practice. The first one I wanna talk to you was about, is Johnson & Johnson. Back in 2002, there was actually a shortage of nurses. Nurses are one of the most dedicated professions out there. They work long shifts, they deal with a lot of people, and they always have the ups and downs of everyone else’s lives. So, when there was that shortage, Johnson & Johnson created this campaign for nursing’s future, so they wanted to create a group of professionals who tirelessly lend love and support to their patients and really wanted to give them that support that they needed, that the nurses were giving to everyone else.

01:13 AI: And so it really went public and people started becoming more and more aware of what Johnson & Johnson were doing in this campaign. And so now it’s become… Being able to educate nurses, give them a ton of different donations of where nurses are supporting the community. Really an educational platform, a community, that Johnson & Johnson has built for the nursing profession, to really be able to provide them value. So on here, you’ll see there’s personal stories, different ways that Johnson & Johnson’s caring and giving back to the community, where they’ve come from. And so this is a campaign that’s been on for a long time, 15 years, and which is amazing, for something to last and still going strong 15 years later. This is huge. And really, it’s because of their why. They saw a shortage in something. They saw an area where they can give back and be more than just a product company and really give back to their why, which was nurses and be able to provide a community for them. So that is huge.

02:36 AI: The next one I wanna talk to you guys about is the Dana-Farber/Brigham Women’s Cancer Center. What they have created here is really a slogan about; Right now, you may have cancer, but what your cancer doesn’t know is you have us. So it’s really about talking to the patient as an individual and helping them understand the journey and what they are going to need to overcome what is ahead of them. Cancer, that C word is a very scary thing, regardless of what type of cancer it is. So what they have been able to do is really play off of that relationship and that story and educating their patients on what’s gonna work best for them.

03:36 AI: So it’s to help them empower patients who are dealing with cancer and what does their future look like. So that slogan, right now, you may have cancer, but what your cancer doesn’t know is you have us. That shows the patient like they care about me. You can see on their home page, it’s, you have us. You’re not in this alone. We are here to help you every step of the way. And to me, that gives me the chill bumps, that really connects with, especially as a woman, so this connects with me. And so this campaign that they have created and the slogan, it’s so simple, “you have us” and those three words have gone viral with them, because this is people… They trust them, they’re creating that relationship with them, and so what they’ve been able to do is provide that support. So that’s a huge, just moment of, “Okay I’m not alone, I have this practice behind me, I can do this.” They’re empowering their patients and guiding them through this journey of having cancer. So that is amazing.

04:53 AI: The next one is an interesting blog. So the Arkansas Children’s Hospital wrote this blog, and it is 100 deadliest days for kids. Now this blog was published back in 2014 and the hashtag, #100DeadliestDays, this thing spread like wildfire, because just the title, 100 deadliest days for kids. Oh my goodness, what is it? So this was the doctor writing about. Now, through Labor Day, marks a time when kids are most likely to be injured. Whether that was a broken bone, they were sick, accidents happen, or worst-case scenario, they unfortunately had seen the most children’s deaths within this time frame.

05:48 AI: So, this was written in June of 2014. And this is something that the Arkansas Children’s Hospital has been able to incorporate into their digital marketing and something that they’re constantly sharing and reminding people, it gave a purpose to raise awareness to the dangerous time period of Memorial Day to Labor Day. They wanted to make sure that parents knew the risks and what children were facing within that time. You have to think, that’s obviously the summer, you’re traveling, sports, being outside. This is also, unfortunately, where you see kids being left in cars. This is where Arkansas Children’s Hospital really wanted to bring that information to their audience and let people be more aware of the summer season is a time you really pay attention to these safety tips and make sure that your children are okay.

06:56 AI: So, one thing that they could do each year is they could come in here and they could update this blog post. So it’s always showing new and you’ll see that a lot with… Especially with the digital marketing, Hubspot, CoSchedule, social media today. They’ll write a blog that was a few years old. And then they’ll say updated as of a certain date because this article was such a powerful piece for their digital marketing. I would just take it a step further and update it, make sure that the information is still correct. Maybe if there are stats in here, you wanna make sure that the stats are are still relevant to today’s date, but this campaign for them was a huge success on such a sad, touchy subject. So, education is really important for your digital marketing, and a blog post just like this can become its own digital marketing campaign.

08:00 AI: The next one is going to be United Healthcare, “We Dare You” campaign. And many health care providers encourage their audience to adopt healthy habits, but United Healthcare took it a step further by adding a social media element to their campaign. This was an award-winning campaign by the way. This is an example of wellness campaign in action. Each month, there were new fun challenges, quizzes that were aimed at encouraging their followers to take the first step to a healthier lifestyle and then document it on social media. So, one really cool thing about this campaign is when you tie in your social media and your audience, people love to show off what they’re doing and especially if you challenge them. Challenges are great for social media, especially in the health and wellness industry, because they wanna show you this is what I’m doing, this is how I’ve improved my life, this is my recipe, and this is how I’m staying active.

09:09 AI: And so the fact that they not only gave quizzes and create their own challenges, but then they wanted their audience to share with them. And so this was one of the most successful healthcare marketing campaigns. And it won eight awards, two Healthcare Advertising Awards, and that is just amazing, along with a few other awards, but this is something to really think outside the box. Now, this is a big company, United Healthcare is huge, we know that. But thinking of what your practice can do on a smaller scale. And we always say, it’s not the quantity of likes you have, it’s the quality. So if you have, let’s say 2000 likes, and of those 2000 likes, you’re getting between 600 and 800 people engaging on a monthly basis. That’s your loyal fan base. Take advantage of that loyal fan base and ask them to submit photos. Maybe you do a recipe competition, and you’re looking for the best Paleo recipe, the best Keto recipe, the best gluten-free recipe. Maybe within your practice you’re talking to your patients about these different types of a healthy lifestyle and you can tie in those conversations and those topics into your social media. So it marries the offline and the online together. So this was a great, great campaign. I love being able to see how many people were a part of it, all the awards that United Healthcare won, but it just makes you think, “Okay, let’s think outside the box.”

10:55 AI: The next one is the Caroline Clinic, and this was… They did a campaign that was all about #yesmamm, M-A-M-M. And this was all about their saying “Yes” to mammograms. So they wanted to make sure that women were taking care of their bodies, making sure that they were getting the annual mammograms or every three-year mammograms, based on what their doctor had said. They also provided screenings at that location throughout Western Virginia. So this is again something where they’re saying, “This is what we wanna help you with. Here’s how we’re gonna help you. This is what we believe in. This is what we want.” And so they had a pull-up their Facebook page. This was their campaign was this hashtag #yesmamm, M-A-M-M for mammograms. And the goal of the campaign was just really to raise awareness about breast cancer and the need for early detection, to educate their audience to really just understand how important it is for that preventative, for that checking and making sure that you are doing the right things and how to do the right things, et cetera. So this was a great campaign. I love being able to brand something that is to your target market that they can relate with. So that was huge. And it’s catchy, YesMamm. That’s what people wanna see.

12:43 AI: The last one is the New York Presbyterian Hospital. Their campaign was all about the patients and children’s stories. And nothing can sell a company better than patient testimonials. The stories behind the people that you serve, that you’ve helped. And that storytelling is such a big piece with digital marketing and marketing in general. This is why you see so many testimonials for info commercials. It’s those personal stories. It’s that, “Oh my gosh, I’m not alone. I dealt with that,” or “They’re just like me,” or “I’m not the only one,” whatever that is in our heads that’s playing. Being able to have patient stories is a huge piece of your digital marketing. And so what they’ve done is they’ve created a whole campaign showcasing raw stories on how the doctors and nurses had helped their patients, both adults and children. And the results… Something even more… What the patients were dealing with whether that was drugs, car accidents, sickness, they were able to tell their story, share how their experience was with New York Presbyterian Hospital, how the doctors help them and then what the result was. So because they came here, how was their life changed?

14:23 AI: And that’s the biggest thing, is they wanna know what’s that end goal and this shines such a positive light with their audience. And they actually had patients for adult stories and then also children stories. So they took it a step further to showcase what children are dealing with as well, and how they’ve been able to help them. So they have on their website to share your stories that will… Your experience. They wanna be able to shed that positive light and really be able to help other patients that are struggling with similar things. So, raw stories is just such an important piece and I wish that companies did more of this. And I know it’s something that’s… It’s a hard thing to do. One, you have to orchestrate that are you gonna… Is it gonna be a written testimonials or story? Is it gonna be video? And if it’s gonna be video, do people wanna be on a video? Do people wanna share their story? And so you have to be able to look at who your target market is. What your patients are going through? How has their life changed since they’ve been seeing you and being able to better their life?

15:49 AI: I feel like more and more people now are more willing to share their story to help others because they see the greater good. So as you’re putting together or thinking of these campaigns that you want to put together, think of these six examples. And be able to be able maybe pick and pull from different ones, different ideas that you’ve liked and really be able to look at your practice as a whole. And how are you helping your clients? What are they struggling with? What are their needs? And being able to put a campaign together for your digital marketing, to attract more people into your practice that you could help. Because at the end of the day that’s all why we’re in business because we wanna help more people. We wanna help the greater good. That’s our why, so how do we reach them? And that’s an amazing thing with digital marketing. There are so many different ways that we can do this.

16:45 AI: So, if you need help and you are just struggling with creating a good campaign or wanna run some ideas past us, please head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation. We love to be able to brainstorm ideas and figure out what’s the best route for you and your practice and be able to provide that feedback. Sometimes it’s just nice to have a listening ear on, “This is what our practice is thinking, does it make sense? Do you think it would work?” So again, Social Speak Network, free consultation, and until next time, please subscribe on iTunes or on Podbean. Have a great day.

6 Successful Healthcare Marketing Campaigns You Need to See Pinterest

Facebook Groups for Health and Wellness Practices

Today’s podcast is about Facebook groups and how to utilize Facebook groups to get in front of prospects, to build a community around your services, and really create that brand image where you are sharing valuable information and building conversations with your target market. So Facebook groups really have a few different purposes.

You can view them as a forum on Facebook, you can view them as a way for people to connect with a community around a certain topic or even in a specific location. And we have seen great success for wellness coaches, dietitians, nutritionists, wellness centers, healthcare organizations, creating groups were their own prospects and members as a way to make sure that they have more consistent communication with those individuals.

Listen to the Podcast on Facebook Groups for Health Care

Watch the Video about Facebook Groups in Health and Wellness Marketing

Read the Transcript

00:00 Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Social Speak Network podcast. I’m your host, the sweet Caitlin McDonald, the founder over here at the Social Speak Network, and over the past couple of weeks, and moving forward into the next, maybe even a couple of months, we’re going to be talking about the top 10 things that your wellness practice Health Care Center can do on digital marketing to see a return from their investment. And so today, I’m going to be talking about Facebook groups and how to utilize Facebook groups to get in front of prospects, to build a community around your services, and really create that brand image where you are sharing valuable information and building conversations with your target market. So Facebook groups really have a few different purposes. You can view them as a forum on Facebook, you can view them as a way for people to connect with a community around a certain topic or even in a specific location. And we have seen great success for wellness coaches, dieticians, nutritionists, wellness centers, healthcare organizations, creating groups were their own prospects and members as a way to make sure that they have more consistent communication with those individuals.

01:42 S1: Now, in order to make this happen, you have to really make sure that you’re not making the group about you. The group has to be about fostering a community, fostering conversations, and relationships and making sure that you’re not just talking about your own services and your own business. Yes, it’s a great way to share content that you create, but that content that you create, as we’ve said over and over again, really needs to be educational information that your target market and your prospects can take and run with. So for example, let’s say you are a health coach and you have new programs that are coming out. And so these programs, you really wanna share to your community. Now, you could go ahead and share them to your Facebook group. But rather than doing that, I would recommend creating a behind-the-scenes information that somebody might be able to find more expansive version of within the group, excuse me, within the program itself. However, you’re sharing just enough to get them started on the right path. This allows people to do it themselves if they want to, or to understand your expertise, so that they can turn to you for help with guidance down the road.

03:09 S1: Now you don’t wanna just be in there, posting about the group, excuse me, posting about your services individually, because this turns people away, it’s not interactive. Instead of doing that, post questions, answer questions, hop on Facebook live just in front of your group members and really try to foster that, those conversations. Now, it is important to note that right here, I’m talking about a group that is specifically to build a community around your services, and your practice. However, there are a lot of other more broad groups that already exists on Facebook. So, before you create that next group on diabetes, let’s say, make sure that there aren’t groups already out there that are doing a great job. If you’re trying to recreate something that’s already out there, it’s going to take a lot more time and effort to get people to join your group, because they’re already invested in these other groups. Now, I’m not saying don’t do it [chuckle] Facebook Groups are great thing to create, for your practice, but it does definitely take more time if it’s already existing in your space and in your specialties.

04:33 S1: Now, what you could do, if there is a group already made in your area of expertise, is go ahead and join that group. Offer guidance and ask questions, comment on other people’s posts and really start positioning yourself as an expert in that space, and as someone who is trustworthy or as an organization that’s trustworthy. And doing this helps you get that brand recognition, but again, you can’t talk about your services in somebody else’s group. Typically, there are guidelines about this, and it’s just not very professional behavior. We call this in, I mean in most industries, coaching clients from somebody else. And yes, a lot of times, your clients may have worked with somebody else in the past, but you don’t wanna be too salesy as you are trying to build that trust, and really come across as a figure in the space. Then the next tip about utilizing Facebook groups, and this is going back to creating a group yourself, is to be really specific about the purpose and to recognize that it’s going to be difficult to manage the group by yourself.

05:51 S1: And so in terms of understanding and being specific about the group’s purpose, this really helps set the expectations for your group members as they’re joining the group, what they’re going to see, what type of content they’re going to see, and how they can utilize the group to help further their own knowledge, education, and health. And so you want to, if you have a specific purpose and you’ve written the guidelines for the group, it’s important to actually stick to those. So somebody joins, they see the guidelines, maybe they answer a few questions before being approved, then you have to make sure that you are really sticking to those guidelines and being truthful yourself as well as holding other people accountable. Then the second piece there, was [chuckle] inviting other admins and managers to the group. So, in a group, you can have multiple managers. We recommend not just having one person in charge of the group. This really makes it so that there’s less… What we’ve seen in our experience is that there’s less interactions if there’s only one manager. When there are more managers you can even help foster discussions between one another, and people always can have their questions answered more quickly.

07:13 S1: So you can either divide the management based on your own expertise and what topics you are comfortable talking about. Or you can divide it by day of the week, or even time of day. Depending on how active your group is, you might even need somebody on call over the weekend to make sure that those questions are being answered. If somebody’s posting something in the group, and nobody is commenting back in replying, people are going to stop writing back. Now, having multiple group member, or excuse me group admin also makes it easier to keep new conversations forming in the group. So by this I mean, let’s say it’s been a quiet week and no members are really posting anything. As a manager of the group, you can then go in and post something to start spurring the conversation. Maybe you have the first week of the month, you have a standard question that goes out and you see how it changes over time. Maybe it’s asking people for their favorite exercise routine or their favorite activity of the season with their family. Potentially, it’s posting recipes that have to do with a single ingredient that’s timely or seasonal. So all of these things are things that you can do to help boost that engagement on the group, and because you are managing the group, that helps you prove your own expertise and position within the space.

08:47 S1: One other thing I recommend is having individuals introduce themselves when they join the group, and by doing this, you are getting people one, committed, two, participating in the group. If the first thing they do once they join is they start posting in the group, typically they’ll keep on doing it. If you don’t ask them to introduce themselves, oftentimes, they’re not going to. And then another thing that you can do is make sure that when somebody’s requesting to join you ask them questions prior to joining. So you can ask them what topics they’re most interested in, so that you talk about those topics, and for their email address. Now, this email address, if you have a disclosure there, you can mostly add that to your newsletter as well, or you can check to make sure that they’re already on your newsletter and they have to be part of on your newsletter in order to then join your group. So it’s a great way just to build your email list as well.

09:53 S1: So above all, the biggest takeaway when it comes to Facebook groups is really making sure that you are being considerate of others. You aren’t selling yourself too much and that your really, your main goal is to build that community and those relationships with the members of your group. So again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald. I’m the co-founder over here at the Social Speak Network. And thank you so much for tuning into our podcast on Digital Marketing for Health and Wellness Practices. Next week, Amber is going to be diving into utilizing on some tools for social media. So be sure to stick around there. You can download and subscribe to, our podcast on iTunes as well as Podbean and it’s also over on our website, the socialspeaknetwork.com. Thanks so much, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Facebook Advertising for Healthcare Industry

In this podcast episode we talk about how Facebook Ads work and the top benefits for having a Facebook ad campaign running for your wellness business.

  1. The first benefit is getting in front of new people, new prospects. So you’re actually helping your business see an ROI from the social media efforts that you have.
  2. The second thing is that you are nurturing those relationships of people who have heard about your brand or your practice, but haven’t taken that step to come in and learn more or meet with one of your staff. Running these Facebook ads helps you make sure that you stay top of mind to the people who haven’t yet come in.
  3. Then the third thing that it does, is it helps you re-engage with the patients who have been in to see you and just need a reminder every once in a while, that it’s time to come back in and schedule their next appointment.

Take a listen and read the transcript below!

Facebook Advertising for Healthcare – Digital Marketing Podcast Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m Caitlin McDonald, one of the co-owners over here at Social Speak, and in today’s podcast episode, we are going to be talking about Facebook ads. Facebook ads are really important for health and wellness businesses and for healthcare.

Facebook Ads help you establish brand recognition and brand trust quickly and easily. They also allow you to get in front of the right people at the right time. Managing Facebook Ads for your healthcare business is really to not only build your prospect list, but also to nurture those prospects.

Last week, Amber talked some about creating a social media content calendar and figuring out how many times to post and what topics to post about, and so this is taking your social media presence to really another level.

Types of Facebook Ads for Wellness Center

On Facebook, there are a few different ways that you can advertise your business. There’s organic posting, there’s boosting those organic posts, and then there’s a whole slew of different ads that you can run from the Ads Manager.

In our digital marketing for healthcare we try and focus on the conversion ads. The reason why we do this is because it helps tap into Facebook’s algorithm for figuring out who’s going to be most likely to take that next step, and we’ll get into this in a few weeks, but that next step often is signing up to be a lead on your website.

This is something I’m going be getting into in a few weeks here. However, I did want go through a couple of real life Facebook campaigns that we’ve managed for some of our clients. The reason why I’m bringing­ up real Facebook Ad campaigns for some of our wellness clients is because I want to set the stage about the amount of time and effort is can take to nail down and optimize a Facebook campaign that’s going to work for your unique offerings and your unique target market. So let’s dive in.

The first business that I want to highlight is a Healthcare Education Association. They provide healthcare resources and education to constituents online and through live conferences and events. This group has a tremendous following, however, they are trying to grow and boost their new members. Over the years, just because of some ideological differences between some of the older members and the newer members, they have dropped some of their old membership base. Now they’re trying to really grow with new members that are more aligned with where their organization stands. This healthcare organization had only ever run boosted posts before. Yes, this does boost an organization’s exposure and engagement, but are you really seeing a return from that investment?

This is where the Facebook conversion ads come in that we created.

The Social Speak process with Facebook ads, typically, is having some sort of free resource or free download, even free consultation, that somebody can sign up for when they click on your Facebook ad. We’ve used webinars, e-books, and, in this case, we took articles that the client had previously written and bundled them together in the form of an e-book. Our first ads tested out the interest in this resource, which audiences lead to the most clients and conversions, ad what imagry and text were most effective. In this first go, there were three different audiences, but we did not see anything more than a 1% conversion rate. We spent about $160 in advertising budget spread across our A/B tests and saw one lead come in. Giving these tests a rest, we moved to the next digital project.

When optimizing Facebook ads for your wellness practice you shouldn’t just work on testing how you position your free resource or content upgrade, but also what offer is going to align most closely to the needs of your target market.

At this stage, we moved on to their next resource that we could offer and we did this a few different times, and we came across a quiz that they had. After repackaging the quiz so that it lived directly on their website we were ready to capture the leads directly into their email system rather than going through a third party. With this quiz, we found that through running the leads ads on Facebook rather than sending somebody to a landing page, we’re able to get the cost per lead down to almost $2. Additionally, we tried two different other campaigns, one for a fact sheet, and one for an e-book, focusing on a different topic, a different service that they provide from the first e-book, and each of these were able to get a sub $3 cost per lead as well. We’re still in the process of testing new services to promote new offers to promote, new educational resources to promote for them. We’re building another quiz that has to do with that second topic that we are talking about with them, and through this process, we’re continually able to decrease that cost per lead and get consistent results.

The reason why I shared this one first and kind of that failure story of spending $160 for one lead, is that your whole staff and your whole board needs to have the expectation that optimizing Facebook ads does take time. And so yes, you want to have an end goal of, I want to only spend $10 per lead, $15 per lead, $1 per lead. You need to have that goal, but you need to have the expectation that you’re not going to be there right now. So for this organization, we want that cost per lead to be lower, and we are working to get there. But we are testing out different audiences, different offers, different ad content, as a way to get there. I think in all, we’ve run over 100 or 150 different ads for them, that maybe it’s the same ad text but a different picture, different ad text, same video, or different audience, same audience, merging audiences together. And so it really is a process where you need to let the data speak for itself. And if it doesn’t stick on the first try, try again. So have kind of that budget in mind and that end goal right into the forefront.

The next client I wanted to share is a dietitian and health coach. She has been working with us running ads for over the past year. For any ad campaign, we do recommend giving it at least six months to make sure that with that first example is process that you are giving it time to really figure out if you’re getting results or not. Afterwards you have to then convert the leads into actual folks who are booking appointments with you, coming in, signing up for those paid services, or purchasing a product from you. So with this health coach, this dietitian, she has been running ads long before we even first sat down with her. And for her, our technique is really to focus on each of the different e-books, downloads, free offers that she has. She is very geared towards sharing educational resources, as are most of our clients. And for this client, we’ve had a few home run offers, timely offers, holiday diet tips and back to school tips and things like that, that have worked really well; with landing pages getting 60-70% conversion rates. However, the cost per lead has still been a little bit higher.

In this recent campaign, she had a great idea of grouping all of the resources together and having a complete resource library that folks who enter their name and email would gain access to. We created a new conversion campaign for this and a new landing page. And rather than creating individual ads for each of the different items that we want to test, we used Facebook’s, it’s not new, but newer feature where you can actually test multiple headlines, bodies and calls to action in each of the ads that you’re running and images or videos. And then Facebook will automatically pair and match and test the different items for you. So it takes a lot of the guess work out of creating those 100 or 200 different ads to make sure that you’re testing all of the different combinations. So for her this new campaign, we’ve been able to bring her average historical cost per lead from about $3-$4 all the way down to $0.50 cents. Now at this 50-cent mark, she is just pushing money towards this campaign and we’re continuing to see Facebook’s algorithm lead to better and better results. Now for her, because she is getting this quantity now, we are making sure that we still have that quality.

We’re working on that next part of the campaign, which is that email marketing follow-up. And here, we’re testing to make sure that that open rate and click rate on her emails actually is going up rather than going down as we’re getting more quantity in there.

Setting Goals for your Healthcare Facebook Campaign

The goal for your Facebook campaign should be within the first, I’d say, three months to really start seeing movement in a positive direction. And that could be starting with a cost per lead or conversion of $60 and working it down. But you don’t want to throw all your money at something until you see that upward momentum towards positive return. So for this dietitian for example, we are telling her to throw money at the campaign because it is currently working, and she’s getting conversions from it. If it was that first example that I gave, we did not spend their whole monthly budget until month three [chuckle] when we were finally able to push the dollars behind a campaign that was getting the results in the price point that they needed.

Always start small, test multiple things at once, and utilize Facebook’s ability to really optimize the campaigns for you.

A trick for optimizing a Facebook Ad Campaign

Now, one of the tricks that we have for tapping into how Facebook can optimize this is utilizing a landing page or a lead page sort of alternative. You can put this directly on your WordPress website or Square Space website. We typically use LeadPages, which is a software to build the lead pages. You can send an automated email afterwards and test to make sure that it really works. I recommend doing this for your business, your healthcare center as well. But of course, if you need any help, we are here to help.

As I wrap up, let’s just talk again about those top benefits for having a Facebook ad campaign running for your wellness business.

  1. The first benefit is getting in front of new people, new prospects. So you’re actually helping your business see an ROI from the social media efforts that you have.
  2. The second thing is that you are nurturing those relationships of people who have heard about your brand or your practice, but haven’t taken that step to come in and learn more or meet with one of your staff. Running these Facebook ads helps you make sure that you stay top of mind to the people who haven’t yet come in.
  3. Then the third thing that it does, is it helps you re-engage with the patients who have been in to see you and just need a reminder every once in a while, that it’s time to come back in and schedule their next appointment.

In terms of what to expect, don’t expect results in the first day. Yes, you might get lucky and you might find that combination where they are coming in right away. Most likely it might take upwards of three months. Now, don’t spend your whole marketing budget in those first three months. Wait for you to see that upward momentum and that path towards getting a positive ROI. From there, give it another three to six months to really run its course and make sure that you are getting after you get that lead, that prospect, that you are then getting someone in the door.

In health care, yes, there are services that need immediate bookings of appointments and somebody needs to come in right away for a consultation or even a surgery. However more often than not, for health and wellness, it’s about educating, teaching people why they need to come in and getting them to know, like and trust your brand. Again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald. This is the Social Speak Network podcast. You can follow us on Podbean, on iTunes or head on over to our website to check out our blog posts and social media as well. I’ll see you next time on the Social Speak Network podcast.

In today’s podcast, I talk about how important it is to have a digital marketing strategy, this is your foundation. We are all busy working inside our businesses and sometimes things get away from us and go to the back burner because they don’t seem like a priority at the moment, like social media, blogging, videos, email marketing, etc.

When you create a strategy it holds you and your team accountable and you are able to work in advance. Imagine this, you take 2- hours per month and plan out that entire month of content, you know exactly what you will be putting out onto social media, what blogs and videos you want to create and you have a plan. This makes your digital marketing process 10 times easier to accomplish but also to utilize your team and delegate to others. Work smarter not harder.

Video of the Podcast:

 

Here are two examples of content calendars we have created for our clients.

  1. This one is more around your social media strategy. We use Google Sheets and then have tabs for resources, monthly topics, ideas. You can add more to this like your blog topics for the week, this gives you more of a monthly overview. 
  2. This one is more of a detailed editorial calendar, each month has its own breakdown of the overarching topic, then blogs, videos, content upgrades, etc. On this one, we have tabs that go into social media and resources. 

With both of these examples, you can combine them to have a very clear digital marketing strategy.

If you would like to book your free 30-minute consultation to go over how to put together a clear strategy please schedule your call today

Subscribe to our podcast here

00:01 Amber Irwin: Hello and welcome to the newest episode of Social Speak Network podcast. I am your host Amber Irwin, and today we are going to be going over the number one tip of your digital marketing: Strategy, strategy, strategy. This is the most important component because this is what gets you organized, and I don’t know about you, but I love to be organized. Having a strategy for your digital marketing allows you that space to create, to be consistent, and to plan your content in advance, rather than that sense of overwhelm, not knowing, “Oh, my gosh, I need to post. What do I need to talk about, what blog is going up? What am I talking about on social media? What have… ”

00:48 AI: And you get a little overwhelmed. Just even saying all those things got me a little overwhelmed. So, having that strategy in place really… It makes you… It holds you accountable and it makes you really think, “Okay, where do I want my digital marketing to go? Who do I want to reach with my social media post, with my blogs, with the ads I’m running?” How do you want it to look? And so by taking responsibility and taking a step back, maybe it’s an hour or two hours per month that you’re putting the strategy together. And in the description below, I will give you a link to two PDF examples of a content calendar because this is really important.

01:36 AI: There are two different ways that we work with our clients. The first thing is that social media strategy. So, sometimes it’s easier to organize your thoughts with social media, and then based on what you’re talking about on social media, it allows you to then create a blog or videos. It kinda creates that foundation. And so sometimes it’s easier to start there and work your way through the rest of the components, rather than just trying to think too big and figure everything out at once.

02:09 AI: So with social media, this is where you need to be consistent. And most of the time, we write our content anywhere… As little as a week in advance, up to three weeks in advance. And with your industry, if you are a health coach, a nutritionist, a massage therapist, there’s a lot of core educational content that isn’t gonna change in two weeks. And those can be those placeholder posts, so you can talk about… Maybe you do an “eat this, not that” post each week. Now, that food is gonna be… There’s not gonna be some new food that comes out next week that you’re gonna have to redo that post. So, you can talk about a “eat this, not that” post. You can talk about like a massage tip, maybe it’s a different type of massage. So, there’s gonna be those educational posts that you can schedule out a month in advance if you wanted to.

03:09 AI: And that’s usually what we do, is we take our content calendar and we schedule it out for that month. Okay. What am I talking about on social media? What topics? And sometimes… Most of the time, we’ll pre-write the posts so they’re ready to go. They’re either scheduled in Facebook or one of the tools, like Buffer or Hootsuite, that we use. Instagram, the images are already made, the content’s there, so we’re just copying and pasting it into Instagram so it’s not taking up, “Oh, my gosh, what hashtags do I need to use? Is this image the right one? Is the formatting right?” You pre-do all of your work, so it’s easy to maintain as you go through. And so having that content calendar, that strategy, allows you to say, “Okay, here is my topics for the month for social media.”

04:00 AI: And if I’m doing… Maybe your segment is on… You’re doing a post of “eat this, not that,” then maybe this is where you can tie in some blogs about, maybe it’s different recipes or how to… If one of our clients is a keto coach. And so she talks a lot about how to cook… With being a keto coach and on the keto path, what are different things, substitutions on food, eating out. And so a lot of her blogs are educational for her audience, tips that they wanna know about. And then she ties in the videos, whether it’s making… Having a recipe that you’re actually cooking or baking, and you’re doing a video around that, maybe it’s you at the grocery store talking about ingredients and showing different things or examples. You can take those ideas of your social media calendar and take them a step further and figuring out, “Okay, what blogs can I do around this? What videos can I implement into those?” And then, “What can I give my audience?” And this is where those content upgrades come in.

05:10 AI: I know it seems like a lot, like, “Oh, my gosh, I have to do that, I have to do this, I have to do this.” But once you have that clear strategy, it really helps lay everything out. And the one thing… Whether you have… Maybe you hire someone to edit your videos, we do a lot of coaching and consulting with digital marketing, so you know, okay, your blog outline, here’s what you need to be talking about in your content upgrade. So figuring out, once you have that big picture, now what? Where do you need help? Do you need help creating images for your social media posts? Do you need help writing the content? Where do you feel are your strengths are at the most, and where do you feel that your weaknesses are, things that you have been putting on your plate. Maybe blogging has been something that you say, “Okay, this needs to happen, it’s just not happening,” and it’s missing in your strategy, maybe that’s where you need help.

06:13 AI: The biggest thing is really… Sometimes it just takes an hour to brain dump and write down, if you had all the time in the world, what would that digital marketing strategy look like? What would you wanna talk about on social media? What would you wanna talk about in your blogs? What are your clients and your customers asking you? That is key right there, is the questions that they’re asking. What are those conversations you’re having with them? That is content right there for you, not to mention maybe even videos, FAQs with them.

06:46 AI: So, starting from the foundation and then building up. You can’t put a roof on a house if there’s no foundation and walls, and you have to think of this marketing strategy just like that. The strategy is the foundation, as you build your social media and your blogging and your lead generation, your email marketing, those are the walls. And then as you start bringing everything together, that’s where you’re gonna have the roof and you’re building this whole digital marketing house, so to speak. And then once everything is set up and it has a rhyme and a reason and a purpose, that’s when you start to see things actually work. Then you can do your Facebook ads. You can do… You can really start to measure what’s working and what’s not working.

07:35 AI: And so, with social media, a lot of… We get asked all the time, “How many times a week should we post? When should we post? What days? What times?” And here’s my answer. It depends on each business because everybody’s audience is different. So again, utilize your current customer base as a huge resource. Ask them, “What time of day are you on Facebook? When do you get your information? Is it early morning right when you wake up? Is it at lunchtime? Is it before dinner time?” Or if you have a lot of moms, maybe it’s like that pick-up line time, so 2:00 to 2:30. Is it an evening, after the kids go to bed, maybe 9, 10 o’clock? So figuring out… And then weekends, a lot of times we post just Monday through Friday because our clientele really isn’t on Facebook and Instagram during the weekends as much. But in your situation, that maybe when they’re on the most. So, it’s really about trial and error.

08:46 AI: And so, using Facebook scheduler, you can schedule your posts on Facebook and trying different times. Maybe it’s Monday mornings at 6:00 AM and Tuesdays at 11:00. And figuring out different times, maybe it’s Wednesdays at 9:00, whatever it may be. And then figuring out what times and days are getting the most engagement. So, are they liking the posts? Are they engaging? Are they asking questions? Figuring out when those posts are getting the most engagement. And the insights on Facebook and on Instagram will tell you those things, and so you wanna make sure you pay attention to those and give that a 30-day span so you know, “Okay, I made a post on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.” I would say if you’re not already posting every day, start with at least three times a week and move your way up. If you’re just starting out and you’re not posting at all, or maybe one time a week, going from one time a week to even five to seven days a week, that’s huge, like, “Oh, my gosh, I have a lot to take on.” So take it in baby steps, but know… And don’t get on everything. Just because there are Twitter and Snapchat and LinkedIn, or whatever, you have to know again where your audience is at. So ask your audience, ask your customers, your clients, “What social media platforms are you on?”

10:19 AI: You could do a SurveyMonkey to ask your audience and email it out. “Hey, we’re really wanting to ramp up our digital marketing strategy, and we need your help so we can best… Give you the best information at the right times and days that work for you. What social media platforms are you on?” Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube. “What days of the week are you on?” Every day, and then list the days. And at what times? Usually, is it early morning, mid-morning, you put times in there. But I would really survey your current audience because they’re already coming to you and so that’s gonna be, again, a huge resource, and you can take that data and then figure out even topics. “What topics are you most interested in? What questions do you have about… ” You know, If you’re a nutritionist, “What questions do you have that we haven’t answered?” And be able to pull from them, and then implement those things into your strategy, because that’s where… If you’re answering their questions and you’re giving them that value that they want to know about, they are 10 times more likely to like, comment and share your posts, and that’s exactly what you want, and then also click back over to your blog, watch your videos, because you’re creating that relationship with them and building that loyalty with them. And so they’re gonna be loyal to you and wanna share your stuff.

11:54 AI: So, it all goes into that strategy, starting up a foundation and working your way from there. So, work on step one, brain dumping, just piling everything down, whether you write it down, you open up a Word doc or a Google Doc and just type down all the topics you wanna talk about, what blogs you would write about, what videos you wanna do, what questions people have asked you, what questions do you wanna ask your audience to put in a survey. And then, as I said, in the end, I will put in two PDF, just examples of two different types of content calendars that we have used and we use with our clients, and work great. And then I’ll also put a link in there to SurveyMonkey, which is a free tool, so that can help you build that foundation and really provide that valuable content.

12:49 AI: So, let us know what questions you have, comments you have, if you’ve been using a strategy and how it’s helped your business. I would love to hear about your experiences or maybe what’s holding you back of creating a strategy. What are those things that are just… It’s hard for you to take that time and sit down and put that strategy in place. We’re here to help you. So again, my name is Amber Irwin. You’ve been listening to the Social Speak Network podcast. Please be sure to subscribe on Podbean or iTunes, and we will have a new episode every week. Enjoy.

 

Why it is so important to have a digital marketing strategy.

In this podcast episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kim Eickhoff, the founder and creator of the SHiFT program.

Kim really stresses how important it is to be present in the moment and to become more aware of your own feelings, patterns, and fears.

  • Where are they showing up in your life?
  • When are you feeling sad and why?
  • When are you feeling frustrated and why?
  • Taking responsibilities for our own feelings and actions

The one really key point that Kim made was understanding that a lot of these feelings and fears that you have come up from past experiences, whether that be from childhood, young adulthood, things we may not even be aware of on a conscious level.

Now, you may be wondering what does this have to do with business, right? Have you ever felt stuck in your business or feel like you are running in circles? Becoming aware of your fears and how you handle each situation with your clients and colleagues can help you move forward in your business and start creating the life you want.

Enjoy the podcast below:

Learn more about SHiFT here
Subscribe to Kim’s YouTube for daily inspiration

Learn: SHiFT from Fear to Freedom

When we make decisions and take action from a place of fear, or from feeling “less than”, these are not usually the best decisions or actions to take. We have to shift to a place of power, or freedom.

The SHiFT process easily teaches you about your patterns that keep you stuck in the same problems; then how to disrupt those patterns; and finally how to take the right action to move beyond the problems, have better control over yourself and your life, and fully create the life you envision.

Once you learn SHiFT, you can apply it to many challenges in your life and be able to adopt new patterns that put you in the right mindset for growth and success.

From Fear to Freedom

00:01 Amber Irwin: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m your host Amber Irwin and I am so excited for our guest today. Miss Kim, please introduce yourself. Let us know a little bit about who you are, and this is a… I am so excited for this podcast because this is a subject that I’m very passionate about and I know you are as well, so let’s share with our audience a little bit about who you are and what they’re in store for today?

00:29 Kim Eickhoff: Very cool. So, my name is Kim Eickhoff. I have been a business coach for the last 10 years. I love helping entrepreneurs and small business owners learn how to make money doing what they love. I have a lot of clients that are really passionate about what they do, really good at what they do, but they don’t necessarily understand the business side. So, that’s where I come in to just kind of help them with that piece. I also have been a life-long learner of kind of my own personal development, looking at myself, trying to understand why I do what I do [chuckle] and say what I do and get better hopefully at life in general; relationships, business, whatever it is.

01:10 KE: And yeah, I have learned a lot of different tools over the years and so I have now moved my business in a direction of where I still help entrepreneurs a lot, but now I’m also just trying to help people more on a personal development side to become more aware of themselves, what makes them tick, and then how to basically disrupt some of those patterns they get stuck in and make better decisions and create the life they really want versus sort of stuck in a life that they don’t necessarily really want. [chuckle]

01:40 AI: Right. So tell us a little bit about this SHiFT process and why did you create this program?

01:48 KE: So I keep seeing over and over and over again with people, as well as watching myself trying to grow my business, that if I am not working on my own personal issues and I’m not aware of them, that’s what keeps my business stuck or plateaued at a certain level. And as I was seeing this with my clients, a lot of them hadn’t done some personal work and didn’t know about different tools and that sort of thing. So it just kind of dawned on me one day, I have systems to teach them around business so I thought, “What if I had a system to teach them around how to become more aware?” That was fairly simple to learn, can help them see things in a non-judgemental way, so they don’t go into a place of defensiveness or trying to make excuses, but it’s more, “This is really just my reality. This is what I do. This is what I say. This is how I think and feel.”

02:39 KE: And then something that would then help them move out of that. Some tools I could teach them to help them move out of that. So I just started playing with that idea, came up with the idea of SHiFT, started playing with different words that seemed to fit. And then I would say, for the past two years now, it’s evolved slowly and changed a little bit over time to what it is now, to where I think it’s pretty solid. So I’ve been using it consistently for probably the past year the way it is.

03:06 AI: And how do you think that this process has helped you in just your life and business and maybe with your clients as well?

03:15 KE: Well, you know, we’re all human [chuckle] and we all we all get triggered by different things. And what I know for me is I have always been highly emotional. So growing up, I would overreact to stuff. Somebody would say something, it hurt my feelings, or I would get mad about something, I would completely overreact, lash out in a way that was not very helpful, usually. And I mean verbally, not physically, [chuckle] but I would get angry and get mad at somebody, blame somebody else for stuff. And then that never really helped, though. It never really made the situation better. It never really improved or really got me where I wanted to go with whatever that issue was. So for me, what happened was I started practicing this… Well, all the tools I’ve been using over time in various ways.

04:03 KE: Over the last couple of years, once I created it, I started practicing it regularly and I sort of made it my practice when I got triggered about something, something happened, caused a pretty strong emotional reaction, whether it was frustration, or anger, or fear, anxiety, whatever that was, and this could be a cash flow problem in my own business, it could be a cash flow problem with one of my clients because I get worried about them. It could be interactions with people, communication problems, that sort of thing. So not having misunderstandings and getting upset about it, that sort of thing. So I started really using it religiously just to practice it, just to see if it helped. And what I noticed was it the more that I did it, one, I saw really similar themes in how I reacted to certain situations. And so that when it happened the next time, I was much more aware of it and I realized “Oh, I am going into this triggered place.” And when I’m triggered, or somebody is triggered, we don’t usually make the best decisions because our brain goes offline, right?

05:02 KE: Our emotions flood our brain, and so we can’t really make good decisions. So what it does is it helps clear that out so that you can make better decisions. And so, I started practicing it regularly, started seeing the themes, and then at the same time, because I was clearing out all these old emotions, the triggers weren’t as powerful. I wasn’t getting triggered as much in the future. And that was a big… A cool part of it, I thought. Because I was like, “Wow, so now I’m actually releasing a lot of this stuff and what used to really trigger me doesn’t trigger me anymore.”

05:32 AI: Right. You kinda let it roll off your shoulders at this point. You worked through whatever that pattern was.

05:37 KE: Yeah. And the emotions, what I’ve learned is that a lot of these emotions that we have that do kind of come up in these really strong ways, they’re old things. They’re things that happened as kids. Maybe our parents didn’t validate how we felt or we were ignored or whatever, not that parents meant to do these things, but they’re human too and they treat us the way that we probably were raised. And so, we create issues in other people. And so, yeah, when I started to release a lot of that old stuff, because it wasn’t there anymore, the trigger just wasn’t as powerful. And I was like, “Oh that’s really cool, actually. I’m not upset about this anymore.”

06:17 AI: Right, so once you worked that through, like your personal life, how did you see your business grow from letting go of those emotions and not letting those triggers happen anymore?

06:29 KE: Well, so actually, what started me practicing a lot was my business had grown a lot. So I got to this point in my business where I was making more money than I’d ever made, I had a ton of clients, I was really, really busy, but all of a sudden, all this fear was coming up because it felt like, how in the world can I sustain this? Am I really worthy of this kind of stuff? Is this something that I’m gonna be able to keep going with and how do I get to the next level? So all this fear started coming up, and that’s when I started really using shift to work through the fear. What it taught me too was that, yeah, these were old fears that were happening, but at the same time, my intuition was telling me that there are other things I really wanted to be doing and not necessarily what I was just doing so I was just focusing on the business coaching which was fine, but I really felt this desire to move more in this other personal development region as well.

07:29 KE: And I had been pushing that aside because it’s like my intuition kept telling me and I kept shutting it off and I kept… But I’m making money doing this, so why would I change anything? But all this fear, really made me stop and look at that, and when I did, I was like, “Oh.” One, I really wanna get more clear about who I work with ’cause I want clients who really wanna work on this stuff so that helped me see that. And then at the same time, just get clear that this is what I really wanted to be teaching as well as the business coaching.

07:56 AI: Right, yeah, ’cause they go hand-in-hand.

07:58 KE: Right.

08:00 AI: And how have some of your clients that have gone through the SHiFT program, how have their lives and their businesses changed by doing that?

08:08 KE: In lots of different ways. So one client that I have, she’s a photographer and she sells fairly large projects that can range from $10,000-$30,000, so they’re big, bigger size price tags. She would have a lot of fear come up around doing her proposals, because these were big prize tags for her and this was really different SHiFT for her, as far as what she was trying to promote and sell and she just wasn’t ready. A lot of times we’re not emotionally prepared to do something that we know we’re supposed to be doing [chuckle] in our business just ’cause we’ve never done it before, so we have to practice it and get better. So, what I taught her SHiFT and what happened with this was, she would do the process before she actually went into a sales call.

08:54 KE: And so what would trigger her in the middle of the sales call was bringing up the money part. She was able to sort of work through that on the front end and get more comfortable and understand why she was getting triggered and it was all about her own old money stories, really, that’s where she would go with it. And so when she saw that, she learned some tools on how to release that anxiety and those old fears, and then actually just gain more confidence and become more aware that she was worthy of asking for the price that she was asking for. So her business went from… I think the first year we worked together, she sold a couple of projects, so probably $20,000-$30,000 in revenue, around those projects. She did a lot of other things for her business at the time, but she really was moving into this. And this year to this point, I think we’ve sold five, or six already. And so she’s…

09:44 KE: Yeah, she’s really turned a corner with how she presents herself, her confidence and not all that obviously is about SHiFT, but a lot of it helped and she would probably be one of the first ones to say that so. And she uses it now, and she’s in the middle of a meeting, if she starts to feel that anxiety pop up or any of those strong emotions, she knows how to sit there and go through it and feel it and release it and then come back to, “Oh, this is what I’m here to do and this is what I’m confident in,” and then you’re more authentic and you’re more kind of connected, so you’re not just faking it.

10:19 AI: Right. Yeah, and that’s a such an important piece is just being able to notice, when you have that coming up in yourself and not pulling the fingers, but being able to take note and say, “Okay this is what frustrated me,” or, “This is what made me sad,” or… Especially as adults, because you can’t, “You hurt my feelings,” but if you recognize that in yourself, then you can go back and use this practice. So let me ask you this, is this practice easy to learn?

[laughter]

10:52 AI: I mean, we’re talking about a lot here, we’re talking about our emotions. So is this practice easy to learn for everyone?

11:00 KE: It is actually, just because I think that the way it’s broken down. I purposefully made it into a system that is easy to follow. Now what’s hard about it, is to practice it like anything. Like, you can get a gym membership, but if you don’t actually go to the gym, it doesn’t do any good. So, it’s the same idea. You can have tools, but you have to actually use them. But once I lead somebody through it, they’re pretty much on their own from that point, they can always go through it for themselves. The practicing on the back end of the tools that will help you kind of release this stuff and move through it, I find needs a little more hand-holding.

11:37 KE: So what I normally do is I sell this in a few different sessions, like a package, because I teach it to them, they practice it. They come back and see what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, and we talk through the tools that they’re using. If they used them correctly, what could they do better that sort of stuff, not, there’s really wrong or right way but… And then we tweak it, and for me, is about me finding what tools work best for different people, ’cause sometimes something might work for somebody that’s super easy. If you’re very aware of your body and how sensations sort of show up in your body, that’s an easy tool to use. For other people, that’s a really brand new concept. They don’t understand that every emotion they have shows up somewhere in their body physically. And that’s a big piece of this process. And so there’s some teaching and training and practicing, that we’ll do around that, but yes, it’s easy to learn. It’s just not easy to practice, necessarily.

12:30 AI: About consistency, stick into it.

12:32 KE: Yeah, totally.

12:34 AI: And so with this… It’s so about your mindset. So you had said that you were focusing on the business coaching, and you were noticing your patterns in changing [12:47] ____ and those emotions, but then, there’s still that fear and that feeling, your intuition was telling you, “This isn’t what you’re supposed to do.” So that shows that money can’t buy happiness in every single way, but that you may think that you’re doing the right thing, but there’s still that fear and listening to your intuition. So is that a big piece of the program, as obviously, you’re looking at where… Like those sensations, how is that fear or anxiety or whatever we wanna label it as, coming up, and then how to deal with it. And that’s what they’re practicing, is how to notice those emotions?

13:25 KE: Yeah. So there’s several components to it, but the main components are your feelings. So if something happens that triggers you, whether it’s making a lot of money, let’s say. So let’s say you have… You made more money in a month than you’ve ever made, you’re excited on one end, but then some fear starts to pop up. It’s just like, “How in the world am I gonna repeat this? Is this possible? Is this sustainable?”, all this stuff. And so, when the anxiety or fear pops up with that, the key you start to look at is the… Are the thoughts that are connected to the feeling. So a lot of times, if the thoughts are about, “I’m not worthy,” about… It’s a lot of deep, deep thoughts. So it’s like, “If I’m not worthy,” or, “If I don’t believe I’m worthy,” these are all beliefs, “to actually make this amount of money and to be successful,” then you will end up sabotaging yourself.

14:13 KE: And that’s how people stay in the pattern, so they’re like, “No, I don’t believe I’m actually worthy, and this is what I’m gonna do to kind of bring myself back down to this amount of money that I feel comfortable at.” So it’s looking at what those thoughts are, and then it’s learning how to challenge those old beliefs and change them, and so the tools around that become one. If it shows up in the body as a sensation, that’s old emotions that are stuck in there, and so you actually have to heal that, and that is about just feeling it. And I don’t mean thinking about it, I mean really feeling it. And this is a process that’s hard for a lot of people, and so I’ll walk them through how to do this and walk them with an issue that they’re having. We’ll actually go through the practice of feeling sensations or as I call it, surrendering to them, ’cause you actually just wanna be present with what’s really happening in the moment and allow it to come up and out.

15:05 KE: And then once the emotions will dissipate, and they always do, you just have to pay attention to them, then those feelings go away. The thoughts go away, and you can actually make some choices on what you wanna do. What I find is, if the fear is showing up over and over and over consistently, and you keep doing this, that’s usually your intuition saying, “Hey, listen, this is not right.” And that’s… ‘Cause fears can mean different things, but that’s… What I’ve learned is like, “Oh, if this keeps showing up all the time, and I keep releasing it, but it keeps showing up, then it’s something deeper trying to tell me something else.”

15:40 AI: Yeah. Oh, I love it.

15:41 S?: [15:41] ____.

15:42 AI: So what is the number one takeaway from this process, and why is it so important in your mind?

15:51 KE: I think the number one takeaway is that we are completely in control of ourselves, and if something happens that… Whether it’s somebody or it’s a situation, somebody says something or does something, and we get angry or frustrated or fearful, all that stuff is our own stuff. It has really nothing to do with what has happened, with what this person has done, with what the situation is. What we do is we take that, and we make it into a much bigger problem, because we’ll ruminate on it, we think about it. I call it “habitual reaction”, so we will constantly think about it and constantly cycle through it, and your body will just get more and more stressed or more [chuckle] and more anxious or whatever it is. But that’s the biggest takeaway to me, is like, “Oh, if I can actually understand what issues of mine are being triggered around this, then I’m in complete control of my life,” because I can actually deal with those, and I can change how I respond to somebody, or what choices that I make.

16:53 KE: If I don’t know what’s happening, and I continue to make other choices, because I’m making choices to get rid of those feelings, I don’t want the feelings, they’re uncomfortable, but if I don’t even know that they’re there because of my stuff, then I’m gonna stay, keep doing things that are gonna keep me in these patterns that aren’t super-healthy for me. And so, becoming aware of that, giving yourself control back, taking full responsibility and ownership of where you are and what your response is, in some way, to me, is huge, ’cause then you’re in the driver’s seat, right? You can make choices, and you can do different things. So that’s, to me, what the coolest part of this is.

17:31 AI: Yeah. Taking responsibility, owning it and making a change. I love it. So tell us how can people work with you? Do you do, obviously, individuals? Do you do group? Do you speak at events? How can people sign up for SHiFT?

17:47 KE: Yes, I do all those things. [chuckle] So I love speaking at events, and I do sort of a 30-minute, big picture overview of what this is, why it’s important, that sort of thing; I don’t necessarily teach it, but I give a lot of information about it. I do one-to-one sessions with people, so I can do them through Zoom, I can do them in person if they’re here in the Denver area. I’m gonna start doing some more kind of group coaching things, but in corporations, that sort of thing, or small businesses. I work… I’d use this a lot with teams, so teaching teams how to do this individually helps them communicate better, because a lot of times people… I mean, you’re interacting with people, so you get triggered by something somebody says on your team, and then all production stops, ’cause you’re mad or whatever, and they’re mad at you, so nobody wants to work anymore.

18:37 KE: Well, this helps you kinda realize that and work through it, so with teams. And then I’m also working on… I wanna do a class, but it would be all video series, so it would be, you get maybe three to five videos in your email, and each one will teach you pieces of it; it’s much more self-directed. Obviously, you do it when you want, but you’ll learn the basic concepts. And with the others, I usually lead you through whatever specific issue you have, in those other programs, so it’s a little more hand-holding, that sort of thing than the other ones, but on the videos it’s like you just learn it, and you do it.

19:15 AI: Okay. And where can I find this information?

19:18 KE: Oh, [chuckle] on my website. What is my website?

19:25 AI: And you’re on Facebook, so they can connect with you on Facebook.

19:28 KE: Yes. Oh yeah, yeah, I’m on Facebook. So Coach Kim Eickhoff, E-I-C-K-H-O-F-F, is my last name. And then…

19:36 AI: And I’ll put the links below in the comments as well.

19:39 KE: Oh okay, cool.

19:40 AI: And then I’ll put your website in there too.

19:42 KE: Okay, coachkimshift.com, so that’s a good place. And then I have a YouTube channel, Kim Eickhoff, if you just put that in there, it should pop up.

19:53 AI: Awesome. Wonderful. Well, I’m so excited. Thank you so much, Kim, for being on with us today. Be sure to subscribe below, everyone. And if you are ready to make some serious changes in your life and take control back, call Kim, and let’s get to work.

[chuckle]

20:14 KE: SHiFT.

20:14 AI: SHiFT.

[laughter]

20:15 AI: Thanks, Kim, have a great day.

20:16 KE: Thanks, Amber, you too.

Subscribe to our Podcast here

 

Discovering your Patient't Journey

From the moment a patient seeks medical care for an injury or makes an appointment with their family doctor to determine the cause of their recent symptoms, the patient has begun a journey during which multiple people may be involved.

Hospitals, physicians, nurses, and other providers, may all be, at one point or another, involved in this patient journey.

When we start to think of the “Patient Journey” we need to think of these things:

  • What they are going through?
  • What are their pain points before they get to you?
  • What are they experiencing and struggling with?

By identifying these things this helps you as a business owner be able to provide the right resources they are looking for.

In today’s healthcare landscape, consumers have more options, choices, and resources when it comes to the direction of their own care. This ecosystem shift slab that the patient transportation is not a linear one, but rather a multi-stage clause with many different channels and touch points along with the media (much like a tree with dozens of different branches).

A few stages of the “Patient Journey” –

Awareness: Self-assessment of barrier and symptoms, leading to online research and education, consequence problem on social media, etc. This is the start id their journey, they have recognized that something is not right with their body, or how they feel. Most people will become aware of their issue and then start the research process. 

This is where they will spend hours online on different tools like Google, Pinterest, Facebook, WedMd, etc. to try to identify what they are going through.

Help: At this point, the patient understands they need help with their symptoms and are looking for the correct place to go. This is where your resource marketing comes into handy because you have been building a rapport with your patients, they trust you and know you are the right person to start with. 

Care: This piece is where the “know, like, trust” factor comes in. When a patient chooses you to be their caretaker and help them with their issues or symptoms this is a really big deal. most people just think I am a doctor and this is what I am supposed to do, but you are doing so much more. You are becoming a large resource mentally, physically, and emotionally. 

Treatment: You may be on the journey with these patients for a while, or just a couple visits. It’s important to take note of their treatment so you can use that data to help other patients like them. Treatment can be anything from home remedies, physical therapy, chemo, counseling, whether it be large or small treatment it will be a world of difference to your patient if they are no longer in pain. 

Behavioral/Lifestyle Change: Changes to reduce readmissions and promote proactive health. How has your care and treatment helped them to live a better life? This piece right here is the end goal, this is what people are looking for. 

  • Do they want to be able to walk with ease again?
  • Be able to live to see their family grow?
  • Be able to overcome their fears?

Whatever that lifestyle is for them that they will be able to achieve when they are doing work with you and your practice is the first step to your digital marketing. They are wanting something better in their life, they became aware of their problem, sought help, got treatment, and now ready to live their life again.

Ongoing Care/Proactive Health: What is the call-to-action? Do they need to come for follow-up appointments, exercises at home, home remedies, physical therapy, etc.? What do they need to do to continue their lifestyle and be proactive from here on out? 

It’s important for the patient to understand their journey and continue to improve. 

WHAT IS PATIENT JOURNEY MAPPING?

Patient route mapping in the healthcare industry is a data-driven, patient-centric approach to planning marketing activity, communications, and (to some degree) even delivery care. It’s a way to gather the facts, discover the anticipation of your patient, and then line-up that information to deliver an exemplary healthcare experience.

What testament a patient excerpt map do for you?

In short, patient section maps give you a clear guide for how to improve retention and acquisition through customer satisfaction. Exceeding patient expectation benefits your saps relation convenience twofold:

  1. It increases retention rates through patient satisfaction
  2. It increases new patient acquisition through evangelism

Word of mouth is still, and most likely always will be the best form of marketing, but if you can really connect with your patient’s on a much deeper level and be able to provide information, be a resource for them and their family. This allows you to take your digital marketing to the next level and reach more people. 

Conclusion

Active listening and putting systems in place is key! You will always want a steady flow of patient’s, and as their lives change maybe they move or find a different doctor or maybe your services are no longer needed, it’s important to keep that pipeline full with new and potential patient’s that need your services.

Digital marketing is a great way to connect with a potential patient’s in your community and be more than just a provider, but a resource. Once people feel they can trust your practice and get their questions answered, that’s when the magic happens. They start talking about you online and referring you more and more.

A few things to do when you get a new patient:

  1. Collect their email address – don’t just leave this in your system and not do anything with it, add it to your CRM like MailChimp, InfusionSoft, SalesForce, MyEmma, Constant Contact, etc. an email software so you can send them monthly newsletters with valuable information.
  2. Ask them to like you on Facebook or Instagram
  3. Invite them to leave a positive review on Google and/or Facebook once they are satisfied with their treatment
  4. Then have a strong social media presence to continue to stay top of mind

Remember, you are an important piece of your patient’s journey!

Learn more about  3 Tested Tactics to Integrate Patient Journey in Digital Marketing Strategy

Understanding your patient's journey and How to market to them online

Engaging Patients and Prospects with Empathy – Interview with Rod Thomas of Scorpion

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Rod Thomas is a Director of Regional Sales for Scorpion Healthcare, an award-winning digital marketing partner that has helped more than 250 hospitals and healthcare providers improve their digital presence and achieve their business goals.

Scorpion Healthcare

Rod has consulted on digital strategy for healthcare organizations of varying sizes and services – including individual provider practices, private orthopedic groups, addiction treatment centers, small rural hospitals and major health systems.  He is a graduate of Northwestern University and lives in the Chicago area with his wife and two amazing children.

In this interview with Rod, we focused on tracking marketing efforts, sticking to a digital strategy, and making sure your business goals, and patient empathy, stay at the forefront of digital marketing efforts for the healthcare industry. We covered:

  • How Inbound Marketing, Web design, and traditional marketing work for healthcare brands.
  • Current trends or wellness practices with digital marketing in 2019.
  • Why you shouldn’t just track Cost Per Click and Impressions with your digital marketing campaigns.
  • The top 3 things that a healthcare center should be doing online to see a return from their SEM efforts.
  • The top strategy that should be followed, but often marketing teams get wrong.

Learn more about how to use Digital Marketing for your Healthcare center.

Biggest Takeaway from Podcast

One of the biggest takeaways I have from today’s podcast is the role that empathy has in your digital marketing. It is so important to be empathetic and everything that you do online, you need to connect with a customer, with a client, with a patient who is going through a difficult health choice.

Now, maybe the health choice seeing simple for you, potentially, you’re a dentist, and somebody needs to come in for a routine cleaning. This could be somebody who is absolutely terrified and has had negative experiences with every dentist that they’ve worked with up until stepping in your door and sitting down in your seat.

So you need to understand as we’ve talked about in multiple episodes that customer journey.

What is their patient journey as they’re going from recognizing that they might have a problem to finding a solution, to actually calling up and scheduling appointments, and how can we be empathetic to them in their situation, every step of the way?

Yes, the main goal of digital marketing and online marketing is to increase your bottom line revenue, but in order to do that, you need to make sure that your story and your marketing and messaging is empathetic to the customers who are out there.

Watch the Digital Marketing Interview with Scorpion Healthcare

 

Listen to the Digital Marketing Podcast

 

Podcast Interview Transcript

Hello and welcome to the newest episode of The Social speak Network podcast. I’m Caitlin McDonald and I am so excited to have Rod Thomas on our show today. Rod Thomas is a Director of Regional Sales for Scorpion Healthcare, an award-winning digital marketing partner that has helped more than 250 hospitals and health care providers improve their digital presence, and achieve their business goals.

Rod has consulted on digital strategy for health care organizations of varying size and services including individual provider practices private orthopedic groups addiction treatment centers, small rural hospitals and major health systems.

Rod is a graduate of Northwestern University and lives in the Chicago area with his wife and two amazing children.

Caitlin McDonald: I’m so excited to have Rod on the show today, let’s give him a warm welcome. Welcome Rod, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Rod Thomas: It is a pleasure to be here. Thank you for asking me.

CM: To kick things off, tell us a little bit about your background in digital marketing.

RT: Well, I’ve been at Scorpion for over two years now and that’s really where I got my start in digital marketing. I’ve been solely focused on health care digital marketing in those two years. I entered into the space as a corporate employee and I’ve worked over that time, I’ve worked with a lot of different organizations. I’ve worked with rural hospitals, critical access hospitals. They have a unique set of circumstances, unique challenges, all the way up to large multi-hospital systems, which is another game.

I provided digital marketing for addiction treatment centers and individual doctor practices or larger physician groups. So it’s within healthcare, but even within healthcare, even though it seems like a very specific vertical, there are a lot of different the groups, business goals, and challenges that each group of faces on a regular basis.

I’ve enjoyed learning about all of those different aspects of those groups and helping them figure out what you can do online to make connections with your community because it’s all very different.

CM: That’s right, some of the messaging that you have with all of these different types of practices has to be very different. Someone dealing with addiction is going to be very different than the customer lifetime journey of somebody who needs a knee replacement. So it’s really how do you speak to both of those?

RT: Even within hospitals, I mean you have a critical access hospital and a primary objective of theirs is just to keep their market from feeling like they have to go to a big city to get a higher level of care. They often have fewer resources than the other hospital, the urban hospital, so that’s their focus.

But if you look at urban hospitals, they have competitors down the street. They are competing against all the other organizations that serve that market.

Even those two comparisons of rural hospital trying to just maintain its market versus a larger hospital in the city that’s trying to elbow its way up with the competitors, that has down the street, shows how different your digital marketing goals need to be.

CM: So Rod your business is really a one-stop solution for technology and marketing. How does this differ from a typical approach to digital marketing?

RT: Well, I don’t know that there is a typical approach. There are so many companies out there that do digital marketing; they’re not a lot of barriers to entry into the place into the space.

You can build a website and basically say, “I’ve got experience managing Google AdWords and Facebook and Facebook campaigns.” And you’re off to the races. So there are, there’s a lot of competition out there.

I think you’ve got people who build websites, on certain platforms or whether it’s an open source or proprietary platform. Then there are other agencies like us that do digital marketing. You’ve also got agencies that are more broad-based agencies that do everything from print to TV and film, branding of all of your entire marketing service line and channels.

I’d say what sets Scorpion apart is our specialization in digital marketing combined with our history and the technology platform that we’ve built.

We’ve been in the business for 18 years – that’s a pretty substantial history, and we’ve invested over that time in our platform and our systems. We are really pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and being able to drive efficiencies with that system. Having a platform where you have the website, you have your landing pages, you’re able to track and have transparency on all of those entry points into the system, so to speak. So that if, not to get too into the weeds here, but if somebody clicks on an ad, and they look at the landing page, but they don’t convert, for example they’re not making a phone call, or filling out a form, but later they come back to your website. If it’s on our system, we actually can see them, we’ve noted them, and can narrow it down to, “He clicked on the ad,” we realized when he comes back he’s not necessarily an organic lead. He is someone who actually saw an ad, they just didn’t convert until later.

But that platform, it has a lot of intricacy built into it that gives us a big advantage in the space.

CM: Awesome, and I’m assuming you’re going to come back to talk about that a little bit more when we talk about Scorpion, but let’s keep going with these digital marketing questions. So what current trends are you seeing for health centers with digital marketing in 2019?

RT: Well, healthcare tends to continue to be slow to adapt.

I’m going to give healthcare a bit of a pass on one end because health care is just different. It’s not the same as shopping at Amazon, or Target, or Best Buy Online. You’re dealing with HIPAA issues, you’re dealing with personal or private, personal health information. So there are different obstacles in healthcare to do this responsibly.

But that being said, healthcare is just not been as advanced in terms of addressing the opportunity to connect with their community online.

And when they do make an aggressive move they often just get it wrong. So that’s a trend, that’s one trend.

The other trend I would say just in terms of digital marketing in general is video.

Video is king. That type of content is really great. People respond very differently and have a closer connection with video. We’re just seeing a lot of that’s paying dividends down the road.

If you’re investing in that video and having that open to using it, that’s a huge strength.

Utilize video to help your healthcare practice stand apart online

CM: Are there any tactics that were expected to perform well or had a lot of hype, but failed to take hold or deliver the results that they want to in 2018?

RT: I don’t know that there are tactics. I think we’re often monitoring the platforms that are in popping up online like Snapchat for example, or both which maybe not to me, people know about, but those types of platforms that are all of a sudden held up as the next opportunity to connect and they don’t really take shape or don’t take hold the way that would you anticipate. And I think that comes back to a very key component, which is understand that we can’t control consumer behavior.

CM: Yes, That’s key. We can’t force people to interact on Snapchat in a way that they’re not doing naturally.

RT: Twitter is the same. You can’t force Twitter to be a platform that it’s not. And so what we have to learn to do is just be respond to what consumers to the consumer behavior that we’re tracking online and getting a message that’s going to resonate with the right person at the right time, on the right platform.

CM: I think that that’s a really interesting point. You always want to pay attention to what the data says, but you also need to pay attention to the messaging that you’re actually putting out there and if it aligns with the actions that people are used to taking on that specific social media network.

RT: You can’t just throw it out saying, “No, this is never going to work.” Find a way, if you really want to make it work, find a way to make that messaging really stick with the people who are on that network, it and find a way that you can connect with them.

The message may be on point, but it just may be the delivery system that’s wrong.

CM: So what are the top three things that a health care center should be doing online to see a return from their digital marketing efforts?

RT: Well, first of all, you have to get your economics right you have to tie what you’re doing to your business goals and we tend to get squarely on this, we… So these are business issues. You have to consider what the lifetime value of a patient is. What does that revenue look like that you’re going to generate from a patient and what is the cost of acquiring a patient?

There is a mission to healthcare, and we hate kind of talking about the economics of it, but if you’re not taking care of the economics of it, you’re going to be out of business.

So say if you’re spending more than you’re taking in, you won’t be able to serve that mission.

And so I often kind of frame this in terms of… “Look, if you take care of these business issues, you’re going to improve more business, but you’re also going to improve the health outcomes of the people in your community because you’re going to be connecting with the people who need your service, quicker, getting them help earlier, hopefully and getting them back to their life healthier and with better health outcomes.” I went off the tangent here, but I get your economics right.

The second thing I would say is, develop a strategy and stick with it.

People often are saying… “Well, I tried it for a while, I’ll try it for a month and didn’t see anything,” but that’s not adequate.

Develop a digital marketing strategy and stick with it for your healthcare organization

If you’re trying to dip your toes in and out and trying to really make a lot of adjustments and try this and then try that and try to just pull levers to see which one’s going to work, you’re not going to see the return.

Be thoughtful about developing a strategy, and then put it on the field, so to speak, and watch it. You’re not going to get it right, right away, so it’s going to require some adjustments. Don’t give up on that.

And then the third thing I would say is that you have to track everything with digital marketing.

Digital marketing is not like putting an ad in a newspaper, in the old days, or even putting a billboard. With digital marketing, you can tie consumer behavior to a marketing campaign.

You need to be able to track a variety of items in digital marketing for healthcare:

  • How many leads are we generating?
  • How many patients are we getting in the door off of this marketing campaign?

With this, you know what’s working.

In Healthcare Marketing Look Beyond Cost Per Click

This goes beyond the number of impressions or just to cost per click. If you just know the cost per click and you’re monitoring your results based on the cost per click, then you’re monitoring the wrong thing because that’s not tied to revenue.

Track Marketing Metrics Related to Revenue

You could waste tons of money just trying to get to the low cost per click, because it’s just somebody clicking your ad, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the right person.

So really making sure you’re tracking the back end, to say, “How are we doing in terms of generating patients in revenue with this digital marketing campaign investment?

CM: And I like how Scorpion, with your own system, you have a way to track it, it not only if somebody became a patient or a lead that first time that they click the ad but also if they came back a week later, a month later after they’ve already seen the ad, and they come back to your website, to then book an appointment. I think that that’s so powerful because it provides even more information about that cost to acquire a patient will bring that down and really show you the long-term effects of the strategy that you have in place.

RT: Yeah, that data is important and even with that system, it’s difficult, so it’s not perfect, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

There are a lot of different data points. It’s not just somebody clicking on an ad and I shouldn’t say it’s not always… Somebody’s just clicking on an ad calling you. And that’s a conversion. This ad may be a point that they’ve talked to their friends, they’ve looked at reviews. There are a lot of different points online and offline that go into establishing trust, and that’s really what it is, connection and trust with a potential patient but the data is important, even though it’s not perfect, it’s important to make sure that what’s happening if you’re investing that money.

CM: Yeah, absolutely, so what is the top strategy that should be followed, but often, marketing teams get wrong?

RT: The top strategy as opposed to the tactic?

CM: And I want to try making a difference here – you can answer the top tactic as well. I think both are very, very important.

RT: Yeah, I think that’s good because the marketing tactics change. The tactics, as we discussed, even with different practice vs an orthopedic group, the tactics are going to be different if you’re trying to connect with a dad or a guy who’s out to a playing softball on the weekends in in a league, that’s going to be a different tactic to connect with him versus connecting with, say somebody like my father who’s in the ’70s and golf and needs a knee replacement, but he’s not looking for it.

Those are different. So, you’re going to have different tactics for your target market and who you’re speaking to in the marketing strategy.

The top strategy that should be followed but often gets wrong is empathy, it is really empathy.

Focusing on the patient.

We think the technology is the just launching a pay per click campaign, and these tech tools are going to get the job done, but it is important to realize that it is a tool.

So it’s an avenue, it’s a way to connect with someone. It is not the connection. Google, Facebook, YouTube, these are delivery systems. And so effective marketing is not about how much you’re doing, it’s about connecting with the patient putting yourself in their shoes, understanding their fears in the moment, the need that they have at that moment, in time, and then treating them with empathy.

It’s, it’s the first chance you have to serve them as a patient and if you can serve them as a patient before they’ve even picked up the phone or set up an appointment, you’re going a long way to winning them as a patient in your office.

CM: Yes, that is so important. It’s important in any industry, you have to really know your story and those pain points of your consumers or patients. So I love that answer, thank you.

RT: Yeah, yeah, I’ll say one of the things, and something that I hear a lot when I get on a call. So I was like… We need to be doing social media are we are not doing it, we need to do it as a… It’s almost like we have to check it sounds like we have to check that box.

CM: Yes, and it’s like, well, first of all, yes, there’s a great opportunity on social media to connect, but not just to do it to do it if you’re just going to do it and say Hey, Happy 4th of July from you, the doctor group, or Happy Memorial. That’s not that check in the box.

RT: Oh yes, but it’s not really thinking in terms of where you can connect, how you can connect with someone. So that’s the difference. I would kind of specifically differentiate the two.

CM: Yeah, that’s great, that’s great. So your business, Scorpion Healthcare, is to top rank digital marketing agency for Healthcare practices. Can you tell us a little bit more about your company, and the services?

RT: Sure, we’ve been in business for us at 18 years, we actually got our start in the legal industry back in the day, so the scorpion started as a marketing… Marketing agency to help law firms develop the websites get found online through SEO and through the ads to help lawyers connect with potential clients and help them build their client base.

We branched out since then. And we do home services, and we also have done healthcare for over 10 years. Our chief revenue officer and I’m going to paraphrase what he says here, he says, “we’re in the Oh-No verticals.”

In other words, everything was fine. yesterday, something happened in day and all of a sudden… Oh no, I need a lawyer or… Oh no, I need a plumber or… Oh no, I need a doctor.

And so, those moments or people are reaching for their phones now, it’s like, “Oh no, I got a need and I pull out my phone.” So that’s where the connection point is.

So over that time, we’ve developed a… Our own system, I’ve talked about, it’s a platform that is a CMS that holds the website and from the very beginning, when we started developing with SEO. We’re doing SEO services, we’re doing paid ads where on any channel, that’s online any different connecting points. So, primarily we’re taking about Google or Facebook, but that could weigh and programmatic or native advertising and retargeting and go targeting all of those different tactics. We we’re doing listings management, we’re help in a reputation monitoring, we’re doing content marketing. So as much as we can provide in terms of one partner for our clients that will solve as many issues of their digital footprint their online presence as possible, so that they’re not trying to juggle multiple vendors and trying to get everybody to work nice together.

So that’s really as we stick to really being very specific in terms of delivering our technology and our marketing expertise.

That’s our team that knows can talk and understand what business goals a particular company are, and then develop strategies based on those goals, and then help them monitor it and optimize it over time. That’s an important aspect of what we do as regularly checking in, following what’s happening, and making adjustments as we go.

Whether the business objectives are changed or whether the market has changed, if there are market conditions that require a change, that you have to make sure that you’re just not assuming that everything is working now, the way it worked even two months ago.

CM: Yeah, and I mean really a lot of digital marketing and sponsored advertising is at the whim of whoever you’re doing the advertising through. We recently saw a change with how lead optimization campaigns we’re working on Facebook and our testing almost exclusively now using the lead form directly on Facebook, rather than sending someone to a landing page. And how does that conversion rate differ? And that’s something if the platforms never changed, then I would make marketing a little bit easier, but consumers change, the platforms change and everything, so you have to really stay on top of that, right?

RT: The rules change in… So, absolutely it.

And Google’s always makes changes. Facebook so they’re trying to optimize and make sure the… So when they make a change, you’re not going to know this, fact you may not know exactly what the implications are.

CM: Lastly, are there any digital marketing strategies that your team is currently testing that you don’t think many other agencies are implementing for their clients?

I would say this platform that we’re developing on is really unique and so the advances we’re making in terms of machine learning and it’s a form of AI, where the platform itself is tracking conversions and across multiple variables, and adjusting based on those variables.

So in other words, you have industry standards, there’s certain benchmarks in the industry and I throw out I’ve heard typically mobile devices convert at a 20% better than desktop. So let’s just say that is about average, right?

And so then, is going to track that, but it’s also going to not assume that 20% is the standard it’s going to investigate, it’s going to take a look at the specific campaign, the specific industry, the specific market and it maybe in a particular market that that’s actually higher it may actually these campaigns may convert it at like 30% on mobile or less, it could be less.

And our system is what we’re developing the system that’s going to adjust the spend and adjust the budget, based on those variables that are unique to the specific campaign, unique to the specific client. So it’s adjusting geographical targets, it’s adjusting time of day, adjusting device.

It could be keywords, it could even be on the ad to content to… We have constantly been doing AB testing and a lot people do a AB test, but I have a system that is doing it automatically, as opposed to a person coming in and taking a look and having to do that comparison. I think that, I know that that is going to change the game.

Yeah, I for our clients when this system is and we tested it in a lot of different verticals and it’s really effective when you see a machine just kind of making those adjustments and shifting tactics and shifting budgets on the fly based on the actual data that it’s seeing and that’s a very powerful tool that comes from 18 years. It’s not something that someone can put together right right a way.

And being able to bring that to someone like a sole practitioner, a small Orthopedic Group, or other verticals, a couple of guys who are a couple of lawyers, or even a plumbing company being able to bring that type of power to their campaigns – it’s going to change the game for them.

CM: So powerful, so powerful, it’s exciting, it’s exciting to…

RT: I’m excited about our team that is very good at this. We get to… Often, we have meetings where we’re talking about it, learning more about it, and it is exciting to see what they’re doing and how this could really help potential clients at that way.

CM: So is there anything I should have asked but I didn’t?

RT: I mean you could have asked about my golf day but that would have been a, I’ve been Chicago coming out of the winter and my golf game is terrible.

That’s not a good question, no, I don’t think so, I know no this has been great. And I don’t know that there’s a lot of things you could have asked, but it’s been a pleasure talking to you. I really, I get a kick out of figuring these things out with clients and so it’s, it’s always a puzzle because each office is different in each market is different. My day is never the same. It’s always taking somebody where they are, whether they are just starting out, or whether they’re already farther down the road and they’re trying to get better.

CM: Definitely, definitely. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be on our show and to answer these questions for the interview, I know that you spend some time thinking about what your answers were going to be, so I really appreciate that, and it was very insightful in hearing all of the insights.

It was wonderful having you on the show.

RT: Thank you so much, that was my pleasure, thank you for asking me to join.

CM: So thank you again to Rod for being on our show and talking more about the insights he has with Scorpion. Now, one of the biggest takeaways I have from today’s podcast is the role that empathy has in your digital marketing. It is so important to be empathetic and everything that you do online, you need to connect with a customer, with a client, with a patient who is going through a difficult health choice.

Now, maybe the health choice seeing simple for you, potentially, you’re a dentist, and somebody needs to come in for a routine cleaning. This could be somebody who is absolutely terrified and has had negative experiences with every dentist that they’ve worked with up until stepping in your door and sitting down in your seat.

So you need to understand as we’ve talked about in multiple episodes that customer journey.

What is their patient journey as they’re going from recognizing that they might have a problem to finding a solution, to actually calling up and scheduling appointments, and how can we be empathetic to them in their situation, every step of the way?

Yes, the main goal of digital marketing and online marketing is to increase your bottom line revenue, but in order to do that, you need to make sure that your story and your marketing and messaging is empathetic to the customers who are out there.

So again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald. You’ve been listening to the Social Speak Podcast, please be sure to subscribe on iTunes or Podbean and we look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

Engaging Patients and Prospects with Empathy – Interview with Rod Thomas of Scorpion

How to Use Digital Marketing to Grow your Healthcare Practice

As a healthcare practice, it is really important to stay top of mind with your current patients and also future patients. By using digital marketing there are so many ways to stay connected.

One question we get asked a lot is:  

“How do we increase our engagement and promote our practice with digital marketing?”

Well, that answer is a little tricky since there are many different options out there. It’s more of a combination of different tools to make your digital marketing work for you. In the digital marketing world, it is about trial and error, seeing what your audience responds to the most and how to start those conversations. 

In this blog, I am going to talk about 5 ways to help increase your engagement and promote your practice. 

Word of mouth and referral marketing are still the best ways to grow your practice, but with people being able to access information from SO many places we have to be a little more creative and think outside the box to build those relationships and loyalty.

Once they have come into your practice you want to make sure you stay top of mind, more importantly, you want to make sure you have good online profiles so it is easy for your audience to refer you.

How many of you have wanted to try something new with digital marketing but just don’t know where to start or what to try?

Social media marketing is one of the most popular ways to get in front of your current audience and potential new patients.

You can do this organically or implement paid ads as well. This is not an overnight success, it does take time, but it does work!

Let’s talk about the 5 Ways to Help Increase Your Engagement and Promote Your Practice:

1. Instagram

We have been talking about Instagram a lot this year and we will continue to do so, it is one of the fastest growing social media platforms with the average age 35-65-year-olds. Instagram is all about the visuals, from building a strong brand presence on your feed, having font styles on your images, color scheme, image theme, etc. this makes your feed look clean and interesting. Let’s dive into how to master Instagram Stories

This biggest thing with Instagram right now is the Instagram Stories, these stories only stay up for 24-hours, so this is a great place for:

One really cool thing you can do with these stories is “Highlight” them, this saves them into an area about your feed pictures, you can categorize them so all your stories go to the correct boards.  This turns into a great resource for your audience, each video on Instagram Stories can be 15 seconds long, you can record a 45sec to a 1 min long video and then use this app called CutStory and it automatically cuts your video into 15-second increments for you to share.

How to highlight Instagram Stories

You can also create branded Instagram stories images with Canva, they have different themes you can choose from, you can use your own font styles, brand colors, logo, and images.

Now, you may be thinking what if I do a video that is more than 1-minute long, where should I put that? Well, don’t worry, Instagram has you covered and that is where IGTV comes into play. This is similar to YouTube but it allows your audience to watch the full video on Instagram, they don’t have to leave the platform.

A few ideas to create IGTV videos around are:

  • New mother tips
  • Birthing Plan
  • Vaccines
  • Physical Therapy
  • Counseling Tips
  • National Observance Days
  • Surgery Tips
  • New medical practices
  • Interviews with nurses and doctors

Instagram has a lot of bells and whistles you are able to tap into and really grow a long-lasting relationship with your audience.

2. Video Marketing

It’s 2019 and it’s all about the videos! Video marketing is huge and will continue to grow. Videos are great because it allows your audience to connect with you quicker. We wrote a blog a few months ago about “How to Create a Strong Video Marketing Strategy” videos are something you either love or hate.

Videos can be educational for your audience, videos with closed captions are even better. Here are a few good stats about video:

Let’s dive into the statistics behind healthcare marketing with video:

  1. About 46% of people say they’d be more likely to seek out information about a product or service after seeing it in an online video. (Source: Eloqua)
  1. Video is now the sixth most popular content marketing tactic, as 70% of B2B marketers use some form of online video with their overall strategies. (Source: Eloqua)
  1. Of the 80% of internet users who watched a video ad, 46% took some sort of action after viewing the ad. (Source: Video Brewery)
  1. The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video. (Source: Mist Media)
  1. Video and e-mail marketing can increase click-through rates by more than 90%.(Source: Mist Media)
  1. Video equals higher viewer retention. The information retained in one minute of online video is equal to about 1.8 million written words. (Source: Brainshark)
  1. Video attracts two to three times as many monthly visitors, doubles their time spent on the site and has a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
  1. Blog posts incorporating video attract three times as many inbound links as blog posts without video. (Source: SEOmoz
  1. 59% of senior executives prefer video over text. (Source: Brainshark)
  1. Having a video on the landing page of your site makes it 53% more likely to show up on page 1 of Google(Source: Mist Media)

Source Here

When you think of video marketing, most people think you have to have a studio, pay a professional, take a lot of time on editing, props, backgrounds, and more. In all honesty with the technology of the newer smartphones and HD cameras, you can really shoot your own videos in office. Actually, the more authentic videos are the ones that get the most engagement online.

A couple of things to remember when shooting a video from your smartphones when you are recording a video for Instagram be sure to have your phone vertical, and when shooting a video for YouTube, Blogs, or Facebook you will want your phone horizontal.

Let’s start recording! Be Authentic, real, give value, and have fun!

3. Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are climbing higher on the list for digital marketing, gone are the days where just having a Facebook page worked, Facebook pages work great if you plan on spending money on ads.

There are a ton of Facebook groups out there that your practice can join, you can even start your own group.

For example – Let’s say you are a women’s medical office, Your services include OB-GYN, birthing center, primary care, pediatrician, etc. But, one special thing that your office focuses on is wanting to help new mothers with education. Vaccines, breastfeeding, car seats, home care, feeding, etc. Most of your patients come from within a 25-mile radius of your office, you can create a group on Facebook called “Tips for New Mothers YOUR CITY” in this group you can invite your current patients to join, post daily, as your group continues to grow you will post two or three times a day. You are creating a community of women that are going through the same thing and want answers. You can allow the members of the group to post questions and concerns for your practice to answer. This is a wonderful way to create trust with your patients. You can then start to mention the other services your practice offers.

In this video below, I will show you how to start a group from scratch and also how to search for groups to join.

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing is NOT dead, I know some may think that email marketing and newsletters are a waste of time, but they actually work great. It is a convenient way to stay top of mind with your patients. With social media marketing and the algorithms it’s hard to really know who has seen your organic posts, then to monitor the engagement. Now, the insights and analytics on the social media platforms tell you how many likes, comments, and shares you had on posts. With email marketing, you can actually see who opened your emails, who read them, and who clicked through to your website.

There are a few ways to incorporate email marketing into your plan:

  • Content Upgrades, also known as Free downloads. This is a piece of content you put together for your ideal patient to download, in order for them to download it they have to submit their name and email. For example – if we go back to the example in number 3, you could create:
    • Newborn checklist
    • Going home checklist
    • Breastfeeding Tips
    • New Momma Myths
    • Top 10 products to have at home for your new baby
    • etc.

This pdf would then be uploaded to your website and linked into MailChimp or Leadpages to create a landing page with the form for name and email, you can then push this out to social media, your current email list of current patients. Over time you will create quite a few content upgrades. Make a list of different checklists, ebooks, resources you can create for your patients now and then you push that out to gain new email subscriptions to grow your email list. This is an example of what a sign-up form looks like:

  • Newsletters – You can send weekly or monthly newsletters to your lists, in some cases you may have multiple lists and can customize a newsletter for each list based on your audience. It is important to understand what your audience wants to know about so you can pack your newsletters with valuable content. It doesn’t matter if you do weekly updates or monthly, what matters most is consistency. Whatever you choose to do be sure to stick with it. You can also incorporate your videos into these emails, this allows you to build those deeper relationships!

5. Blogging

Blogging serves dual purposes, it is great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and it allows you to show your expertise. When you are promoting your practice on social media your end goal is to get them back to your website to sign-up for your email list, book an appointment, or fill out paperwork, how do you give them an incentive to go back to your website?

When blogging just like everything else we have spoken about it is all about consistency. One blog per month or two, as long as you do one each month, these are no longer 300-500 word blogs, these are cornerstone blogs which means 1500+ words per blog. We recently wrote a blog on how to share your blog, in that post there is a FREE download, a blog checklist, you can download it here.

Your blogs should cover content that your audience wants to learn about, whether this is myths around vaccines, childbirth, new momma tips, etc.

This is where you tie the above 1-4 items into your blogging. In each blog post you will be:

  • Making an image you can share onto Instagram
  • Make a “teaser” video for Instagram with 3 inside tips from your blog
  • Create a longer video for IGTV about your blog
  • Create videos to go inside your blog post – you will place these videos on YouTube then insert them into your blog posts
  • You can also create a content upgrade or call to action for your readers to sign-up for your email list. Here is an example of a great blog post

Your website/blog is your hub, you want to drive traffic to your hub. Once your blog is complete you can then share it to multiple platforms with links back to your site, this helps reach new potential patients as well.

As you can see through these 5 different marketing platforms, they each allow you to grow your practice and connect with your audience on a deeper level. They all work based on consistency and planning. This is why having a digital marketing plan is so important.

If you are ready to take control of your digital marketing and want to see how to implement these tasks into your marketing plan please schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation with us today! 

How to Use Digital Marketing to Grow your Healthcare Practice