The Scope of Practice Podcast
The Scope of Practice Podcast
Proven Digital Marketing Strategies for Healthcare Leaders - Shawn Miele
Episode 93 - Today’s guest is Shawn Miele. Shawn founded Advice Media (now called MyAdvice) in 2008 to help businesses connect with consumers via digital channels. Since then, his company has brought growth and prosperity to thousands of businesses by connecting them with millions of consumers. He and his team have gravitated towards helping physicians and health care practices market their practices more effectively so they can grow their business and be able to take care of more patients. Shawn firmly believes that MyAdvice's success is a direct result of helping their clients to succeed. He’s going to discuss the top marketing mishaps medical practices should avoid, and he can also offer proven digital marketing strategies that healthcare leaders can employ to help their business
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Free Resource: Conference Attendance Checklist
For today’s free resource, I’ve got a great new guide called the Conference Attendance Checklist. As 2022 starts up, a lot of the national medical societies are getting back to live, in-person conferences. If you haven’t been to a live conference in a while, you need this guide.
Meet Shawn Miele
Shawn Miele founded MyAdvice in 2008 to help businesses connect with consumers via digital channels. Since then, the company has brought growth and prosperity to thousands of businesses by connecting them with millions of consumers. Shawn firmly believes that MyAdvice's success is a direct result of helping their clients to succeed. It is their clients’ success that has led MyAdvice to be repeatedly named to the Inc. 500/5000 list.
Connect to Shawn Miele
Proven Digital Marketing Strategies For Healthcare Leaders
2022, Brent Lacey And The Scope Of Practice Podcast
The Scope of Practice Podcast
Transcript
[0:00] One of the most common challenges I hear from Physicians who are starting their business or trying to scale their business is they don't want to feel like a salesperson.
[0:08] You know we don't like talking about money or business or really anything that's.
Not MediCal with our patients I find this a very very common theme for Physicians but the truth is we have to be in the business of telling patients about us if they're ever going to find us or come in for medical advice
but there are some ways to do that without feeling sleazy or slimy believe me I know it is one of my toughest challenges really really hate the idea of selling but on today's episode we're going to walk through some marketing concepts and give you some really
practical tips that you can Implement to grow your business without feeling like a salesperson you're not selling your serving.
[0:45] But we've just got to figure out how to let people know about the great work you're doing let's kick it.
[0:52] Music.
[0:58] Welcome to the scope of practice podcast where we help busy Healthcare professionals learn to manage their businesses successfully in master their personal finances.
Now here's your host dr. Brent Lacey.
[1:12] Hey aw thanks so much for joining me for the scope of practice podcast where you can get the knowledge and resources you need to grow your leadership skills your business and your personal finances.
Welcome to episode 93.
[1:23] If you haven't already subscribe to the podcast please be sure to go ahead and hit that subscribe button right now and also hit the button at the top of the podcast player and turn on the automatic downloads
that way you can listen to these episodes anytime anywhere even if you're in a place that doesn't have good cell phone service
also don't forget the podcast is now eligible for category 1 CME credits and it's free.
[1:44] Just click the link in the podcast description or go to www.desktoplearn.com podcasts eme and you can download your CME credits for free.
[1:54] Our sponsor for today's podcast is student loan planner you may remember Travis Hornsby from episode 14 of the podcast and more recently as a speaker at the marriage and money MD
he and his team of student loan experts have helped Physicians pay off hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and do it faster than they thought they.
[2:14] So if you want to become debt free and get the Financial Security you deserve you need a plan and that's what Travis and his team can do for you.
[2:22] There have been a lot of changes to the federal student loan programs in the last couple of years and if you don't know what those changes are you you probably need to talk to an expert like Travis.
[2:30] If you'd like to connect with Travis in the student loan planner team you can go to www.desktoplearn.com / student loan planner.
Or just click the link in the podcast description and it'll take you right to his website.
[2:44] I think you'll really appreciate the expertise that Travis and his team bring to bear in order to help you crush your student loans and regain the Financial Freedom you deserve.
[2:52] Again that's www.the scope of practice.com / student loan planner or just click the link in the podcast description.
[3:00] Today's guest is Sean melee Shawn founded advice media now called my advice in 2008 to help businesses connect with consumers via digital channels.
And since then the company has brought growth and prosperity to thousands of businesses by connecting them
with millions of consumers he and his team have gravitated toward helping Physicians and Healthcare practices Market their practices more effectively so they can grow their business and be able to take care of more patients Sean firmly believes that my advice is success
is a direct result of helping their clients to succeed.
He's going to discuss the top marketing mishaps that medical practices should avoid and he can also offer proven digital marketing strategies that Healthcare leaders can employ to help their business.
[3:43] So without further Ado here's my conversation with Sean Mealy.
Hey y'all I am super excited to welcome my guests today to the scope of practice podcast
this is Shaun melee founder and CEO of my advice a formerly known as advice media
and I am just really pumped to have him on the show Sean thanks so much for joining us today.
[4:08] Brent thanks so much for having me we're huge fans of what you do with scope of practice it's a great much-needed service for all your fellow Physicians out there.
Well you know it's fun to talk to folks who are genuinely experts in their field especially when we start talking about things that Physicians don't know a whole lot about I mean that's the whole point of the show is to find
ways for us to become better business owners better leaders you know better spouses better masters of our personal finance and I find that
being able to talk to people in other Industries
is really valuable me we've had folks on the show that have been you know really great at social media that are Physicians but they don't do it for a living they've gotten good but there's there's a big difference between amateurs.
Getting good at a craft and you know genuinely spending your entire life honing that craft is just a very different thing so I love having people on that.
Really know what they're talking about so I'm super excited to have you on because that now I want to just jump right in I want to ask you for starters.
[5:12] Let's talk a little bit about the why of marketing just to kind of set the stage because I think this is one of those things that a lot of Physicians here this idea and they're like that's four
that's for someone else to deal with that's a that's a marketing department which a lot of a lot of small practices don't have or it's it's well that's fine for other people but who's got the time I'm busy you know but like Simon sinek says we got to start
with Y and one of the things that I thought was very interesting I was perusing your website you know a couple months ago and
one of the things that you would read the you guys had said on your website I thought was very interesting is that when times are good you should advertise and when times are bad you must advertise and I think a lot of us are tempted to do the opposite when we've got business streaming and we can save money
by not marketing aggressively and when times are bad we feel like we have to save money and the advertising budgets one of the first things to get cut so why should we be advertising in good times and bad
you know that is just a fantastic way to start the podcast right because if you think about when times are booming everything seems too easy everything's going great
you know it feels like you know work is not really work and people are just coming into the practice and in things are easy
but it's actually at that point in time when you're setting the foundation for the future.
[6:26] You know a lot of what we do is really a longer-term strategy
if you think about things that really move the needle for you in today's world things like reviews SEO social media you can't just flip a switch on that stuff
you can flip a switch on paid advertising you can dial that up very quickly you can dial it back down but a lot of the things that
really impact you over time they take a long time to build and that's why you should be doing it when times are good you are in Dallas
how many gastroenterologist are there in the Dallas area
so there are something like 180 to 220 somewhere around there it's a tremendously large number
so 100 and something gastroenterologist you know that some of those guys are doing this.
Right yeah and you know it's interesting that I've actually talked to some folks here on the show who are
as a matter of fact we had dr. Brian Doric from Florida on last year to talk about some of his efforts and he's in a very large
metropolitan area and just through sheer force of will and just kind of cutting it out.
[7:38] He's topping the charts in his area in terms of patient reviews and he said that that's translated into unbelievable amounts of business growth for him
so I listen to that podcast and that was an excellent podcast I would recommend that all of the listeners if they haven't listened to it.
Go back and listen to that because he was really good and spot-on but you know that's the point
somebody out there is doing it probably multiple people are out there doing it so if you're not doing it you're actually falling behind even though times are good.
Yeah absolutely and just because we don't know how to do it I would suggest that you're going to probably tell us that's not a reason.
It's not doing it it's a reason to learn how to do it it's a reason to hire someone to do it it's not a reason to not do it is that right.
Absolutely right if you're not doing it you're falling behind you're not keeping up with the competition and this world has gotten very competitive for all of us.
[8:30] So one of the things I was I'd be interested to know just sort of your overall philosophy on marketing is it is it a singular idea is it just this this one.
Cog in the wheel it's like a single brick in your wall that your building or is it more like
the mortar that's holding all the bricks together is it the idea of advertising or is it a multi-faceted thing that involves lots of different parts of your organization
it is absolutely multifaceted there are so many different elements that have to work together.
But it's not as complex as it sounds so even though there are lots of different parts.
If there is an overarching theme that overarching theme can be applied in all the different marketing techniques and marketing venues that you want to be in.
[9:13] So you can have that overarching theme in your website you can have it in your social media you can have it in your SEO and your paid advertising.
It all links together but it is multi-part
so when Physicians come to my advice what are some of the pain points that they are trying to remedy I mean I Can Only Imagine.
You've got to get the what sound like the most Elementary questions like when someone comes to me for swallowing troubles they don't come in saying you know doc I've been having some dysphasia lately
they come in going doc I feel like I'm choking to death all the time what's going on.
Right and I got to figure out what they're actually trying to try to talk about so what are some of the pain points that Physicians bring to you they're like they're like Shawn you got to help me solve this.
[9:54] Yes so we can go through a whole list of them I'll tell you at the beginning before we even go through number one that it all boils down to getting patients in the door getting Revenue to the practice.
Right that's what all of this is ultimately about because Physicians are these the ones we work with their business owners right they are concerned about making
payroll they're concerned about paying their mortgages and this is about getting Revenue into practice getting patients in the practice
yeah and in the thing that I think is really important for us to highlight there because I know a lot of Physicians and I think not so many that listen to this podcast but a lot of Physicians that are out there that are
you know maybe not.
[10:35] Excited about this idea or not engaged in this idea I think a lot of times people feel almost kind of slimy when they start thinking about doing things like this like.
We gotta we gotta lure patients in we gotta we gotta trap them we got to get them to come in and there can be an aspect of that if your intentions are not well-founded but the truth is that if we don't.
Do this well if we don't run a business effectively
like you said we can't make payroll we can't take care of our employees we can't take care of our patients we can't expand our services to take better care of our patients we can't hire more people to allow us to take care of even more.
We can't help our Primary Care docs and are referring docs that are out there so we have to pay attention to this stuff not so that we can
make a lot of money by having a good business we want to create and sustain a thriving business so that
we can use that to take care of as many people as possible so paying attention to and mastering these facets of business becomes really important for that goal
yeah it sure does and I couldn't have said it any better than you just said it I think I told you before that my sister and her husband are both Physicians and one of the things that she has said over and over again to me is that she wished.
That she had had some of this training in medical school because it would have helped her tremendously in her practice yeah and it's one of those things that.
[11:56] I think some medical schools may eventually get wise to the idea that this is.
Important and valuable I know of a couple that are doing that the dental schools interesting Lee do this a lot better than medical schools do because the vast vast majority of Dennis will go into some form of Private Practice after.
They get out of dental school that is the norm whereas for Physicians we're all over the map some people go into the pharmaceutical industry
some people go to work for a big academic center some people go to work for a big hospital corporation like Kaiser Permanente or something like.
[12:29] And so this is one of the things that I hope the med schools get wise to eventually but in the meantime we're going to keep pumping out great shows like this to help coach people how to do it so
I think one of the ways that we can do this that I would be very interested to sort of set the stage as maybe if we can kind of have you coaches through some common
problems that you find in the marketing plans or lack of plans if you will of various Physicians like of people that come to you and things that you commonly see and maybe coach us on how to fix that
sure absolutely so the number one big mistake that we see and it's the worst mistake you can make and it's also the one we see most frequently is having a lame
website your website is the foundation of everything you do today so your website has to be attractive it has to draw people in you know there have been a lot of studies on this and.
[13:23] Research shows that you have between two and four seconds to grab somebody's attention when they go to your website and if you don't grab their attention within two to four seconds they leave and they go look for somebody else
so you could have a great referral but if you have a schlocky website.
Then that referral won't get confirmed that person will go look for somebody else who has a more professional image yeah and there it's interesting when I was
first starting the scope of practice I met with a website designer.
After I spent something like 40 or 50 hours trying to design my own website for it
I was working on a budget trying to keep myself from going into debt for what was at least at the time a hobby and I watched a bunch of website you know tutorials and did some online courses and spend something like 40 or 50 hours designing my first website and it was laborious and terrible both
it's like well this is kind of the opposite of what I'm going for and so
it was it was helpful for me to go and talk to some of one of the things that was really interesting when I talked to Joel the guy that designed the site when we were kind of going through everything and he showed me his first design as prototype design for the site
I was a little bit worried about it actually I was like dude this looks so good it's so professional it's so clean I mean does it.
[14:39] Kind of take away from the sort of Scrappy Underdog you know kind of you know bootstrapping it mentality and he's like here's the thing if you want people to take you seriously and take it a professional thing you need to have a professional look to it.
And you know I have had so many people compliment the scope of practice website which I don't take any credit for his I'll Joel and his team at notion but you know
the number of people that have commented on it is was has been staggering to me but it really does make a huge difference
yes it does and you know here's the fact that not many people know either is that a website tends to lose efficacy after about two years you know I was talking with my daughter's they were here for Thanksgiving and they were telling me the skinny jeans are out
that now you want the flared bottom I don't know if you've heard that from your wife or not but this is apparently the new style and skinny jeans are out and websites are a little bit like that too.
You know what is in Vogue one year two years later might not be in Vogue anymore and conversion elements that work two years ago
might not work anymore because too many people are using them and then technology changes also so the efficacy of a website starts to decline after two years and so really you ought to be looking at getting a new website
every two to three years I mean two years is what we recommend.
[15:57] But three years Max really so it's this is not something that you can even just do once and set it and forget it you have to keep refreshing it so another thing that
I've found that that I think I'd be interested in your take on we had dr. J Peterson on the show on episode seven last year so if people haven't listened to that go back and listen episode 7 with dr. Peterson he is the forget he has an awesome title and I can never remember it's like chief of
teaching or chief of something like that for story brand and one of the things that he talked about.
[16:29] Length on the podcast was the idea that in addition to being catchy and nice looking and professional your website needs to be very clear about what you do and after we had that episode I started looking at various
websites and recognizing oh my goodness I've been looking at this website for 30 seconds.
I don't know what this company does that's not good so how have you seen that be a problem for physician websites as well
absolutely right the content has to be answering the questions that people ask in fact we tell people if you want the absolute best content you could get on your website
sit down
write down the 10 to 15 most frequently asked questions that your practice and right answers to those questions and you will have the best content your website could ever have
so and that's another problem that I've seen you talk about at least on your website is lack of high-quality content being another mistake that a lot of physician marketing strategies have so can you talk to us a little bit about that what does that look like.
[17:31] Sure we'll content is really important for two reasons it's important for the consumer.
The consumer is coming to your website looking for an answer they have a problem right there stomach hurts they are afraid they have colon cancer they don't they don't know
but they're looking for answers and so they have questions so answering those questions is critically important for the consumer on the other hand it's also important for search engines.
You part of the reason you have a website is you want to be found you want people to find you and search engines direct people to your website so.
What do you think Google's favorite website in the whole wide world of all the millions of websites what do you think their favorite website is in the whole wide world Wikipedia.
Yes excellent dude that's so you are good because not many people get that right but it is Wikipedia
it's their favorite website because it has the richest best content in the world so what you want your website to be is you want your website to be the Wikipedia.
[18:29] For your profession in your location.
So of all the gastroenterologist in Dallas you want your website to be the best the Wikipedia of that area
gotcha silver someone looks up gastroenterologist near me or or gut doctor near me or something like that you want to be the person at the top absolutely yes you do.
Okay so how do you figure out what those
questions are then because it's going to be different from OBGYN so Orthopedics to ENT to Podiatry so how do we figure out what those questions are is it just based on what our own patients are already asking or are we doing some kind of
search engine optimization process to figure that stuff out so it's both you know you will have a set of procedures that you like to concentrate on
most Physicians do so if an orthopedic might specialize in knee or spine.
And those are the questions that are most relevant for that physician for that practice right so
those questions are what we should focus on when we create content and then we can marry that up with what are the most popular Search terms that look for that procedure
so if it's a knee replacement if it's a shoulder replacement whatever it happens to be you know we can find the relevant Search terms and incorporate those into the text.
[19:50] So we'll incorporate them into the text into the title tags into the images
all of that kind of works together to bring traffic to the site all right so number one we said Lamer inferior website number to lack of high quality content.
So here's another one I've seen you guys talked about in some of your
blog post which people definitely need to go check this out because you got some great great stuff their local listings mess
what is that that is what almost every physician practice we ever talked to has that there are nobody really knows this but there are tens of directories out on the internet that some of them you've heard of some of them you've never heard of Health grades is when you've heard of if you're a physician.
Right and the yellow pages is one that's actually quite important that you've probably heard of but there are lots that you haven't either and they all have your information.
And they have your information because there are these things called Data aggregators they go out and they just comb the internet for data.
And they plug it in and they actually push it out to these directories so even if you haven't gone to one of these directories and filled out that information on your own.
[20:56] It's probably there because the data aggregators have pushed something out and what happens is that that information is generally
not the same across these directories and that's a problem for two reasons it's a problem first for consumers
directories actually send business to your practice they send consumers to your practice people find your phone number they find your address they find your website address on these directories and so you want that information to be correct so that consumers can find you and you can help them
they also send signals to the search engine so the search engines look at all of those directories compare the information across directories.
If that information is the same.
[21:36] All those directories then it sends a strong signal to the search engines that this is a valid business and that this is valid information about the business
and because all of that is valid we feel confident presenting the search engine engine results to people who look for it if the information is different
and let's say that maybe you've moved offices and there's an old address and a new address and those are in conflict or
you have two different phone numbers once an 800 number ones a local number those are in conflict.
Write those kinds of things will send bad signals to the search engine they will feel less confident in the information they're seeing and therefore they won't present it
where they won't present it as highly interesting here's here's another one I just thought of this now I've got now I'm going to make a note to myself right now to go in
check and see if this is all cracked on my own stuff but I could see a situation where you have your office let's say in an outpatient
building somewhere and then you have a hospital where you cover and I could see where some of the directories would have you listed by the hospital address in the hospital phone number.
[22:45] And some of the directors who have you listed by whatever your outpatient office is and the both technically correct but they're sending different signals like if someone is searching for your name.
Specifically half the directory say one thing half the directors say the other thing.
And even though they're both technically correct they don't match up and you could get penalized for that as I write absolutely you would definitely get penalized for that.
[23:05] Okay great so now I have to go check on that tomorrow or you can just sign up for our local power product there you go there you go I like it I like it
okay so local listings mess that's a big one okay here's another one that I found that you guys had talked about before and this one I'm absolutely fascinated to get the whys and the wherefores behind this from you
is failing to utilize paid ads like Google ads to boost your SEO
I don't know what it is maybe I'm just maybe I'm just really tuned against advertising like I feel so
I don't know I feel like I need to be so dedicated to not succumb to advertising that anytime I'm scrolling through if I search for something let's say four
store or something that and then the first thing that comes up is a Google ad for that store and the fourth thing that comes up is.
The store's actual website but not the ad I scroll down and I click on that store so I'm very assiduously avoiding
clicking on advertisements but from what you guys write about it sounds like
that's a mistake that a lot of Physicians make is just not engaging with a with Google ads and things like that is that correct
yeah well it turns out that is as much as 50 to 60 percent.
[24:19] Of people will click on the add they no way no way 50 to 60 percent yeah.
Yep oh my God the same on every page that's sorted upper end of the bar but you know if you're in a competitive market for a competitive procedure and you there are lots of ads running at the top.
You can guarantee that fifty to sixty percent of the time somebody will click on one of those ads
oh my gosh that's huge that's that's a tremendous percentage of your of your traffic plus if it fifty percent of people are clicking on the ad that is going to increase the internet footprint and the traffic.
[24:52] Count for your website and that that by itself is going to tend to make the website itself also rank more highly right yes you're absolutely correct and that's a great distinction can I go into a little bit of technical SEO here for a second
absolutely okay so you know Google does a very good job at keeping its
organic SEO team separate from its paid advertising team and they will tell you that there is no direct relationship
between the amount you spend on advertising and your search engine rankings in technically that's true but you just hit one of the indirect relationships where paid advertising
does have an influence
right the more clicks you get on that website the more traffic that website gets the stronger signal it is to Google and so they tend to elevate it over time in your organic search engine rankings
the other thing that happens and this is really more of a study in Psychology but it's fascinating if you are advertising and you get a you get a paid advertising listing and you get an organic
you get about a ten percent lift in click-through because you have two slots there.
[26:01] And that is that is really more about consumer psychology they see you twice
they're more likely to click so you get about a ten percent lift so it can have an impact on your organic traffic but it is an indirect impact in Google's very clear that
there is no direct relationship but those indirect relationships do exist well and that makes sense I don't know how.
[26:23] You would possibly be able to keep it completely separate so I mean it just it makes sense that there would be some some commingling there
okay so let's look at another one and we've talked about this on other episodes I know we talked about it on the episode with Justin and Kelly not
last year but I think it's worth mentioning again like I said we talked about this with dr. Doric and episode 49 as well.
[26:46] And that is deficient reviews not having enough reviews of your of your docs and of your business so
I gotta tell you this is one I'm kind of came late to the party on this one because I remember very deliberately when I was in residency and fellowship and early in practice saying you know I'm not going to
I'm not going to do that I'm not going to go trying to scam for reviews and trying to you know trying to get as many reviews as possible if I'm doing a good job then patients want to review that then that's fine but I'm just going to focus on doing a good job
and that was clearly a mistake I mean 90% of people find their doctors online before they ever come into the
to the shop so I mean everyone sees those reviews but it also matters for
SEO so there's a lot of reasons why that why reviews are important but maybe you could talk about that first off why are we not doing that very well and then second off why is it so important for us to have lots of great patient reviews yeah so I think you know the primary reason people don't do it well is
most people are afraid to ask
right there is this stigma people just are worried about it they don't want to seem like they're being promotional they don't want to be self-promotional and so they're afraid to ask.
[27:54] The reality is sometimes you're going to get a no but most people.
[27:58] Will be amenable to at least listening right some people won't post because they don't want their name out there but a lot of people if they like you they'll go out and I'll write something nice about you and so all you have to really do is ask.
And if you do that you'll get reviews we've seen it time and time again the history behind reviews is really fascinating and I'd like to take two seconds and just talk about it because I've been in this business a long time.
In this is one of the fastest quickest changes I've ever seen you know when you look at sort of what's happened to reviews in the last four or five it's done a complete 180
four or five years ago fewer than 20% of people on the internet trusted internet reviews now 9 and 10 people not just trust them but actively look for them for verification that somebody is good so even if you get a referral.
[28:47] Nine out of 10 of those people are going to look for reviews to confirm that referral for them
so they become a critically important part of every single Physicians toolkit and you should really have great reviews and they're really simple to get
yeah I know for our practice we actually have it integrated as part of our
electronic medical record system so we've got and I don't know exactly how it works but they've got some algorithm by which the patients will get sent a text message I think or maybe it's an email
after a visit saying hey you know please let us know if you have any questions we're really excited to get a chance to take care of you by the way we would love to hear what you think about us if you don't mind giving us some feedback you know here's a link to Google here's a link to ZocDoc or health grades are whatever the click rate on that isn't going to be super high but if you're a primary care doc you're seeing
I don't know say 30 patients a day so that's 150 patients a week 600 patients a month you know seven thousand and change per year factoring in vacations I mean like you don't have to have a huge click-through rate to get a decent number of reviews and since nobody's doing it you don't have to do that many to be at the top of the game
that's exactly right you nailed it and so you know it's really interesting that you talk about that integrated system because that is one way to go in its really easy
right it does all the work for you it can put a drip campaign out there you can text you can email and by the way you should text you'll get a much higher response rate with text messages then you will with email our clients get about.
[30:17] Ten times better response rate by a text message and they do via.
But if you don't want to spend that kind of money there are other Solutions out there to that are simple that would take you five minutes a day at the end of the day to upload and.
In send out and put in the same kind of a drip campaign so it can be very very.
Cost efficient and it can take very little time and it's something that everybody really should do because it's critically important today
nice okay so let's move on to the next one so we talked about deficient reviews number 6 that I found just looking around your stuff you call it the social Wasteland which
I feel like that is just social media social media just Is A Wasteland in a lot of ways there's a lot of great things about social media but.
There is just a lot of really bad stuff about it too but but certainly that is an area that we need.
Embrace I think if we're going to be successful in our marketing campaign I know that something you guys have talked about a lot so.
So talk about the social Wasteland what is it and how do we navigate ourselves out of it yeah so social Wasteland definitely has multiple meanings this kind of a funny term which is why we use it but.
But you know a lot of practices don't do social media.
[31:28] And you know when I say social media for medical practices it's really Facebook and Instagram.
Those are the two that really matter you know potential patients aren't finding you on Twitter they're not finding you on LinkedIn those platforms are not finding you on you know any of the other sort of emerging
platforms but but those two are important.
And they have you know very big user bases and they have lots of followers and it's a great way to connect with people in a personal way
that you know you can't really do on a website so when people are on social media they're really looking for they're looking for information.
And they're looking for personality and so you know there are some things that companies like advice media my advice can do for you and there are some things we can't there's some things that you really just have to do on your own
at the practice level and so personalize it with it's the doctors birthday.
Or you know you've had a patient who's been with you for 10 years and it's his or her birthday
write those kinds of you know fun sort of personal things that show who you are and what's important to you you know if your local high school football team just won the conference Championship right put something out about that it doesn't have to be.
[32:44] All medical information all the time in fact it's all medical information all the time
you're really turn people off so you should have some medical information combined with some
personal information that really lets people see that you're warm you're a real person and connect with you
nice what do you think about some of the newer platforms like Snapchat or Tik-Tok things like that so we haven't seen any value in those platforms yet you know if you really want to be you know sort of heavily
out there and heavily Promotional and I don't mean promotional in a bad way promotional can be good to you know you could use a platform like Twitter.
That has a lot of followers and you can really do a lot with that but really Facebook and Instagram where the two that we've seen move the needle for people
no it's that's really good okay so let's move on to another one that I think is probably
the kind of thing that people when they hear this are going to go well yeah duh that's obvious but and I think a lot of I think most websites are pretty hip to this and really even just sites like WordPress or pretty good
add helping people navigate this and that's being a mess on the mobile devices right so I don't know what percentage of websites or navigated to on mobile devices but it's got to be High I mean
I'm we are on our phones
all the ever-loving time especially as Physicians but are all of our patients are basically everybody has a smartphone the days of you know those Nokia bullet phones and the Motorola razors that's pretty much gone everyone's got an iPhone.
[34:14] And an Android and so everyone's on the internet all the time.
And there's nothing that's more frustrating than having a website that is optimized for your computer shrunk down to a 7 inch screen and you're sitting here with you know
like binoculars and you know a slide rule trying to figure out how to navigate yourself around this screen is a huge pain in the neck but you know a lot of places have made it a lot easier to do that but that's still something that I see some of the older websites
just have not brought that into the 21st century so can you talk about that a little bit
sure absolutely and that would be the primary reason to upgrade an older website the site security concerns is that it doesn't work well on mobile so more than fifty percent of all
website interactions today take place on a mobile device so think about it this way you know let's say that you just moved to town right you're new in town.
And you know we meet on the side of a soccer field because both our kids play soccer and you say to me you say hey Shawn I'm new in town
I need a physician I need a gastroenterologist who do you use and I tell you I use Brent Lacey.
[35:18] Right what's the first thing you were going to do when I tell you that you're inside that in a Google Search right and you're going to be on the side of a soccer field you're going to have your phone you're going to do that Google search on your phone
right and that is why more than 50% of interactions are on phones today.
So it's really critically important if you don't have a good experience on a mobile device then you're losing more than half of your potential business right there.
And it's so easy and you like you said earlier you have to 24 seconds for people to you know buy into the idea that you're a website they want to stick with so if you're a slow loading website or if you get or if someone opens up your website and they're like.
Scroll scroll scroll I can't figure out what this guy's about whatever I'll just go backwards to go back to Google search what was the second thing right and I skip it you know we just have no attention span.
[36:07] Absolutely totally so mobile is mobile is critical for sure.
[36:12] Yeah and speaking of the Google search that was another thing that that came up when I was doing some some research on the topic and I forget the exact percentages but it's something like
96 90 90 90 plus percent of people who select something as the selective website off of a Google search selected off the front page
of Google other Google service like the first 10 items you get to page
to and I think it's down to three or four percent you get to page three and it's less than a percent so you pretty much need to find yourself on page 1 and preferably in the top three of any Google search to have any hope.
[36:49] Of driving any traffic to that page is that right that is absolutely correct and your numbers are good you know your stuff so that's very impressive.
[36:57] One of the things that I think is important to consider though is you know a lot of times when people think about being ranked on the first page they want to be ranked for
one you know it's very specific term like enter ologist right that is the most frequently searched term you know we looked at
enter ology today and it turns out that there are over 300,000 searches for enter ologist over 300,000 for enter ology.
Right but one of the things to keep in mind is that a lot of times when people are using a generic term like that they're starting primary research.
So you really do want to be on the first page for those terms if you can be there they tend to be super competitive.
And if you are in a large metropolitan area and you have lots of people going for that you're going to have to spend a lot of money to be ranked for the very generic terms like that
a lot of times it's easier to get on the first page for more complex terms so
terms that have multiple words we call them phrases right search phrases instead of Search terms we call the long tail keywords in speech comes into this to because people are starting to talk into their phones Search terms so you might have something like.
[38:11] I need a doctor because my stomach hurts or find a gastroenterologist near me you know these multi-word phrases.
Can be a lot
closer to conversion so when somebody uses a general term like enter ologist they're starting primary research typically when they're using a long tail word
that's very specific they're much closer to wanting to actually book an appointment and so those will have higher conversion rates so even though they don't have as much traffic.
Because they have higher conversion rates they could do just as well in some cases they can even do better so
that's really important to keep in mind you know when you're talking about first page rankings also pay attention to those long tail keyword to those complex phrases because those can actually be quite good for your business
gosh okay so then you know for so if I was a urologist let's say then I might want to I might not be able to rank for
Urology in the Atlanta area that may be really really tough to get but maybe I could rank for something like how do I know if I have a kidney stone.
For when do I need to get when do I need to start screening for prostate cancer or something like that absolutely yes those are great examples.
[39:24] Awesome okay and that's not right there those are titles of blog post right there right how do I how do I know when I need to start screening for prostate cancer I mean
any urologist can write an article about that in about 12 seconds because it's we've all given that speech to our well I say we I'm not a neurologist but you know I mean every year ologist is giving that speech to their patients.
[39:44] So that ought to be something easy to do if you have 15 questions like that just just pick you could even do that in the course of like a week or something just just go through and
you know right down on a list you know what was the first question your patient asked you or what was the what was one of the big questions your patients asked you and then just make a list of all those and write one blog post
answering each question and throw it up on your website and they're not going to all be top hits but some of them will be and the more you do the the more traction you'll start to build
absolutely and that is the greatest way to build content on your website is to answer those common questions and get it out there for the search engines and the consumers to see
okay so now we've got people that are coming to the website right so we've mastered the mobile we've gotten on social we are using.
[40:33] Google ads effectively we've got our local listings figured out we've got high quality content our website is awesome okay so now we've got people in there they're looking at us now how do we convert them from visitors
to patients like are or clients like how do we get them to actually go from just browsing to calling to make an appointment what's that process look like.
Yeah so that is you know can be super complex and those conversion tactics change over time I mean there are three basic
things that we put in play on a website right it's your phone number it's contact forms in different locations and different types of forms and it's chat.
[41:15] And so you should be doing all three of those things but the way that you use them
can change over time so the location of the contact form for example the way that chat interacts with people you know the most chats today are artificial intelligence so the good ones are artificial intelligence so they can run 24/7.
And you can you know sort of learn as you go what works better so check it's better and better for your website over time those things all you know keep changing
but the three key elements are phone number contact forms and chat
gotcha okay so so we need to make it easy for people to get in contact with us and that makes a lot of sense and you know I can only
imagine how frustrating it would be to go through all this work if you're ready if you're a customer you know if you're if you're at a store like an online store and you're look at all your these reviews you're like yeah great.
[42:09] I got this this is definitely what I want I've seen all these people that are super happy with this product is fantastic let's buy it and then there's no way for you to actually buy it like well
what the heck okay well I guess I'll go buy on Amazon right so so if you got to have a way for people to contact you I like it
yeah and that in that that contact has to be super simple right if it's a form it should be very prominent in the peace that somebody is reading.
If it's chat it should always be available on the website in a discreet manner down in the bottom right-hand corner your phone number should always be in your header
these things should always be visible so that nobody ever has to look for them and that's part of the beauty of the of the simplicity.
[42:52] So the two things that keep people from doing things in general are going to be time and money
and Physicians frankly don't have a lot of time and a lot of us are pretty tight-fisted and don't
you don't want to spend money on stuff unless we're fairly confident it's going to be a high return on the investment so how do we get started with this stuff this is the kind of thing that we should be trying to DIY it and try to learn as much as we can and just kind of you know go create some websites and go create Facebook as social accounts and different things or is this something that it's complex enough that we need to be thinking about
hiring a professional to do it for us or does it just depend on the situation
so you know it's really not that complex and you know most Physicians I've ever met are very bright people and they could figure out how to do this and but I think the person who actually you know can do this and do it well
and be a good physician is a rare breed you know they do exist out there but it takes a lot of time to do this well and most Physicians don't have the time and that's really what it boils down to it you know if you want to if you want to do it yourself.
[43:58] You could probably figure it out but you have to dedicate a tremendous amount of time it takes away from your practice or takes away from your family or takes away from your hobbies and its really a full-time job.
You know we have you know years and years of having
perfected this in not just us there are other people out there who have perfected it to and who are good at it so you know I'm not trying to advertise my advice here but
but there are people out here who do it as a profession unless you are going to do it and do it to the same standard
you should hire it out to somebody else like I wouldn't give myself a colonoscopy that would be a total disaster.
[44:37] And you shouldn't do this either you know unless you're going to go through all the training and be really really good at it
yeah and I tend to agree you know we had we just did an episode here not too long ago with Brian Bradley talking about asset protection
I've seen people try to do that kind of stuff on LegalZoom and things like that and it's like okay
yeah you can do it that doesn't mean it's to be done and so I tend to agree with you that there's there's a lot of value in having someone who's professional
do this and as we've just discussed if we're not doing this effectively we are definitely going to be losing out and I know I've talked to a lot of Physicians
not to stereotype here but frankly physicians in older Generations that don't Embrace this kind of thing as much as I think they need to
and you know they'll say things like well social media that's just that's for the kids I'm not really into that kind of stuff it's like you know look.
Ten years ago if you're a urologist or if you're you know a neural a neurologist or something then you're basically 100% reliant on your referring Physicians but these days.
[45:40] Anybody can just self-refer I mean I get self-referrals for abdominal pain all the time now.
It's something like 25 or 30 percent of my patients are coming in not having seen a primary care doc there just Googling.
My stomach hurts who can help me in this area and you know they just they come in so.
[45:59] You know it's a great example of a long tail keyword by the way yeah and.
The you know the truth is that whoever is on the side of technology is going to win in the end I mean s i mean technology is advancing and if we don't ride the wave we're just going to get crushed by it.
[46:13] So well if people are interested in learning more about this kind of stuff and.
Maybe starting the process and they're going okay there's a lot more to this than I thought there was I think I need to talk to someone and get some more advice what would be a way that people could contact you and continue the conversation
yeah so the best thing is to go to our website my advice.com Mya DV i.c.e. it's got a plethora of educational information.
Right and start learning you know there's a lot of stuff there you know you can do it for free it's it's a really great spot to go and just kind of figure out the lay of the land and.
You know if you want to contact us from there it's very easy we use all the same conversion tools on our own website that we recommend for.
For a physician so you can chat with us you can email us you can call us we're here to help.
[47:01] Yeah I highly recommend their site even if you don't end up using them for something just go and learn from their stuff trust me their content is fabulous
and so you can learn a tremendous amount of marketing just by spending a few hours on their blogs and.
Just figuring out what are some of the mistakes that other people have made because I guarantee you're going to go through and look and go oh I don't know if I'm doing that or not so I'm definitely definitely go check that out for sure
well that was Sean meal he's the founder and CEO of my advice formally advise media like I said be sure to go check out that website connect with Shawn he's fantastic they really know their stuff Sean thanks again so much for joining us on the scope of practice podcast today we really appreciate it
Brent thanks for having me it was good to be here.
[47:41] Music.
[47:47] I never used to care about marketing until I started creating this podcast a couple of years ago I always used to think about marketing and sales as inherently sleazy Endeavor but the thing I've come to learn is that it's really not.
[48:00] Think about it this way if you had a cure for cancer you would see it as your moral obligation to tell as many people about it as possible.
[48:08] Well your business is no different you have a service to offer that people need and that will genuinely help them you can and should be proud about being able to offer that service
and I hope this conversation with Sean will give you some ideas for how to think about marketing and that you use those ideas to help you build an even better business than you have right now.
[48:27] For today's free resource I've got a great guide call the conference attendance checklist as 2022 starts picking up a lot of the national medical societies are getting back to live in-person conferences.
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[48:55] Just go to www.desktoplearn.com conference checklist or click the link in the podcast description to download it for free.
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[50:15] The podcast description will also have all the links to the other resources we mentioned during the show thanks so much for joining me on the scope of practice podcast I'll see you next time.
[50:25] Thanks for listening to the scope of practice podcast at www.viki scope of practice doc.
[50:33] Music.