Welcome to OMD TV & Podcast show,
the place to be to grow
and scale your practice.
I created this video
called An Uphill Battle –
It’s Coming, Are You Ready?
Last year when COVID hit and advised you
and our clients to keep
advertising throughout this period.
And those who stuck with
the plan saw a huge success
in generating more enquiries
and less advertising costs.
Now it has been over a year
since the pandemic hit,
and I want to make this video
to reflect on some of the lessons learned
throughout the past year and
hopefully you could apply them
when we ever find ourselves
in a similar situation, position again.
When there’s less money coming in,
it’s a natural reaction to
hold onto what you have, right?
And not spend any more.
However, axing your marketing budget
isn’t always the wisest spending decision.
When the pandemic ends, your
patients will still be there,
right? But will they remember you?
More importantly, will they
remember how your practice acted
during this time?
Although the natural
inclination for advertisers
is to cut back on advertising
during a recession,
the practices that
maintain their ad budget
or change their messaging
can get a long-lasting boost
in enquiries and market share.
As a popular adage says,
In our recent COVID
success story interview
with ModPod Sports Podiatry,
Lance Penn, the owner said,
“you can’t take your
fingers off your pulse
when there’s always a lag
between when you market
and the results you get from it.
So to market when times are good
is actually a waste of time,
you’ve got to market when times are bad.”
There are several reasons to
advertise during a slowdown.
The first one is the noise
level in your category
can drop when competitors
cut back on their ad spend.
It also allows for advertisers
to re-position a brand
or introduce a new product or service.
The second reason is that you
can project to your patients
or client the image of practice stability
during a challenging time.
The cost of advertising drops
during recession as well.
The lower rates create a
“buyer’s market” for businesses.
Studies have shown that
direct mail advertising,
which can provide greater
short-term sales growth,
increases during a recession.
Based on the recent experience,
we saw at least a 30% drop
in advertising cost for
our clients accounts
that we are managing right now.
When marketers cut back
on their ad spending,
they lose their “share
of mind” with consumers,
with the potential of losing the current,
and possibly future enquiries or sales.
An increase in “share of voice”
typically leads to an increase
in the “share of the market”.
And an increase in the
share of market results
with an increase in profits.
So the next question is,
what will be the key marketing tool
or channel to reach your target patients
when it comes to difficult times?
I would say “content marketing”.
Now it’s certainly not the time
for intrusive advertising.
Nobody likes being sold to, right,
particularly not during
a global health crisis
and economic crash.
Marketing teams worldwide are
finding it necessary to pivot
and find new ways of attracting customers
and reaching their goals.
Content marketing has
always been an affordable
and highly effective
marketing channel or method
for businesses of all sizes and industries,
but it’s now, more critical than ever, right?
Millions of people are
confined to their homes
and many with extra time on their hands
because they are unable to work,
and they are consuming more
content online than ever before.
Pageviews for news publishers
are currently up by around 30%.
While it’s natural for people
to be consuming more news now,
the other type of content
is also thriving, too.
Social media networks are
bustling, YouTube views are up,
and people are looking
for content to comfort
and uplift them, provide
important information
about health, finances
or learn a new thing
or as a way to distract them
from what’s going on right now
and also a source of entertainment.
In short, right now is an
excellent time to double down
on your content marketing
to reach new patients
and strengthen relationships
with existing ones.
So then next question,
what type of content
marketing can you produce?
First of all, give your website
a little extra attention
because that’s the Hubspot
of all content marketing channels.
Are you embarrassed to show your website
to your prospective patients or clients?
Well, now is the perfect
time to update it.
It’s important to continually
reassess the content
on your website, the site
design, and the user experience.
Ask yourself these questions
to determine if your
website needs a refresh.
The first question is,
does it look outdated?
Is this mobile friendly?
Can users find the
information they need quickly
and in the fewest amount of clicks?
Is your site hard to
navigate and cluttered?
Does your website provide
your potential patients
with the answers that they are seeking?
Does your website content explain
your products and services
and clearly outline the benefits?
Speaking of content types,
videos are becoming the most popular type
of content nowadays.
Videos can come under the
format of the educational videos
that you are actually watching right now,
or Facebook Live, or Instagram
Story or quick short video
called Direct Message, DM of the week,
to answer most popular questions
from your prospect, your
social media followers.
And another type of
increasingly popular content
is actually podcast.
In podcast number 49,
we discussed the undeniable
benefits of podcasting
for healthcare professionals.
Do you know that up to 70%
of your website traffic
are mobile users?
If your target audience
is busy professionals
If your target audience
is busy professionals
or moms with kids or older adults,
what would be the type of content
that these types of the
audience can consume easiest?
Definitely not a lengthy article
that’s full of text, right?
Most won’t have the time or
patience to get through it all.
In today’s media noise, it’s
harder to set yourself apart
from your competitors if
you do the same things
that they are.
So, you need to stand out
by doing something different
and create a more personal connection
with your existing and
new prospective patients,
and using podcasts is
a great way to do that.
In that episode, we’ll also
discuss the six reasons
why healthcare professionals
should start podcasting,
so check it out, I’ll leave
the link in the show note.
Your patients can’t really
attend in-person seminars
or events or do you really
want to keep in touch
with your referring doctors now?
So, a webinar is a way to go.
It can be used as a valuable
lead magnet on your website
that allows your patients and prospects
to learn more about you and your expertise
and answer a lot of
frequently asked questions
that they have about your key procedures.
This will help save you a lot of time
from repeating yourself again and again,
the same information.
This is also to separate
yourself from your competitors
by doing something different
and help connect with your
prospects via visual media.
Now, if you want to learn how
to set up an automated webinar
that you can use to generate new patients
and referral on autopilot,
I’d recommend that you
check out our online course
called Automated Webinar Sales Funnel.
This is to automate your
marketing to leverage your time
and scale your practice.
The complete A to Z
blueprint for using webinars
to promote your high-value services,
fill in your calendar with bookings
and quickly put your scaled-up
profits on autopilot.
Deploying the above strategies
and uniting your whole
practice and partners
will allow you to emerge stronger
and will place your
practice or organisation
at a distinct advantage when
the current pandemic finishes,
and it will at some point.
There you have it, the indispensable tool
for you to connect and attract
new patients to your practice
and position you as the
expert in your chosen field.
I’ll leave a link to this
signature online course
in the show notes so you can sign up
and start learning from it.
Thank you so much for tuning in,
and I hope to see you
in our signature online
course webinar soon.
Bye for now.
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