Marketing Series (Part 4): Lighter Fluid and Paid Ads in Business

This podcast will help you to become more confident with your patients , more successful in your practice or business and a leader in pelvic health , and we're going to have some fun along the way . Join us as we rise together .

We're Jesse and Nicole Cozin , founders of pelvic sanity physical therapy and the creators of the pelvic PT puzzle , and this is Pelvic PT Rising .

So we're going to go through Google ads , facebook ads , yelp , print advertising all of that different stuff where we can be tempted to spend money . Sometimes it's a good idea , sometimes it is not . We're going to be talking all of that and , nicole , so excited for this cohort number two of your recta course that is closing today . Doors closed , yeah .

I usually make a course when I either get a ton of questions or I see something in our field that is just really needs to be addressed , and I've talked about this before .

But long story short is that I cannot tell you how many times I've seen someone from either the art of town program or spoken with someone with a remote consultation program or in my mentorship of my staff , or you know , they've been taught somewhere else and they come to pelvic sanity and we have to revisit why rectal treatment should not be just an afterthought .

It should be a part of a comprehensive pelvic floor rehab assessment and when you start to look at it like that , then I can guarantee you you will get different , better and longer lasting results for your patients . Great end of story . It is just so important .

There have been so many times where what I have thought is going on or what I thought I was going to feel in a rectal exam is actually not what's happening in the pelvic floor or vice versa .

I found something there that I could not feel transvaginally and it's just such a super important part of our tools that we can use for a thorough evaluation and I feel like most of the time we are using it way later in the plan of care than we should , either as a complete afterthought , as a Hail Mary , as a well , I guess we could try this and you

presented to the patient super shitty and you're getting weird and they're weird about it now .

And now it's like , well , we can just check it one time real quick , and then you're not even really assessing there because you're trying to get out so quick and it's just like a big , huge clusterfuck and , honestly , like I get really passionate about this because it's half of the pelvic floor .

There are so many structures there that you can feel better if you have a patient with that access point and certainly if you have patients with two access points of the pelvic floor , then you've got to use both of them for the most thorough assessment .

So get the damn course , and I think the one of the things that's really good about it as well is that it's not a colorectal diagnosis course at all . In fact , you want to get that . Go to some other course for that , like that's not what we're talking about . We review that stuff for sure .

I always review anatomy in my courses , so there's anatomy review in there . But it's how to talk to your patients about it , how to bring it up , what are you doing ?

And then it also goes through a ton of diagnoses that we see every single day some colorectal in nature and most of them not Vaginismus , vulvodinia , interstitial cystitis and goes through the clinical reasoning , the anatomical reasons and the actually how-tos of why you should be considering a trans rectal assessment of the pelvic floor in each of those different diagnoses

. I've never seen anything like it done like that . It's so important to reframe it because if you learn it like that , then that's literally how you present it to your patient . Game over your patience . Be getting better .

But we make the comparison of marketing as a fire , and building a well proportioned fire is going to give you light and heat for a much longer time than one that's out of whack . So in our first part here we talked about the marketing logs , the things that take a long time to catch but then are super powerful for your business .

They kick off light and heat for a long period of time with minimal effort . We talked last week about kindling the stuff that will burn fast , burn quick but also burns out , and now you need to go and redo that . You need to get more people there

. Today we're going to be talking about lighter fluid , and for me , lighter fluid is basically paid advertising . You're paying to get in front of new eyeballs , someone else's audience , you're getting out of what you could do by yourself and you're introducing this kind of external accelerant onto your fire . And whether we talk about Google ads , facebook ads , yelp .

We'll talk about all of that stuff , but that's where we're talking about with lighter fluid , and I think the first thing I just want to say . There's a lot of , I think , misinformation out there , a misassumption that you need to be doing this . To be honest , I think your goal should be not needing to do this at all , especially if you're a solopreneur .

You can absolutely build an incredible practice without this , even if you have one or two employees . That's why I love the lighter fluid analogy . Would you rather have a fire that needs a periodic infusion of lighter fluid or would you rather have a fire that's just burning on its own and you don't need to keep pouring lighter fluid on it ?

And lighter fluid is best when it is working with a base of logs and kindling , and then it's something that kind of tops that off that maybe it's something that you use when you've got a new hire who's coming on board and you really want to turn up the spigot on your marketing that kind of thing .

As opposed to , there's businesses that we've seen that have really depended on marketing , on dependent on lighter fluid . They built their entire fire out of lighter fluid and that's kind of cool and it's fun for a while .

We've been in business long enough to see massive increases in prices in both Instagram and Google ads , where all of a sudden that lighter fluid seems like a great way to build your business , until the lighter fluid company doubles , quadruples , quadruples , quintuples their price . I don't know what's after quintuples , septuples .

Well , and they're mostly complicated if you're really caring about how much money you're spending and that's , I think , where most people get bamboozled is so that the people that are marketing to you for paid advertising are making you feel like you have to have them , which is not true necessarily and then if you decide that you want them now , they are complicating

the issue and saying like you really should have someone that's looking at these all the time and this and that and the other thing , and that is actually some of it's true , which is why it's so compelling , because a lot of their marketing actually is true that it is complex , it is complicated . You do need someone that knows what they're doing .

You do need someone to pay attention all the time , but only so that you don't literally light money on fire , and those companies don't always have your best interest at heart in that way , and so it's really like an interesting thing that we've observed .

We have also seen other people of our mentees go through and get fricking just Rolled over with this kind of stuff , and we have used companies before , both good and bad , that have done this after .

Jesse has done this for literal years For us at Pelvic Sanity for a while , so he's like super expert and also , remember you guys , he's like math whiz , physics major , total nerd , loves diving into this stuff spreadsheets galore , and so if you're not that kind of a person , you have frickin no business trying to do this by yourself .

And then also , do you really need someone to do it for you ? And that's like the big question that we have here for you Do you need a lighter flute on your fire or is your fire good enough with what you're doing that you don't need that ?

We didn't see a discernible increase in leads and this is the danger of doing

it yourself . It was a huge trial and error process for me as I was learning that . I did , obviously , a ton of deep dives . I've gotten professional help with it and it can really be a challenge .

And then , like Nicole's thing , especially for a smaller company , you know if you're gonna go and pay somebody to help run these ads for you , that's great , but they're gonna be charging , I would say , a minimum of 750 to $800 a month and it goes up very steeply from there . You might only want to be running $300 worth of ads .

Now You're paying two and a half times your ad spend for somebody to manage your ads .

And the only reason why we still keep doing it is because number one we're , you know , have six clinicians to fill in and it makes sense for us We've been doing it for a long time but also because I trust that someone like Jesse can Challenge these people and keep these people honest , because otherwise it is . It's dicey out there , you guys .

And so the whole point to that is not to say that it's wrong for everybody and all that stuff . It's very much right for a lot of folks , but is it right for you ? And that's the one thing that we want you to really look at at this episode and think about do I actually need lighter fluid on my fire ?

Or Can I just work on the logs and the kindling and the right proportions and the right timing and all of that and just be really great and super happy with just doing that ? You don't necessarily need to get the freaking lighter fluid .

Zuckerberg famously told Congress because , congressman , we sell ads Like that's what they do , so they're incentivized to put stuff in front of you , so it looks really sexy . If you guys have run these or trial these at all . Oh , your ad on Instagram was shown to extra 2,000 people .

Right , they give you statistics that make it look really , really great , but what they're not saying is wow , you got one extra patient from that , or no patients from that , or nothing . I mean it's just like oh cool , we got a whole bunch of clicks from this . Well , what did that actually translate to in your business ?

If you're not really paying attention , you can get seduced by those kind of the same way in social media , where you get seduced by oh man , I got so many likes on this post or I got this much reach and it looks really cool . It's a dopamine hit when you're looking at your statistics , but Facebook likes never paid anybody's bar tab .

Well , jesse is like already fuming out through his ears about the word lead gens , because when somebody that is local , that is in your area , that has a pelvic floor problem , is on your website , we do not need to distract them and take them away from that and have them read a freaking free e-book on whatever that they don't have or that's tangentially related

to that .

They want you , want them to call you , and so this whole thing of paid advertising , it's multifactorial , it's complex and , in our specific specialty business , with the nature of what we need to be saying and marketing , a lot of times it gets shuts down and people don't understand what we're doing and they don't understand who we're trying to reach and why we're

trying to reach them .

I think all the reasons that we just said , and I think a lot of people get in trouble with it , but it is powerful . We do use them a lot at Pelvic Sanity , so it's not that they don't have a place . And so if I was going to kind of walk you through the priorities , I think the first one you should consider is Google ads .

The great thing about Google ads is you're getting people who are actually looking for your service , who have the problem . They're searching for it . It's what we would call in the industry a hot lead .

Someone is searching for pelvic floor physical therapy near me , or pelvic floor physical therapy , interstitial cystitis , so you can put your ad in front of them when they're looking for you and that they're actually looking for the kind of service that you want . So that , to me , is the most powerful type of advertising . If you're going to pay for ads .

That is where I would start . Now another just kind of statistic here to throw out . This really helps . First of all , 95% of people who see your ad are not going to click on it . And of the people who click on your ad , who objectively have a public floor issue . They're searching for it , they're local .

You've narrowed the location to the point where they should be relatively local . 95% of those will not contact you . And then you guys know your own conversion rates , hopefully , of 50 or 60 or 70% of people who contact you actually book . Now , all of a sudden , you've got really excited about getting a click and somebody on your website for $4 .

And it's like , well , if you need 95 of those in order to get somebody , that starts to add up pretty quickly . So , but I would focus first on Google ads . I think that is the most powerful of the paid advertising is where I would start .

From there , I would probably go to Facebook or Instagram and , again , a lot of you guys won't need to go from there . If you're going to pick one , I would honestly pick Google ads , because it's people who are actually looking for the service .

So when you get into Instagram or Facebook ads , the real problem is you're just interrupting people when they're scrolling . They're not looking for your stuff . In fact , your stuff is an annoyance to them , right ? You're going through and all of a sudden it's like do you have aginismus ? It's like , gosh , darn it .

Even if I do , I'm not really paying attention right now .

That's what we all get bamboozled with , where I'm swiping up for fucking pillow slides and learn more about some friggin cool cute Dress that I realize is like $30 from Cupshe and China and I'm like , ah shit , I don't think I want to do that , or maybe I do , because it's only $15 and like that's the kind of stuff that we're doing on Instagram , on Facebook

ads . Most people and if you're an anomaly , you write us in but most people are Gonna not look at that and be like , oh right , my medical condition that I'm really worried about . I'm gonna swipe up and then also pony up the money for that at that time at 3 am .

You've had two glasses of wine and you're scrolling Instagram and now , all of a sudden , you've got something arriving at your door two days later . That's don't quite remember what it was , but remember I got bamboozled by that stupid .

We've tried everything , and you know that's one of the reasons that we can talk so confidently about all these different areas of marketing is that we've done it and Did not see the results and you're talking about paid yelp . You can still have your profile , you can still have all your things , but do not go and pay yelp .

No matter how many times they call you , at what time of night , you do not need it to do yelp ads . I would also say the same thing . I have not yet seen something for print advertising that look like a good ROI . For me , it's basically like a less technologically savvy version of Facebook and Instagram ads .

You know , no one is scrolling through their local magazine and being like , oh , I hope that I find somebody who's gonna help my burning vagina in these pages today .

Nicole's looking at me like I didn't know that I was like well , you should look at the books .

There will be a learning curve and if you're really conscious about where the money is coming from and the money flow , this is gonna be a little bit challenging . But I would definitely , if you're going to do this , be thinking about prioritizing Google Ads , and that's gonna be your number one place where you can spend money on this lighter fluid .

So that's kind of it for this marketing fire . I hope that has given you guys a new perspective on your marketing , on why maybe you were frustrated with how things were going on , making sure that you're set up for long-term success . And I will say this and this is something that we talk a lot about it's the momentum of your marketing .

So this would go to in that analogy don't let your fire burn out . Don't even really let it get down to the point where it's almost burnt out and it's cold .

It is so much easier to keep a fire going by regularly maintaining it , by poking it , by adding an extra log , by throwing an extra bit of kindling on whatever that is , than it is to have to start that whole thing over .

And we've seen that enough , where that really is the roller coaster of marketing , where you do marketing , you get full and then you neglect your marketing to the point that it burns out and now you're having to go back and restart that fire and it is so much more effort than it would have been to just put 30 minutes an hour , whatever that is in each week

to your marketing fire .

That would be . One of our big recommendations is keep that momentum , keep that fire burning .

But at the end of the day , it takes a little bit of work , it takes effort , it takes energy , and we just want to make sure that you're not overdoing it in some area and expecting a different result or underdoing it in another area .

We need the proportions to be good for whatever your business needs and we want you to make the tending to it efficient and not let it burn out Absolutely .

So if you are a business owner and have not been through that , that is coming up , make sure you get on the wait list for that as well . So we hope you've enjoyed this series . We really love talking about this stuff . If you guys have thoughts , questions concerns anything regarding these episodes , we always love hearing from you .

We want to keep this conversation going .