Sparks of Marketing for Healthcare

If you are an expert in your field, but you struggle to reach your audience on social media this episode is for you.    I'm going over 3 key mindset shifts to help you get over your discomfort building your business on social media.    First, here are 3 reasons social media marketing is uncomfortable for healthcare providers

But let’s be honest. No health or wellness provider enters the field to do social media marketing. And yet, social media marketing is this nagging itch that you know you have to scratch. It’s the means to help more people and grow your practice.

Even if you’re someone who accepts you need to use social media marketing for your business, I hear three common reasons why you still may struggle getting comfortable promoting your practice.

1. Imposter syndrome is real. Even when you are an expert, the endless series of experts (and seeming experts) in your field on social media is massive. You may have worked in your industry longer and achieved better results, but all that doesn’t matter on social media. What stands out are those who confidently use the platforms to promote their brand.
2. Promoting your business feels sales-y. It’s one thing to create an ad that promotes you are accepting new patients or clients. It’s an entirely different feeling to post a photo of you at work telling people to come in because you’re so awesome. Only the most narcissistic people want to do that.
3. You lack confidence to put yourself out there. Maybe you don’t want to share your photos on social media and you refuse to be on video. Or maybe you are open to the idea, but you’re not sure how or where to start. The whole thing just feels totally uncomfortable…so you’ll do it tomorrow instead.

3 key mindset shifts to succeed on social media for healthcare providers

All of these struggles are real.

But rather than focusing on what is challenging about social media, I like to focus on the opportunities.

It wasn’t long ago that you had to place a print ad in a local publication and hope your audience would see it. Now you can reach your exact ideal client for free or for pennies. If you’ve been in your field for over two decades, you know this is an opportunity you could never have imagined when you first started.

 

Here are three key mindset shifts that make promoting your health or wellness business on social media easier

Focus on helping. I’ve interviewed hundreds of healthcare providers for profile blogs, and nearly everyone says they entered the field to help people. Often, they were inspired by someone who once helped them or a family member.

Social media is a tool to help more people, even on a massive scale. In a single day, you may support only a handful of people in your practice. You can support their problem, struggle or question in a big way with your personalized care. But there are likely so many others who have the same issue, and social media is a way to help them by sharing your knowledge. You can amplify your one-on-one work by sharing it to a much larger audience. This is good for marketing, but even if they never come to you, you can still help them. This is powerful for you and your audience.

Focus on connecting. Marketing gets a bad rap, but mostly that’s because of bad marketers. Marketing doesn’t have to be sleazy or sales-y if you focus instead on connecting. Social media is first and foremost social. It’s where you can share a bit of the behind-the-scenes on your office or life so that you reveal the human side of your business.

So often your patients or clients are coming to you because they they like your personality or approach. Or they consider you an expert. Your personality and knowledge are key to why they work with you. Social media is a place where you can build that relationship and connection.

It’s not about you. Social media marketing is uncomfortable when it feels like bragging. Look at me! Look at our award! See why we have 5 stars! Buy my amazing thing!

And yes, there is a bit of that. After all, you have business to run.

But ultimately, it’s not about you. It’s about the people you help. Why did you go after 5 stars? Because you want to provide excellence. So talk about how you do that for others. The fact that you got recognized for a low hospital readmission rate or positive outcomes is about your patients. Focus on them. Tell their stories. Celebrate them. Then, you’ll end up illustrating why you are a 5-star provider instead of just posing with an award.

 

  For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

About Wendy:

I help service providers stand out by telling their story on websites, emails and social media. When it comes to marketing, the greatest waste is an idea that fails to connect to its audience – not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it wasn’t packaged as a great story.

My goal is to help health and wellness experts stand out with content marketing. I’ve worked in marketing communications for nearly 20 years and experienced firsthand the rapid pace of change in this space. I launched Sparkr Marketing to help you stay ahead in this age of information overload. I’ll help you filter through the countless marketing tactics to find the right ones to reach your target market. Most importantly, I help your business stay true to your story.

This week on the podcast I'm talking with Michele Caruana from The Marketing Junkie podcast

We dive into everything you need to know as a beginner with Facebook ads. Michele has deep knowledge in supporting small business owners with Facebook ads. She provides a step-by-step plan on how you can get started with ads.

Check out Michele's checklist on choosing your Facebook ads objective.

Michele is a corporate marketing professional, turned local business owner, turned online entrepreneur. As someone who was stuck on the marketing-hamster-wheel for years in her own business, her passion is now helping other local business owners simplify and streamline their strategies so they can get new sales, bookings, and clients while they rest.

For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

About Wendy:

I help service providers stand out by telling their story on websites, emails and social media. When it comes to marketing, the greatest waste is an idea that fails to connect to its audience – not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it wasn’t packaged as a great story.

My goal is to help health and wellness experts stand out with content marketing. I’ve worked in marketing communications for nearly 20 years and experienced firsthand the rapid pace of change in this space. I launched Sparkr Marketing to help you stay ahead in this age of information overload. I’ll help you filter through the countless marketing tactics to find the right ones to reach your target market. Most importantly, I help your business stay true to your story.

Having a niche is one of the most common pieces of advice I hear in business today. But is it really that important?

I’d argue that it is.

I’ve heard Donald Miller say countless times, “If you confuse you lose.”

And I’ve seen in my own business how clarity brings growth.

I’ve been transparent here on how I struggled to find my niche. Now that I finally settled on who I serve, I want to help you figure this out for yourself.

I’m helping health and wellness experts with content marketing on emails, websites and social media. I have no doubt that I’ll continue to narrow this down.

In this episode:

• I give over the steps I took to figure out my niche.
• Some funny episodes on how I tried a few other niches before giving them up.
• What's happened since I got specific about serving healthcare experts

If you want to read my blog on finding my niche and how I tried on a whooooole bunch of niches, go to my blog

Want to save time and still make stories on any social media channel? Get my branding kit to create templates for your stories here.

For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

 

About Wendy:

I help service providers stand out by telling their story on websites, emails and social media. When it comes to marketing, the greatest waste is an idea that fails to connect to its audience – not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it wasn’t packaged as a great story.

My goal is to help health and wellness experts stand out with content marketing. I’ve worked in marketing communications for nearly 20 years and experienced firsthand the rapid pace of change in this space. I launched Sparkr Marketing to help you stay ahead in this age of information overload. I’ll help you filter through the countless marketing tactics to find the right ones to reach your target market. Most importantly, I help your business stay true to your story.

This week on the podcast, I talk about how I got slipped into some unhealthy habits with social media in the name of building my email list. When you are a business owner, and you use social media to reach your audience, it's easy to justify too much time spent there.

It's up to each of us to determine how to best use social media for our businesses in order to still grow without letting it distract us. In this episode, I share how I got back on track.

I also share why it's important to model healthy social media use for our kids, even when we can justify using it for business. It wasn't long ago that most kids hoped to one day be an astronaut, fireman, doctor or whatever. Now, the 3x more kids in the U.S. dream of being a YouTube vlogger than an astronaut.

Check out this nonprobability online survey conducted in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. The poll surveyed 3,000 kids, ages 8 to 12, divided evenly among the US, the UK, and China.

 

As adults have to model healthy habits because social media is not going away

How to avoid bad habits:

1. Why: remember why you are using social media in the first place.
2. Do it in a way that you enjoy it: giving, interested in subject, teaching
3. Comparison is the thief of joy (Teddy Roosevelt). Stop trying to be a public figure and instead focus on helping others.

 

Steps to build healthier habits

1. Set phone to DND morning and evening and stick to it. Leave phone out of your bedroom. I have my screen time limit for all social media set at one hour per day. I of course know the password, but having it there makes it more annoying to log on.
2. Designate time to use social media for you business. Then, turn off your notifications otherwise. When you're tempted, tell self you’ll do it in 5 minutes 

1. Use voice dictation on Microsoft on phone
2. Have a strategy and a plan

 

Sneak peek: 9-12 content themes for social media

I also give a sneak peek at the group course I'm developing based on my 1:1 coaching. The course includes planning your whole year's content so that you can spend less time posting on social media and show up more strategically.

Your planning starts with developing 9-12 content themes for social media

• Teaching to build authority
• About me
• Industry news
• Showcasing others
• Entertain
• Trivia/tips
• Ask questions for market research
• Holidays/social holidays
• Sales/promotions
• Inspiration/motivation

For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

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Get branded images to make your social media easier

If you're an expert, and you need to up your content game to reach your audience, I've created a video tutorial to branding and creating templates on Canva. It includes a workbook and 50 ideas on ways to promote your services on social media 👇

  Yes, Please!

In this episode I talk with running coach Julie Sapper of Run, Farther & Faster about how she and her partner, Lisa have used social media to build and support their community of runners from around the world. On Facebook, Instagram and on their Boston Marathon podcast, Julie and Lisa have made their content all about their runners and their accomplishments. 

Julie talks about how she's been able to use social media to grow their business without compromising her voice and brand. She even advises that social media can be fun for building your business, "When you stop acting like a public figure and be yourself."

Follow Run Farther & Faster on Facebook and Instagram

Julie is an experienced Level 2 Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) certified running coach and accomplished distance runner. In 2019, Julie was named the Masters Runner of the Year by the Montgomery County Road Runners Club. Julie is a top ranked age group runner in the DC Metropolitan area and frequently places in her age group at national races, including the Miami Half Marathon 2020 where she finished fifth in her age group. Julie has completed over 20 marathons and is a 10-time Boston Marathon finisher. She is also honored to serve as a lululemon ambassador with Lisa. As if running a business wasn't enough, Julie's also a Department of Justice attorney and a proud mom of two. 

Oh! And she's my incredible big sister.

If you're ready to level up your game on social media, my branding kit to create templates for your stories will help you create templates in Canva and get content ideas.

For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

 

About Wendy:

I help service providers stand out by telling their story on websites, emails and social media. When it comes to marketing, the greatest waste is an idea that fails to connect to its audience – not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it wasn’t packaged as a great story.

My goal is to help you tell your story so that you can reach your business goals. I’ve worked in marketing communications for nearly 20 years and experienced firsthand the rapid pace of change in this space. I launched Sparkr Marketing to help you stay ahead in this age of information overload. I’ll help you filter through the countless marketing tactics to find the right ones to reach your target market. Most importantly, I help your business stay true to your story.

Schedule a free consultation with me here

This episode I talk with Elizabeth Pampalone about how she turned a problem in her business on its head by making it her signature service. 

Elizabeth used to work in one-month contract periods with her clients to create online marketing assets. Instead of working together all month long, though, clients would wait until the last days to deliver the assets Elizabeth needed to start the project. 

Can any fellow content marketers and consultants relate? Um...yes!

Elizabeth would struggle to finish the project in a day until she faced total burnout. 

In a brilliant move, she shifted her services into providing marketing in a day. She offers five elements of content marketing, including social media, blogging, branding, email and a freebie each on one day. At the end of a week, her clients can have a year of content ready.

Listen to hear how she does it and some ideas for creating your own social content in a day.

Take Elizabeth's ideas, and start creating content. My branding kit to create templates for your stories will help you get started as well.

Get Elizabeth's comparison chart of social media scheduling platforms here

For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

About Elizabeth Pampalone

Elizabeth Pampalone is an International Speaker, Successful Entrepreneur, and Expert Marketer with over 20 years of experience. Her innovative approach helps overwhelmed business owners and burnt out nonprofit directors to achieve success and freedom through the power of Absolute Marketing™.

 

About Wendy:

I help service providers stand out by telling their story on websites, emails and social media. When it comes to marketing, the greatest waste is an idea that fails to connect to its audience – not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it wasn’t packaged as a great story.

My goal is to help you tell your story so that you can reach your business goals. I’ve worked in marketing communications for nearly 20 years and experienced firsthand the rapid pace of change in this space. I launched Sparkr Marketing to help you stay ahead in this age of information overload. I’ll help you filter through the countless marketing tactics to find the right ones to reach your target market. Most importantly, I help your business stay true to your story.

Schedule a free consultation with me here

LinkedIn released a Stories feature to all U.S. users recently, and as much as Twitter made fun of LinkedIn, I'd like to argue that you should be jumping at the opportunity. 

That is...if you are in the business of needing to network, get more clients and build your audience (yes, please!). 

When you are an early user on any new feature on any social media app, the algorithm usually works in your favor. Take one look at your Instagram feed of Reels to know this is true. LinkedIn Stories show up prominently at the top of every user’s phone, so if you’re among the first in your network to use it, you’ll appear there.

This episode explains
How to use LinkedIn stories
What to post
Why you should use it
Best practices
How to share stories if you don't want to create selfie videos
How to make it easy to share stories
Mistakes to avoid

Want to save time and still make stories on any social media channel? Get my branding kit to create templates for your stories here.

For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

 

About Wendy:

I help service providers stand out by telling their story on websites, emails and social media. When it comes to marketing, the greatest waste is an idea that fails to connect to its audience – not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it wasn’t packaged as a great story.

My goal is to help you tell your story so that you can reach your business goals. I’ve worked in marketing communications for nearly 20 years and experienced firsthand the rapid pace of change in this space. I launched Sparkr Marketing to help you stay ahead in this age of information overload. I’ll help you filter through the countless marketing tactics to find the right ones to reach your target market. Most importantly, I help your business stay true to your story.

Schedule a free consultation with me here

In a market that's completely flooded with content from other service providers, branding lets your target audience get a sense of who you are and what it is like to work with you. When you consistently use images and language that resonates with your target audience, they can feel like you are talking directly to them. Branding helps you build trust and stand out.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're a small businesses service provider, an LLC--AKA a one-woman show, and you're busy running every part of the business. This takes time and money that you probably don't have when you're starting out.

Instead of putting branding off until you have more money or paying thousands for an agency to do it for you, this guide will show you how you can do it yourself.

In this episode I discuss:

🎨 What is branding

🎨 Why service providers needs branding to promote your expertise

🎨 How to use Canva to build your brand in a day

🎨 Branding mistakes to avoid

🎨 Easy way to select brand colors

🎨 Is color psychology a thing?

And more!

Plus, brand your business in a day with this video tutorial and workbook 

 

For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

 

About Wendy:

I help service providers stand out by telling their story on websites, emails and social media. When it comes to marketing, the greatest waste is an idea that fails to connect to its audience – not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it wasn’t packaged as a great story.

My goal is to help you tell your story so that you can reach your business goals. I’ve worked in marketing communications for nearly 20 years and experienced firsthand the rapid pace of change in this space. I launched Sparkr Marketing to help you stay ahead in this age of information overload. I’ll help you filter through the countless marketing tactics to find the right ones to reach your target market. Most importantly, I help your business stay true to your story.

Schedule a free consultation with me here

Finding your niche is a building block of all your other marketing, and without it, it’s hard to have a lot of success.

In a market that’s completely flooded with content, speaking directly to your ideal client is what makes you stand out. When you use the right images and language that speaks to your target audience, they can feel like you are talking directly to them. Marketing to your niche allows you to rise above the noise.

According to Hubspot, “Working in a niche market is a way to stand out from competitors, helps you establish a positive reputation, and boosts your authority as an expert in your field of business — ultimately attracting more customers to your product or service.”

I couldn’t agree more.

On this podcast, I explain how your marketing can be more successful when you are reaching a specific audience. I also include tips for finding your niche. 

I also included interview questions you can ask your ideal clients so that you understand who you are serving even better. 

If you're a service provider, and you need to up your content game to reach your audience, I've created a video tutorial to branding and creating templates on Canva. It includes a workbook and 50 ideas on ways to promote your services on social media   Get your Content Ideas Kit here   For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

 

About Wendy:

I help service providers stand out by telling their story on websites, emails and social media. When it comes to marketing, the greatest waste is an idea that fails to connect to its audience – not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it wasn’t packaged as a great story.

My goal is to help you tell your story so that you can reach your business goals. I’ve worked in marketing communications for nearly 20 years and experienced firsthand the rapid pace of change in this space. I launched Sparkr Marketing to help you stay ahead in this age of information overload. I’ll help you filter through the countless marketing tactics to find the right ones to reach your target market. Most importantly, I help your business stay true to your story.

Schedule a free consultation with me here

One year ago I became a new entrepreneur and launched Sparkr Marketing with no idea what this first year of business would look like. But leaving a steady job to pursue my side hustle full-time as an entrepreneur meant taking risks, and I was ALL IN.

Needless to say I didn’t anticipate a global pandemic and my whole family running around my home office full time for half the year. No doubt, that was an adjustment for everyone, but my kids are old enough to be pretty independent, and I kept at it (albeit with some periodic yelling at fighting boys!).

Now that I’ve made it to the one-year mark as an entrepreneur, I’m sharing some lessons learned and a preview of my BIG goals for year two. Whether you’re starting a new business, thinking of becoming an entrepreneur or this pandemic is a reset for the way you run your business, this blog has tips you can use.

Lessons learned in year 1 as a new entrepreneur

Getting to a consistent level of content marketing was a journey, with a lot of lessons learned along the way. I’m share a few of them here in hopes that it helps you.

1. Set up a routine
2. Set aside time to focus on building your own business 
3. You never lose by giving away free information: For task management, I use Monday.com. For my CRM, I use Dubsado (affiliate link)
4. Start with a great virtual assistant
5. Build systems in your business early
6. Take action and change it later
7. The riches are in the niches
8. Keep learning to be better at your work
9. Focus on serving others

Get your Content Ideas Kit here for 50 ideas on ways to promote your services on social media   For more training on digital marketing, at a deeper and more interactive level, join me in Sparks of Marketing Facebook group.  I go live every Thursday at 10:30AM CT, training you on a new digital marketing topic.

Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn

 

About Wendy:

I help service providers stand out by telling their story on websites, emails and social media. When it comes to marketing, the greatest waste is an idea that fails to connect to its audience – not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it wasn’t packaged as a great story.

My goal is to help you tell your story so that you can reach your business goals. I’ve worked in marketing communications for nearly 20 years and experienced firsthand the rapid pace of change in this space. I launched Sparkr Marketing to help you stay ahead in this age of information overload. I’ll help you filter through the countless marketing tactics to find the right ones to reach your target market. Most importantly, I help your business stay true to your story.

Schedule a free consultation with us here