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On this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy and Smart Podcast, I welcome Christa Gurka on the show to discuss marketing. An orthopedic physical therapist specializing in Pilates-based fitness, rehabilitation, injury prevention and weight loss, Christa Gurka's reputation speaks for itself. With two decades of experience training those of all ages and fitness levels, the founder/owner of Miami's Pilates in the Grove, which serves the Coconut Grove and South Miami communities, believes in offering her clients personal attention with expert and well-rounded instruction. In this episode, we discuss: -Why you should design an ideal client avatar -How a small marketing budget can make a big impact -Crafting the perfect message to attract your ideal client -The importance of continual trial and error of your message -And so much more! Resources: Christa Gurka Instagram Christa Gurka Facebook Pilates in the Grove Christa Gurka Website FREE resources A big thank you to Net Health for sponsoring this episode! Learn more about the Redoc Patient Portal here. For more information on Christa: An orthopedic physical therapist specializing in Pilates-based fitness, rehabilitation, injury prevention and weight loss, Christa Gurka's reputation speaks for itself. With two decades of experience training those of all ages and fitness levels, the founder/owner of Miami's Pilates in the Grove, which serves the Coconut Grove and South Miami communities,believes in offering her clients personal attention with expert and well-rounded instruction. Read the full transcript below: Karen Litzy (00:01): Hi Christa, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you on. So today we're going to be talking about three strategies for marketing for cash based practices. And the good thing about all of these strategies is they don't cost a lot of money, right? And that's important when you're starting a business. You know, we don't want to have to take out a bunch of loans, we don't want to have to spend a lot of our own money. We want to try and start up as lean as we can. And so I'm going to throw it over to you to kick it off with. What is your first strategy for marketing for cash based practices? Christa Gurka (00:43): Perfect. So one of the reasons I just want to start with saying why I'm a little passionate about this marketing thing is because myself included when I first started, I really kind of, I felt like I started backwards almost like from the ends. And I think it's really so helpful for people to learn to start kind of from the beginning. Right? So my very first strategy that I think is really, really important is to have a real good idea of who your ideal customer or who your target audience is. And I get often some pushback from people saying, well, everybody can use my services. Of course everyone can use physical therapy. Absolutely. And that doesn't mean you have to single anybody out. But you know, I think Marie Forleo said it or maybe somebody said it to her, but when you speak to everyone, you really, you speak to no one and so slew thing, your who, your ideal customer is, how they feel, how they think. Christa Gurka (01:45): It's very, very beneficial. So if you want, I can kind of go through like a few questions that I use to kind of narrow down who that person is. So one of the things to know when we go through our ideal customer, we actually give this person a name, an age, a gender demographic, married, not married, retired, not retired, education level, median income. And when we do anything in our business now, so we are ideal customer, her name is Georgia. And so we say every time we have a meeting we say, well what will Georgia think about this? Well Georgia like this, so we're Georgia not like this. So that's the very first thing. And we refer to that person as their name. And then you want to go through like what are their biggest fears about whatever problem they're looking to solve. Christa Gurka (02:40): People buy based on emotion. And so get into the underlying source of that emotion is really, it can be very powerful. So what are their fears? What do they value? Right? Cause when it comes to money, people paying for those, it's not always a dollar amount. It's more in line with what do they value? And if you can show these clients that you serve, offered them a value, the money, the dollar amount kind of becomes obsolete. So things like that. What could happen, what would be the best case scenario if this problem were solved for them? What would be the worst case scenario of this problem were never solved. So in terms of physical therapy, let's say generalize orthopedics, right? Back pain. 80 million Americans suffer from back pain. Yeah. So an easy one to start with, an easy one to start with, right? Christa Gurka (03:35): So let's think of, you know, back pain, it's so general, right? But if you can say, what is the worst thing that can happen because of this back pain, right? So maybe the worst thing that could happen is this person loses days at work because they have such bad back pain, they can't sit at their desk or maybe they have such bad back pain that there performance drops and so that cause they can't concentrate. And so now maybe they lose their job or they get emoted because their back pain. So the worst case scenario is maybe they're not, they ended up losing their job because of back pain. So you kind of take it all the way back. And then if you could speak to them about how would it feel if we were able to give you the opportunity to sit eight hours at a desk and not think of your back pain one time and what would that mean to you? So really kind of under covering a lot, a lot, a lot about who your ideal customer is. It's my number one strategy. Karen Litzy (04:39): And I also find that it's a great exercise in empathy. So for those that maybe don't have that real innate sense of empathy, it's a way for you to step into their shoes. And I always think of it as a what are their possible catastrophizations? So if we put it in the terms that the PT will understand, like when I did this number of years ago, I sort of catastrophized as this person. What would happen if this pain didn't go away? I wouldn't be able to take care of my children. I wouldn't be able to go to work. It would affect my marriage. My marriage would break up, I would be a single mom. I would, you know, so you can really project out really, really far and then reel it back in, like you said, and say, well, what would happen if they did work with you? What is the best case scenario on that? So yeah, I just sort of catastrophized out like super, super far and it's really helpful because when that person who is your ideal client then comes to you and you're doing their initial evaluation, you can ask them these questions. Christa Gurka (05:51): Yeah. Yeah. It's very powerful. And I love how you brought in, like you empathize with them and you know, and by the way, a lot of our clients do catastrophize, right? And we have to reel them, we have to reel them back in. So that was a really great point. I also think it can be sometimes on the flip side where somebody maybe comes in and their goal is very benign. Maybe it's, I really want to be physically fit. I want to look good. Right? So you kind of think, well, what's the catastrophe if that doesn't happen? But maybe, maybe they're in a relationship where they're a partner. Aesthetics is a big part of that. And maybe they feel insecure and they feel if they don't present well to their partner, their partnership may dissolve whatever the case may be. So now you're getting to an underlying, it really is more emotional than physical, right? So now you're being able to empathize with them in that way and speak to them in those terms, give them positive things that maybe they don't even realize they need. Karen Litzy (06:53): Exactly. And then it also seems like once you're in those shoes or walking in their shoes, in their footsteps, however you want to put it, that's when that person does come to you, you can have a conversation with them that's maybe not so much centered around back pain, but that's centered around their life. And that's when people make that connection with you. Right? So when we're talking to patients who are not sure that they want to start physical therapy, if we kind of get them, they're much more likely to come and see us. So it's not about the back pain, it's not about the knee pain. It's about how are we going to make a difference in their life. And if we can make that, like harking back to what you said earlier, it's an emotional experience and people tend to buy things based on emotions and their gut feelings and how they feel. So if we can tap into that in a really authentic way, then talk about a great marketing strategy. Christa Gurka (07:58): Excellent. Exactly. Karen Litzy (08:00): And then, okay, so we've got our ideal customer, client avatar. Now what do we do? Christa Gurka (08:10): Great. Now what? So you've got your ideal customer, right? And so by the way, people also sometimes think like, well, I don't want to pigeonhole myself into this, right? But by the way, your ideal customer may change. It's okay first of all to change. And he doesn't have more than one. You can have more than one. Certainly we have more than one in our business. And by the way, you may start out thinking about one ideal customer, but the people that keep coming back, maybe somebody else and you're like, Oh, obviously, maybe I have to rethink this. Right? And again, it doesn't mean that you can't serve someone else. It just means that when you're thinking about marketing and stuff, you're going to go after everything should funnel into one specific thing. So then the next step in the marketing is, okay, so where do these people live? Christa Gurka (08:59): And I don't mean live like literally what neighborhood do they live in? Where do they live in terms of getting their news information? Where do they live in terms of being on social media? Where do they live in terms of, you know, what do they value as far as like personal or professional life? So one thing I see is, you know, people you know are like, well, I'm gonna put an ad in the newspaper, that's great. But if you live in an area where nobody reads the newspaper, then you're putting your money somewhere that you're not going to be seen. Or maybe the flip side is, well, I'm going to do a lot of stuff on Instagram. Well, if you were, your clientele is over 65 studies show that most people over 65 are not on Instagram. That doesn't mean they're nobody is, it just means, you know, or vice versa. Christa Gurka (09:50): If your client is 25, they're probably not on Facebook anymore, right? So, then again you can be, this is why it won't cost you a lot because you can narrow down where you are going to spend your money, right? Also, if you're running Facebook ads, which will then go on Instagram you can narrow down in your audience when you build out your audience to be very, very, very specific based on are you a brick and mortar establishment? So are you trying to get people to come in to your place? Right? So you want to say, well, if people are not, if you know that your ideal customer's not convenience as important and they're not going to travel more than five miles, you shouldn't market to people that live or work outside of a five mile radius from your studio. Right? So that's important to know as well as also maybe your customer gets their information from friends or relatives, you know, or like someone said, you know, you need to go see Karen, she's been really great for me and that's how they get to you. Christa Gurka (11:00): So how can you then get in front of your client's friends, right? Maybe you could do an open house, invite a friend, bring them in. Let's do one-on-one, you know, just kind of like a talk, right? Maybe you could bring them in if, say your ideal customer, let's say your ideal customer is in their sixties, what are some things that people in that age group are going through? Maybe you can have a talk about that specific thing. Not necessarily a therapy, but now you get everyone to kind of come to you. It's not even about what you actually do cause you can need them based on where they are. And most people, by the way, they say there's the numbers range, but usually they have to see you about seven times or have seven points of contact with you before they're comfortable buying from you. So these are just way to get people to know, like, and trust you and then they'll buy from you. So that's strategy number two. Once you know really who your customer is and they could take a couple years to really start to peel back all the onion of that, then the next thing is be where they are, be in front of where they are. Karen Litzy (12:13): Yes, absolutely. And, I love that you mentioned the different types of social media and who's on where, because like you said, this is something that isn't going to break the bank because you have narrowed down exactly where you want to spend your money. Right? So we're taking who that ideal person is, where finding out where they like to hang out, what they read, who they're with, all that kind of stuff. So that when you build out a marketing campaign for your business, you kind of know who and where to target. Christa Gurka (12:49): Right? Exactly. Yes. And even so, even with Facebook, yeah. When you build out your audience, right? So you can have a variety of audiences. You can create lookalike audience, which I'm sure is like a whole podcast onto itself, but you can also target people that like certain brands. So when I do my ideal customer, I'm like, well what brand do they resonate with? In other words. So I would say that our brand is a little more towards Athletica versus like Lulu lemon. And that's not to say one is better than the other. It just means that's who my generally customer is. And why, what do they value? They value that customer service. You get, you know, Athletica has like a, you can take anything back all the time, right? So when you build out a Facebook ad, you can also target, that's right. They've bought from Athletica online. Right. So now you're reaching people. So you kind of near just keep narrowing it, narrowing it, narrowing it down, which can be, you know, other interests is your client. Do you do pelvic health? So obviously women, although men do it right, if moms can you target people that like mom influencers on Facebook or on the internet. So these are all just ways that the more you know about them, then you can use that in your marketing strategies afterwards. Karen Litzy (14:15): Absolutely. Fabulous. Okay. So know who the person is, know where they're hanging out. What's number three? Christa Gurka (14:23): Okay. So number three to me is the most important, the most, most important. And that really is messaging. So when you're working with your ideal, when you're working through that ideal customer you know, workbook getting to them, to you for them to use their own language for you. So I see this very, very commonly, and I am sure you can attest to it too. When physical therapists, we love what we do. We are passionate about movement and anatomy and biomechanics but you know what, the general population has no idea what we're talking about. None. Zero. Yeah. And so oftentimes I fe…
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