Local Marketing That Builds Community Trust and Fills Your Practice | EP 16

In this episode of Health Care Marketing Edge, Tim Bouchard, CEO of Luminus, and Kandy Garrett from Social Optician discuss the importance of local marketing strategies for small healthcare practices. They emphasize the need for community engagement, building trust, and the significance of consistent presence in the community. Kandy shares practical tips on how practices can become more visible and relatable to their patients, moving beyond traditional advertising methods. The conversation highlights the value of personalization, community involvement, and the importance of aligning marketing efforts with the practice’s core values.

Tim Bouchard (00:00)
Welcome to Health Care Marketing Edge, where we share stories and strategies to grow your practice. I’m Tim Bouchard from Luminous, a health care marketing agency specializing in helping practices acquire patients and grow their practice. Today, we’re diving into something that small market practices absolutely need to master, local marketing that actually builds community trust. Our guest is Kandy Garrett, freelance marketing manager at Social Optician, who’s going to show us how to stop being the best kept secret in town.

through events, partnerships, and consistent presence throughout the community. If you’ve ever heard things like, didn’t even know you were here from someone in your community, this episode will definitely pique your interest. With that, Kandy, welcome to the show. Why don’t you tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Kandy Garrett (00:41)
Thanks for having me, Tim. So I am an ABO certified optician. I started within my state association for the marketing department. ⁓ Where I am now, it’s kind of what led me on the path to where I’ve built the business that I’ve got right now. I do oversee the social media newsletter and websites for a couple of associations at this point. I’m really passionate about making sure opticians know where to get educated. ⁓

Social optician also grew organically from that work. And I think we’re gonna get into that a little bit more, but I’m excited to be here.

Tim Bouchard (01:19)
Cool, yeah, it seems like you work a lot with small market practices or at least the budding practices and growing practices. What is so unique about that type of provider that draws you to it?

Kandy Garrett (01:33)
personalization. I think in anything that we do if we can have our hand on the personalization part of it and be part of the journey and be part of the family that you become definitely plays a big role on getting to know your client, getting to know each other, having that conversation and having sometimes the hard conversations of what do we do next and where do we go and what we can afford and that kind of stuff.

Tim Bouchard (02:00)
Yeah, also when it comes to that smaller community side, you know, we always talk about trust when it comes to patient recruiting and putting yourself out there from a brand standpoint. But the smaller the community, the more like exaggerated the need is for that, too, because reputations spread very fast.

Kandy Garrett (02:17)
Yes. And you know, thinking about that, I came from a small, I say small town. but the doctors in the community were parents to the kids that I was going to school with. So they were part of the community. Like you knew doctors so-and-so because I went to school with their kids. So having that community outreach and that community base,

being a part of it. ⁓ We see a lot of these bigger companies. I worked for a bigger company that had doctors that were from two or three towns over and we didn’t get the trust in the camaraderie that we did for the practice that I worked for who I grew up with their family.

Tim Bouchard (03:01)
Now, a lot of these practices even are sometimes established for a while in a community, but still people don’t know they exist. Maybe they just haven’t been in front of them. Why is it important to emphasize that like just being around for maybe even 10 plus years doesn’t make it so that people automatically know who you are?

Kandy Garrett (03:25)
Well, as a consumer things change. You know, I don’t buy my shoes from the same place. I don’t buy my pants from the same place all the time. So just because you’re there doesn’t mean that you should hug yourself in that security blanket. ⁓ Demographics change. The people that you saw yesterday aren’t going to be the same people that you see today. So if you are not reaching out to your market and you’re not getting out there in front of those people to let them know,

what changes you have made maybe inside of the business or what you have to offer them, they’re not gonna find you anymore. In the day and age where we have everything at our fingertips, when we’re driving down the road, we’re thinking about what’s next. We’re not thinking about what we’re driving by on the street.

Tim Bouchard (04:07)
Yeah, how do you think it happens that a practice that’s so, let’s stay on the established vein of things. ⁓ How is it possible for them to kind of fade into the black ⁓ the longer that they go? What kinds of things are they maybe neglecting that allow them to become invisible? Because they aren’t initially, obviously they start somewhere, they grow patient pools, but how do they get to the point where people start to forget about them or not even be able to find them?

Kandy Garrett (04:35)
you age out. Like, so I come from an optical background. So we see people from, I’ve been coming here for 15 years and now they’re having their own families. Well, if they move, that’s one family you no longer have. And if you are not doing anything to step forward and show your community that you are about the family and we want to nourish you and be part of, know, become your family.

Tim Bouchard (04:37)
Yeah.

Mm.

Kandy Garrett (05:02)
then when they move away, you don’t get more family members.

Tim Bouchard (05:05)
Yeah, the turnover definitely starts to pile up like it’s like a hidden virus or something where it just starts to affect you more and more without you really knowing it until like, boom, like you’re like, there might be a problem. But and for newer practices, they’re kind of aware of this, but they’re out there. They’re searching for like, how do I even do this? Right. So I think maybe we can bridge the conversation to some things that can be done by understanding that the scenario of being like

an established practice that may have fallen off the forefront of the community recognition standpoint, and a new practice shares some of the same ⁓ needs in this aspect. ⁓ And you have a few ⁓ unique ways to go after building up specifically that local reputation and becoming better known within the community. ⁓ Why don’t you talk about some of those approaches and we can get into those.

Kandy Garrett (06:02)
Some of my favorite things, ⁓ especially on the optician side of it, is you get to learn who your patients are, you get that one-on-one contact. So being out in the community, participating in high school,

fairs and going to the parades that they have in town and dressing up and making a spectacle of whatever it is you’re doing and let people know that you’re having just as much fun being there and serving your community as the community members are being there and enjoying the entertainment. So it’s kind of a handoff that you, you know, you give to your community and the community gives back and

getting your face out there, becoming that recognizable person at the grocery store, ⁓ and just learning what your community is doing for each other. The Chamber of Commerce does all kinds of stuff if you’re a part of that. If not, they have a list of events that ⁓ I know several coffee shops have a networking event or things like that that are easy just to

Have the conversation, sit down and not be salesy, not be pitchy, just be the person that you are that started the business that you’re passionate about.

Tim Bouchard (07:20)
Yeah, I was going to say like, ⁓ this is drastically different than just running search ads or even putting ads in like a local paper or something like that. If you, if you want to go that route, like there’s a very specific reason you may want to do these community based events versus traditional advertising. You touched on it a little bit, but maybe you can expand how, you know, the traditional advertising is very much like a sales or an ask type of

approach and community is a little bit more of meeting people where they are. If you want to expand on that aspect and how it differs from someone that might just be doing traditional digital or traditional advertising right now.

Kandy Garrett (07:59)
So advertising in the world today is definitely changing daily. We all know that. And we have to think about how we search and how we look for things because it’s not, I don’t pick up a newspaper anymore. I used to read the newspaper every day. So, or once a week or whenever it got delivered to my house, I would go through it, you know, end to end and see what’s going on in the community. We don’t need that now with all of the

Tim Bouchard (08:07)
Mm-hmm.

Kandy Garrett (08:26)
word of mouth and the social media aspects of it all. If we’re not physically searching for you or we don’t know that we need you, we’re not like if you’re not in the community telling me you need my service, I don’t know a better way to do it because social media does not work the way that it has in the past.

Tim Bouchard (08:47)
Mm-hmm.

I think the other thing about the community side too is you have to be careful that you don’t just do it once. Like it actually becomes a habitual thing that you want to be always a part of the community and it might come off wrong if you like go help sponsor an event or participate in an event and then you just disappear after that. Like I put in my one effort or maybe you get frustrated. Like maybe you get frustrated you don’t see

Kandy Garrett (08:59)
Yes.

Right? Yeah.

Tim Bouchard (09:21)
something come back to you for participating in the event, but that’s not entirely what it’s about.

Kandy Garrett (09:27)
Correct. Yeah, the ROI should be not on top of mind at this point ⁓ because awareness doesn’t really have a return in the beginning.

Tim Bouchard (09:38)
Yeah, and this one is very much, ⁓ it’s very much to relatability factor. It’s that if you are in the event, let’s say it’s the high school job fairs or it’s the Memorial Day Parade or, you know, being part of a chamber event or something like that, what you’re going for there is that when they see potentially a digital or traditional ad or something in the future, they connect that positive experience with your ask later on.

Kandy Garrett (10:05)
Yes. It’s about building that trust in that relationship.

Tim Bouchard (10:06)
Yeah. What’s the ⁓

yeah. Do you have maybe any examples of someone you’ve worked with that might be able to illustrate that approach?

Kandy Garrett (10:18)
A couple of different things. So I worked for a larger company. they relied on their reward program at the local factories.

get a discount for shopping with us for your safety eyewear. But once those reward programs quit or changed or they switched insurances or whatever, then we were not their person that came to us for that discount. When I worked for the small town practice that the doctors lived and worked in that community, people would just come in and chat. People would just say, hey, I was just in the neighborhood. I wanted to say hi.

Tim Bouchard (10:43)
Mmm.

Kandy Garrett (10:57)
Again, being a pillar in the community, being a part of the community, supporting the Elks Club, supporting the local youth baseball team and all of those things come hand in hand with these are a member of our community. We’re not just seeing their name as we drive by on the billboard or on their sign or wherever. They’re really in our community.

Tim Bouchard (11:21)
I might even also add to this that the type of practice you have could even make this more of a magnified effect ⁓ to you. If you’re a regular routine type of healthcare practice like optical or primary care or dentistry where you’re constantly ⁓ engaged with your patients, it’s even more important because you’re always around, they stay loyal, the word of mouth that they bring you, the lifetime value and

repeatability of those patients is a little bit different than say like a specialist practice or surgical or something like that. Not that they shouldn’t take a community approach too, but it means even more for the maintenance-based healthcare providers.

Kandy Garrett (11:55)
Correct. Yeah.

Absolutely. Well, and the referral once too, you know, the cataract surgery and the specialty and all of those. I like knowing that I’m going to someone that I already know about. already knew they were there. I just didn’t have a reason to go see them because I didn’t have that situation.

Tim Bouchard (12:25)
one other example, too, if it’s a very small village, sometimes you also have, I mean, even like like Halloween trick or treat days and things like that, where people will just be coming into your location, too, if it’s one of those types of, you know, in the city, in the town. That’s that’s a great way to do it, too, because you’re inviting people into your space. You know, you get the face time real quick. It’s a positive experience. You know, who knows if that kid’s going to need glasses in three years or or, you know, ⁓

Kandy Garrett (12:39)
Yes.

Tim Bouchard (12:54)
orthodontic or something like that, at the consumer level. How might this even affect the ⁓ referral B2B side of things for providers, too, in the community for like partnerships and things like that?

Kandy Garrett (12:56)
But yeah, yeah.

So I’ve really thought a lot about that. And especially in the health care system, referrals are kind of huge. getting to know from practice to practice, instead of being on edge as far as those are my competitors, get to know what they specialize in, get to know what they’re about, get to know what passionate about.

Tim Bouchard (13:18)
Mm-hmm.

Kandy Garrett (13:36)
use that as your referral piece. Don’t, you know, just because you provide in the same area doesn’t mean you have to compete for it.

Tim Bouchard (13:44)
Mm-hmm. We even see this on the marketing side, too. I think a lot of B2B businesses, whether healthcare or not, can learn from that, too. I think sometimes we forget how much the network, even within our own industry, can support us. Because you never know if someone’s patient roster is full and they just want to help someone out and get them off or whatever it might be. How might you go about identifying who would be good for that type of

relationship, maybe on both sides, maybe from a referral partner or network building side, and then also maybe from a, how do know what organizations and events to align yourself with that might resonate with the people that you’re trying to attract to your practice?

Kandy Garrett (14:28)
I think the biggest one is ask. Ask your consumers, whoever’s coming into you, hey, is there anything going on in town that I should be a part of that, you you think would be a good fit for us, for us to show up and be there and to support. ⁓ I think going back to that good old word of mouth and trust and say, you know, I, I’ve got these four lists of things that I want to do, but I only can really pick one or two. Do you?

think that we would benefit one way or the other or ask people that are putting it on what their goals are and what their expectations are. And I think that would go in either way, whether you were doing a B2B referral system or whether you’re new to the community and trying to find things out and get your foothold and meet new people and that kind of stuff.

Tim Bouchard (15:25)
one thing that you might want to watch out for, and I’m thinking of this and you may have some others too, is if you do get something like a ⁓ sponsorship or participation relationship up with an organization, how do you make sure that you aren’t just…

siphoning benefits off of them and that you’re also giving back. feel like you want to make sure you’re also not taking advantage of the community by doing this too.

Kandy Garrett (15:50)
Yeah, I had a conversation earlier today about something like this and it was you have to align yourself with a good product and good people and if they don’t align then you need to remove yourself from the situation. Good, bad or ugly. ⁓ Whether there’s money involved or not because trust and reputation is huge in a small industry. It’s huge in a small town and it really can make or break you in not always a good way.

Tim Bouchard (16:19)
Mm-hmm.

Kandy Garrett (16:21)
⁓ So as long as you are following, know, you’re checking the boxes that our goals are aligned and the people are good and their values meet my values, I really don’t know that you could go wrong.

Tim Bouchard (16:34)
Yeah, I would say from a brand marketer’s perspective too, that you’re tying that back to your brand, right? You want the people you’re aligned with to also reflect what you believe too. And that’s a very easy way to see if there’s congruency there.

Kandy Garrett (16:49)
Yeah, if your gut tells you this isn’t the path to go, then don’t take those extra steps to get there.

Tim Bouchard (16:55)
You mentioned that consistent participation is critical, but the messaging that goes out within those participations to be consistent too, right? So you want the types of organizations, the way you interact with them, how you speak through maybe

sponsorship ads or what you bring to the event from a participation standpoint, how does that consistency help a practice and provider?

Kandy Garrett (17:20)
Well, you want to make sure that whoever it is that’s searching for you is finding the same message in all avenues, right? I don’t want to see it. I’m bringing up the Super Bowl. I’ve seen the commercial with the bear doing the blind test with the Pepsi and he liked the Pepsi better than the Coke. That to me, I huh, I can’t believe they did that because that’s not typically their message anywhere ever, right? So.

Tim Bouchard (17:37)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kandy Garrett (17:50)
And I know that it was a play and that kind of stuff, but you want to make sure that whatever they see in the office is what they see out of the office, is what they see online, is what they see in print, is what they see every direction that they would see you. You want them to see the same thing. Otherwise, you’re contradicting yourself. And that makes the trustworthy aspect of it decline incredibly quickly.

Tim Bouchard (18:18)
So let’s say someone ⁓ has taken a lot from this and they start getting involved in this. So we had mentioned some of the kind of like impatient seeing results type of mentality that a lot of times comes along with starting something new like this. I know that potentially like being able to tie new patient intakes ⁓ might not correlate directly, but are there some signs that you can generally look at to see how

approach like this might be benefiting your practice, just as like early tells.

Kandy Garrett (18:50)
More traffic, more phone calls, just overall interactiveness, questions, even asking what are your hours? Because if they’re asking you about your hours, they don’t know about you.

calling to see, get phone calls all the time to see if we’re open, like president’s day is coming or, ⁓ I was going to say independence day. Nobody’s open on that date, but we get phone calls all the time on these littler national holidays. Hey, are you guys open today? so even an influx in that kind of interaction.

means people are thinking about you and they know that you’re around and they’re trying to figure out how to make it work for them to be there.

Tim Bouchard (19:31)
Yeah, and if someone’s looking for a starting point, or maybe let’s say they don’t have a big budget for something like this, do you need a big budget to start doing things like this? Is there a way that you like to advise people to prioritize where they might want to look to get started?

Kandy Garrett (19:45)
Well, think some events are a buy-in, but I don’t imagine most of them are unless you want to do a booth at your local… Where I’m from, we did Summerfest and it cost to have a booth downtown. Like for a parade, pay your employees to be there. Pay the employees that live there, that want to go there and want to be there anyway.

Tim Bouchard (19:56)
Mmm.

Kandy Garrett (20:05)
It’s worth your while. You’re going to pay for it one way or the other, whether they’re going to be in the office or whether it’s on a Sunday afternoon, Saturday afternoon for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. And it’s something that they’re going to talk about. Hey, remember when we went last year to the St. Patrick’s Day parade? Are we going to do that this year? Like those things are, you know, that matters. It shows one that you’re

Tim Bouchard (20:19)
Mm-hmm.

Kandy Garrett (20:25)
You want your employees to enjoy what they’re doing that you’re invested in the town and it shows your community that hey we have employees that want to be out in the town.

Tim Bouchard (20:33)
That’s a very good point and kind of like an underlying thing that almost got lost in this conversation, but I’m glad that that came up. ⁓ Speaking of things that if anything didn’t come up yet, is there anything I haven’t asked you that you wanted to make sure you slipped into the conversation before we wrapped up?

Kandy Garrett (20:47)
No, I think that covers it.

Tim Bouchard (20:49)
Nice. Well, I think we got through a whole lot in that. And I also hope it opened up some people’s eyes to not just looking to traditional like, I guess I better do some Google ads or something, because I mean, those things can be important, too. But if you do that and don’t pair it with something that like makes you connect with people as well, it can still be good money spent on advertising, things like that. But you you.

You can boost conversion rates, can boost customer loyalty, and you can boost all the things like word of mouth and being front and center again. So I think this was very important. ⁓ And if someone wants to learn more about you and how you do this for clients, would you like to tell them where they can find more about you?

Kandy Garrett (21:31)
So I have a website, socialoptician.net. You can email me, hello at socialoptician.net. I’m on Facebook as socialoptician, Instagram, LinkedIn, not TikTok. Don’t look for me there.

Tim Bouchard (21:49)
Mostly

all the places. Awesome. Good.

Kandy Garrett (21:52)
All of the traditional places.

Tim Bouchard (21:53)
Cool. Well, thanks for breaking that down and all those examples of things that work. Listeners,

if you wanna stop being the best kept secret and build community trust that drives growth, talk to us about our patient pipeline blueprint at luminus.agency slash blueprint and subscribe to Healthcare Marketing Edge on YouTube, Spotify or Apple podcasts. And Kandy, thank you for being on this episode with me.

Kandy Garrett (22:17)
Thank you for having me. This was such an incredible experience.