The holiday shopping season is always a stark reminder of how every day, hundreds of corporations are vying for our attention.
And yes I’m talking about advertisements, but that’s not all. It’s all the subscription networks on your SmartTV – Paramount+, Disney+, Peacock, Netflix. And the app alerts you constantly receive on your phone from social media, news apps, and more.
Think about it – even YouTube, your go-to email app, your local radio station… they all want a piece of the hottest commodity on the market – Your Attention.
(Not-so-Fun Fact: Companies like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok employ teams of psychologists whose sole job is to make their apps more addictive. To keep and increase your attention.)
And in the same way, you’re trying to get the attention of your prospective patient. And you leverage these media channels / apps to do it.
Think of social media / google / radio / tv / various media as attention aggregators. They get the attention, then they direct that attention to companies that market on their platforms (I.e. your practice).
Once THEY have attention, they can direct it to you. Once YOU have your prospective patients’ attention, you can direct it to the action you want them to take.
Anyone who can’t attract attention, does not pass “GO.” They’re not even in the game.
If you consider how much NOISE is out there… and how it’s going to get even noisier in 2024 with the election noise…
The question them becomes, “How can we send a SIGNAL that cuts through all that NOISE?”
This is where Covert Content comes in.
The term :Covert Content” is loosely defined as “Brand materials, messages and creative that fly under the ‘Marketing Radar’ of your target consumers.”
Our minds are insanely powerful assets. They keep us breathing, keep us safe and keep us from getting completely overwhelmed by the never-ending stimuli that bombard our senses literally every waking moment.
(Think about it, you wake up, check your phone, and there’s ALREADY notifications from news, email, social media, the weather app and calendar reminders. It’s truly every waking moment…)
How do our brains keep us somewhat on track amidst this battle for our attention?
By subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) sorting through the noise to attempt to identify what is important (i.e. what demands attention) and what can be ignored.
You look into a vast forest, and suddenly see movement 100 yards in the distance. What does your brain do? Tells you to discard everything else, focus on the movement and figure out what it is.
That’s great for forests. But in our day-to-day lives, we’re essentially looking into a vast space of millions of moving objects, and our brain is attempting to do the same type of sorting.
One way the brain does this is with what we call our Marketing Radar.
Gary Halbert was one of the greatest direct response marketers of all time. He shared a perfect example of the Marketing Radar as it relates to direct mail (and this can apply to any medium).
Gary would remind his clients and his student repeatedly, “Most Of The People In America Sort Through Their Mail While Standing Over A Waste Basket!”
He talked about how when people get their mail (actual physical snail mail), they stand over the trashcan and sort it.
The piece with a handwritten address and stamp on it goes in the “open” pile. Looks important, may be from someone personal, worth my attention.
The piece with a printed promo for 0% interest for 6 months, in a legal envelope with computer printed address label and metered mail stamp – right into the trash. It’s marketing garbage.
(This time of year is a prime example. My wife carefully sorts through the mail to ensure no Christmas Cards accidentally end up in the ‘junk mail’ pile…)
If we entertained every message that came into our personal ecosystems, we’d never make it out if the house. We need our Marketing Radars to survive.
When you think about it, our brains sort social media posts, internet links, commercial messages and emails in the same way Gary described sorting snail mail.
“Is this marketing?” YUP. Keep scrolling.
“Is this… something else? What is this?” Interesting… stop and pay attention.
And so goes the “digital sorting” method.
Unfortunately for a lot of practices, important messages and information are discarded by prospective patients simply due to bad packaging. It looks and smells like marketing. And they scroll on.
So how do you package your marketing message in such a way that it gets through to your prospect patient? You use a Covert Content delivery mechanism. So prospective patients not only stop the scroll, but actually consume and are influenced my your message.
There are many ways to do his. We run a number of advanced Covert Content campaigns that have cut lead costs in half or more, literally overnight. (Example – 2 weeks ago we plugged in a new “Covert Content” piece of ad creative and dropped lead costs from $110/lead to $15/lead in a one particular campaign).
The details of these advanced campaigns are reserved for our private clients. But here are 3 easy ways to get you rolling with Covert Content on social media. And I guarantee as simple as these are, almost no one will try them. So if you do, you’ll be ahead of the game for sure.
1. “Real-Time FAQ” – “What do I post social?” You’re hit with questions from patients all day long. Next time this happens and you think “That’s a common question…” pull out your phone (or have one of your team come in with a phone) and film a “Real-Time FAQ.”
ex. “Hey, just had a lovely patient ask me a great question – X. This comes up a lot, so I want to address this with you…”
2. “Info in Caption” – Using images you capture in the office is great. But a lot of times those images need to be contextualized or explained further. Hence the “Read Caption” sticker or note on your Story.
For example, this is a good tip for anyone who likes to post pictures in the OR, holding stacks of premium IOL boxes. That might be a flex to their fellow surgeons (idk if it is or not), but the challenge is that prospective patients – the target audience – don’t know what they’re holding, or why it’s important.
So explain it in the caption – “these are custom lenses, each one is ordered specifically for a patient, which means today is a day that 11 people are going to get their vision back, it’s a celebration day at our practice, etc etc.”
3. Memes and GIFs – Funny. Sharable. But the biggest benefit with memes and gifs is when done correctly, they shed new light / perspective on a situation. They give people a new angle from which to perceive a decision, which is persuasive.
These modes of communication (yes, that’s what they are) can be incredibly powerful in that way. But again, it has to be done right.
Meaning it needs to make you think ever so slightly. Look at your favorite meme pages. The content isn’t obvious. It’s not a celeb smiling with a caption that says “Me after LASIK.” It needs more depth than that to make it clever and memorable, but not so much that it requires intense concentration.
It’s a fine line. But if you just stop to think “WHY did I think this meme was clever?” You’ll start to get a feel for it.
OK, that should be enough to get you started. And if you want to go deeper on these strategies and use them to your advantage in 2024, you’ll wanna be sure to check out the message I send on Monday (New Year’s Day).
We have something very special, exclusive and useful for practice marketers in the new year. So keep your eyes peeled for that.
Have a great NY weekend. See you Monday…
Troy
PS – In Monday’s message, I’m also gonna spill the beans on my all-time favorite Covert Content medium – Email marketing. Don’t miss it.