Michelle Grasek 03/15/2018 Spence: Hello, everybody and welcome to another Golden Cabinet podcast, where we have interviews with world-class TCM community leaders to discover the stories, habits, psychology and secrets that led them to their success. We have the honor of being here with Michelle Grasek again today. Thanks for being on the show again. Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. I’m excited to be here. Spence: It's awesome. I love you, I think you're great. This will be a regular occurrence. I think you've got a lot of value to add, and last time we chatted, we talked a lot about you and what you're about and modern acupuncture and Michelle Grasek and your website and your courses. But one of your courses and specialties, which, if you're not using Facebook ads and you want to use Facebook ads, or you are using Facebook ads and you're like, what the hell is going on here, I need some help, Michelle has a course on her site. In the show notes, there will be links over to that. And there should be a quick reference right below what you're watching that you can download, that she created. Five steps to making sure you're getting things right. You could be wasting a lot of money, I know this for a fact, from experience, I encourage you to get some guidance, and especially from someone who's an acupuncturist and can really help tune you in. Because every demographic is different I assume. So, we're here today to talk about Facebook ads. Michelle, why and how acupuncturists -- can you tell us how they can use it to get more patients or to grow their practice? Michelle: In my mind, there are three different ways that you can really use Facebook Ads. One of the methods I don't typically recommend, but so the three different methods are, if you write a blog post on your website for example, and you just want more people to see the blog post, you could boost the post that you put on Facebook. This is the one I don't usually recommend, just because that increases views on your website but maybe doesn't actually give you a method to collect information from people or to increase your revenue, like it doesn't necessarily bring you new patients. So, the two other methods that I do recommend with Facebook ads are either collecting people's email addresses, that would be creating an ad that directs people to an opt-in form, where they give you their email and you maybe give them like a free download, like your top ten natural ways to stay out of pain or something like that. The other method would be to create an ad where you're offering a discount and trying to get people to go directly to your online schedule and make an appointment. Those last two are the ones that I really recommend, I just think they're a better way to spend your money if you're going to spend money on ads. Spence: So, a typical download if I'm right. Or something you want to give to patients for free in exchange for their email address so you can continue to create a relationship with them over email would be just a simple kind of PDF cheat sheet or checklist or something on how to treat soreness, or how to make sure that you're not damaging your digestive system with certain foods or whatever it is. So, there's tools, just quickly, for people, a couple tools it might be out there, like I use OptinMonster and InfusionSoft. Michelle: I use Leadpages.net. Leadpages is probably really similar to OptinMonster, where you create just like a landing page explaining what the PDF is that you're offering people, and they can insert their email and it is sent directly to your email provider, like MailChimp or whoever you have. And then Leadpages actually delivers the PDF to their inbox, to their email. So, they kind of care of everything. Spence: Leadpages is kind of the standard, I understand. It's great, and it's fairly affordable. Some people might say, well, that's not a client, but you've got to build a list, and often, the value of our businesses is in its list size and quality of its list. The other is about converting patients, like in the quick reference sheet you gave below, there's a discount in it if you download it from Michelle's Facebook ad course, so download that. Those two are great, and we'll get into how to do those. What are things that people are doing wrong, like tell me just example what I'm doing wrong. Probably I don't use Facebook ads much, but what I would be doing probably and what’s wrong with that. Michelle: I would say that the number one thing is installing the pixel and the idea with the pixel -- so this is really basic stuff and that's really what my course reflects, it's an introduction to Facebook ads in it, it walks people through ads manager because ads manager in Facebook, the back end can be very frustrating and complicated. So, basically, I just share my screen and I'm like, click this to find your pixel, click this to install it and these are the ways that you create your ads. I walk them through that. And the very first step is installing your pixel, and for people who are not familiar with it, it's basically a little piece of code that you install on your website and that helps Facebook keep track of people who have visited your website. And then Facebook accumulates that data and you can use the pixel to actually project your ad to those specific people, or Facebook allows you to create a custom audience filled with people who are similar to those who visited your website. It's a little creepy, it reminds me of Big Brother, oh, my gosh, how do they know these things. It's kind of creepy but it's brilliant for ads retargeting because Facebook is so familiar with people, they know exactly things they like, things they don't like, who they follow, what they comment on. So, they can create those custom audiences for you. When you are using the pixel and creating custom audiences, it makes your ads much more effective, and then the cost, the ROI is that much better. Spence: So, ads manager, going in to create custom audience, creating a custom audience through the pixel that you've placed on your site so they can kind of follow those people around when they're back on Facebook with ads, a look-alike audience so that they can find people that are like the people that go through your website and target those people with an ad. And this is all in the top little hamburger of ads manager, all the audience creation and stuff. Then what you taught me the other day is that if you build that email list that we are just talking about, you can upload a CSV file of that email list of people and Facebook will follow them with that. So, that's all retargeting, it's called, right? Michelle: Yes. Spence: I'll explain things plainly, but the fact that you show your screen on your course and go through this stuff is exactly what people need. Good job. Michelle: It's so helpful because I feel like following along with the worksheet, it gets mentally exhausting, but just being able to open your own ads manager page and then minimize my video and like click along with me is super helpful. Spence: Yeah. You totally have split screen. Fantastic! Again, discount, get it. I will go through it. Custom audiences, that is pretty advanced and stuff and installing the pixel, you probably need a developer unless you're on WordPress and can grab a plug-in that might do that, is that probably one place you might need help? Michelle: I guess it depends on like what kind of website setup you have, who's hosting it, but I actually looked into the inside of Weebly websites as well as Qi sites. I know a lot of acupuncturists have Qi sites and a couple other really popular ones. And most of them have a framework, and I show this, I think I go through four different kinds of websites in the course. You can look for like SEO or there are little catch words, it's just an empty box and you just copy and paste the code in there so you don't ever have to go into the code of the website, because I wouldn’t recommend that. I've been running my WordPress website for four years and I still won't touch the code because I've broken it. But for the most part, Weebly, Qi sites, Wix, they are really simple, just copy and paste. You can put your Facebook pixel or if you have a Bluetooth tracking code for your analytics, you just pop it. So, it doesn't have to be that tricky. Spence: It doesn't have to be that complicated. Thank you. If you need it in the theme or something, that's complicated. You've got the site that requires that, but okay, good, you cover that. Don't let all this intimidate you, it's just stuff you got to learn and go through and be guided, which is what you can help with, and these custom audiences are ways to really hone in. But for people who have delved in it, they probably know more about just the basic ads manager, ad creator or whatever it's called, and you get into creating your audience in there. So, say I've got a clinic in Austin Texas or wherever, what do I got to do to not be advertising to people in Mumbai? Michelle: That’s a good question. One of the things Facebook will let you do is, let's say that you created a custom audience based on your pixel, which is really just a couple clicks in the audience portion of ad manager. Facebook will also let you have a geographic region if you want, so, you can narrow it in, based on your location. You can select for other interests, like, you could add whatever you want, but I generally recommend, if you're using your pixel or creating custom audience based on your email list, then you don't need to mess around with specific interests, just narrowing in the geography is all you need in addition to a custom audience. Spence: Okay. So, my guess though is that a lot of people wouldn't be coming in rolling in with a custom audience because they're going to get that message that says, you don't have enough people to create a custom audience or whatever. So, what needs to happen first, maybe a new practitioner, they just need to focus on geographic and interests. So the city and interest, they don't have a list, maybe their website doesn't have many visitors yet, and they're like, I'm going to use Facebook ads to just start driving traffic. And so that would be where more interests are important? Michelle: Yeah. Then they would really need to narrow their audience and choose different interests, kind of based on whoever their target market is or their like ideal patient. I don't have a ton of experience selecting for those interests because I think they are really tricky. Usually, to get it right so that Facebook doesn't give you a super weird audience, I've done before where people way out of my usual demographic are like making strange comments on my ads because I tried to select for those interests. So, that's not my expertise, some people are really good at it. Usually what I recommend is install your pixel and then be willing to give it a week or two, or if traffic to your website is really slow, maybe it needs more time. But I believe you need at least a thousand hits on your website once your pixel is installed in order for Facebook to collect that information and make accurate custom audience. Spence: Oh, so it's a thousand visits, okay. Michelle: I think so. I feel like last time I looked. Spence: They changed things a lot too. Michelle will update her Facebook course every year. Michelle: My recommendation for people who are brand new, and they feel like no one's going to their website and they're getting frustrated, is to start a blog on their website and then share every new post that they write on their social media, so that brings people right to your website. And then Facebook will start tracking. It just helps like bump up your traffic instead of just like waiting for people to land on it through like an organic search. Spence: For some people, they may have focused almost on social more. I know you millennials, younger folk might be in that realm, you can also create a custom and look-alike audiences through visitors to your page, right? Michelle: Yes, you can. Spence: Okay. That might be another avenue to take. Michelle: Yes. If you feel like you don't have enough hits for your pixel, yeah, that's a great idea. Spence: If you're already feeling really overwhelmed and confused, I get it. All these new words. I'm not even here to like overly promote you, it's a tough thing until you know it. I appreciate it. Michelle: The whole reason that I created the course was because I knew some acupuncturists who just had like this great potential to create ads, like they had these really good ideas, but ads manager was so frustrating to them that they were like, I'm not even going to do it. And so that's why I did this step-by-step, because I understand that like the jargon and the vocab may be confusing and overwhelming right now, but I promise when I'm walking you through it, I keep it as super simple as possible because that's just what's necessary with Facebook ads. And it helps a ton, so it's really not a headache when you just get through it. Spence: And they've got a great little app that you can set up to being every time you're getting like clicks. I know we wanted to talk about how people are already doing it, can maybe optimize things, but what's the difference if people are wanting website clicks, because right at the start you kind of got to make some decisions, and that's sometimes where it's like, oh, shit, what do I do here, do I want traffic or conversions - can you walk us through that little first part of it? Michelle: Yeah. So, really the big options for most acupuncturists who are creating ads are either website clicks or conversion, the opt-in that you mentioned. So, if you are trying to get people to sign up for your email list, then you would probably want to go with opt-ins so Facebook would track how many people are actually giving you their email. And then if you're trying to direct people right to your online schedule, I usually recommend website clicks. The thing is though, let's say if you're the kind of person who's done a couple rounds of Facebook ads, and it seems to be working but you thought you would get better results, I recommend changing your objective from opt-ins or conversions to website clicks, because website clicks is sometimes a better way. Like Facebook learns faster what your audience is interested in and who to show your ad to, based on the website clicks option. It tends to be a little bit cheaper as well. Spence: From my experience or what I've been told, you don't quite seem to get as much Intel back as quick if your goal is the big homerun, more like a sale or a booking or whatever. And tracking, that's a little bit more difficult, you've got to set up a conversion -- what's that called? Michelle: Conversion pixel. You get extra little tag added onto your pixel. Spence: People that have ads, what do you commonly foresee people doing, or in your experience people telling you what they're doing, because you can go in and tweak along the way. If you've just got 10 bucks a day or something running, you can watch for a week and go in and like make some changes or duplicate it and try different things, so what ways can people improve or do you see where people should be improving? Michelle: I would say like the easiest thing that, at least it comes up pretty often, is the amount of text on people's images. Facebook really doesn't want you to have more than 20% of your add image covered in text, but it will still show your ad even if you're getting close to that it just reduces the number of people who see it, and it makes it a little bit more expensive. So, it's kind of sneaky of them, like, they won't tell you, okay it's officially too much text, we're just not going to let you show it. They'll just reduce the delivery of your ad is what it's called. So, I usually say it’s a lot better delivery on your ads that you already have going, make the text smaller or just reduce the amount of stuff you're trying to say on your ad image, because generally less text means better ad delivery and slightly lower cost. Spence: Right. And if you choose a carousel, and say you put up four pictures, after a week, you can go and see which one's performing better, and then kind of deduce why, or maybe acts the other ones or do ones more similar to that. That's another way to optimize. What should maybe people be thinking about, like, I would for sure give some advice not to use like needles in the image. What do you think, should it be portraying the goal of like happy pain-free people or…? Michelle: Yeah. I think whenever you're selecting an image for an ad, and not just on Facebook but like anywhere that you need an image for an ad, definitely include one that has a picture of the person who looks like your target audience. And personally, I like to go with like they're happy right. So, make them kind of like the end goal. That's just my preference. I know some people they still have luck with like, oh, I'm in pain, like it's my target audience. If I'm looking for women in mid 30s who have pain, I'm like overdoing it and like weekend athletics. I like to pick the images where they're looking cheerful, like they've already recovered. Regardless, you have to have a person's face in the ad image. There's actually sociological research that shows that just as humans were social animals, we are drawn to look at faces. That’s why we always look in the sky and we're like, oh, I see a face in the clouds, or like it's Jesus on my piece of toast. I think that just gets a lot more eyes on your ad if you have a face in the image. I think that's the most important thing. Spence: In the healthcare field, are they pretty picky about, like, you can't jump in and say I'm going to cure your cancer in five steps. They're pretty picky on the medical field, right? Michelle: Yes. Facebook has like a laundry list of ways that you're not allowed to phrase things in Facebook ads because they just don't want you to be like calling out individuals. So, the one that's most relevant for acupuncturists, at least that I've stumbled across with people that I'm talking to you is you can't say things, like, do you have back pain, because that's calling them out. But you can say things like acupuncture helps back pain, or you can talk about different symptoms that someone might have for digestive issues, and then say that acupuncture is going to help them. I'm sure that they also have rules for things like, I can fix you or I can heal you. And in my online course, I link right to Facebook's list of things you can and can't say. And again, that's one of those things it feels overwhelming, like, God, Facebook has so many rules, but that's why I just direct people right to the link, right to the section that applies most to acupuncturists. The thing that you can't do is you can't call people out by name. Don't think it's something that most people would be worrying about. I read this fascinating article where people have surveyed their email list and they'll be like, wow, my list is 70% females and actually 30% of those females are named Ann or something. And ads that are like, ‘hey, Ann’, Facebook will not let you do that either. Spence: To me, I'm guessing it's hard to tell, because everyone's different, but like you said with the images, use a face, people respond to that, and some people have success with the ‘pain look’ in that success look. Within the guidelines of what you can say with the text, you can play with how you're delivering, like here's a solution for you, or just with your wording, you've kind of got to play with that and look for feedback. Michelle: Yeah. I do think with any marketing and with Facebook ads especially, you have to be willing to experiment a little bit, because I listen to a lot of the Facebook ads gurus out there as well because, obviously, they're so above and beyond the level that I'm at managing ads for like hundreds of companies and stuff like that but -- I forgot where I was going actually. Spence: Yeah, they're great to listen to some too, that's why I think your course is probably really great for a lot of the listeners here and in our acupuncture world, because it's more intro to intermediate. I think you got to get super savvy when you get into marketing for digital, and when that's a huge part of Facebook ads. I don't know anyone whose Facebook or budgeting market for their clinic would be all Facebook ads. Maybe some. I'm not sure, but it's going to be a piece, so, it's hard to want to put the time into it and become an expert. So, something like your course is all people should need, I expect. Is that right? Michelle: Yeah. I could get more advanced, and I did. It came back to me where I was going with the Facebook gurus, thank goodness. Because they're always talking about being willing to experiment with your Facebook ads and insisting that you kind of have to give them a little time and be open-minded about tinkering with the ads. So, like if you do an ad and it doesn't get the results that you want, it that doesn't mean abandon Facebook ads, that just means keep course correcting and tinkering a little bit until you arrive at something where it feels like it's a good ROI. I believe in that really strongly for all kinds of marketing. I think unfortunately that a lot of wellness providers were reluctant to market to begin with, and then they'll try something and feel like it didn't work like we thought it would for whatever reason that maybe we can't even identify, and then we'll just be like, marketing doesn't work, like write this huge blanket statement. I always encourage people to be open-minded and think about all of marketing as experimentation. And it's not like failure, it's just learning and course correcting, because you're all going to get better. Spence: Okay. One caveat to experimenting that I would impart on people is to consider always trying to focus on the outcome that the person looking at the ad is looking for. Like, highlighting acupuncture. I'm an acupuncturist, acupuncture is great, acupuncture, come see me. Focus on the wording so people, when they take a quick glance at it, they see that you're offering a solution to their problem. Michelle: Yes, I agree with that. Spence: Okay. Michelle: Why they should care about what you're offering? Because a lot of people hear ‘acupuncture’, and they are like, that's great, but I'm not really sure what that's for or if it applies to me. So, you want to make an ad apply to them really. Spence: What do you think about the congruence between the look of the Facebook ad and wording, and how your opt-in page or your website looks like? They should kind of know once they click in that it's like the same place, should there be a similar feel? Michelle: Absolutely. So many good questions! I feel so excited to answer before you even start asking the question. For some reason, online, they call this ‘maintaining the scent’, which I think is the weirdest phrase ever, but basically the look of your ad and the branding should be maintained on the landing page. So, if you have like green and yellow in your ad and then you direct them to a landing page, that's like purple and like zigzag stripes or whatever, and it's actually very jarring mentally for people, and they trust it a lot less. They're like, this doesn't look like the place that I clicked from, I don't give them my email address because it feels spammy. So yeah, that's actually very important. Spence: So, we've gone through what makes images and texts important and opt-ins and all the custom audiences and stuff, people look at the cost and they're like, even if I do just 10 bucks a day, that’s 300 bucks a month. So, is there kind of a threshold or somewhere when people are experimenting and starting off, they should start with and then creep up with ads that are performing, do you have any thoughts on that? Michelle: I think it's kind of based on the person and their budget to begin with, but I would say that at least I prefer to do Facebook ads for like a particular reason and not like just ongoing. I think of the Google Ads, AdWords, I think of those as more like ongoing kind of never-ending advertisement for your website. Whereas Facebook ads, like if I am having a sale or special event or I created a new worksheet and I want to share it with people but I want them to opt-in, those are the reasons that I might create an ad. And I think it's important to run an ad for at least three or four days, if not like a week or two, because, again, Facebook is learning. I think sometimes people will release an ad and then be like in a day panic because they're like, I'm not getting the activity that I thought I would. And actually it’s not super unusual, Facebook is still learning what your audience wants to see and deciding who to show the ad to. So, I usually tell people, just sit tight and give it three or four days. Hopefully, they can afford like 30 or 40 dollars, and then they can tweak and go back to it if they want to. Spence: That's great. I mean, you can spend whatever you want, however much or little you want. So, that's interesting. More for promos, and then put a little bit more money into it and see how that is. If someone's like going through this and they're like, okay, this is a lot, they go through your course, that's great. Or do you offer some one-on-one time or do you help people somehow with Facebook ads beyond your course? Michelle: Yeah. I'm always open to people emailing me. I don't do a lot of like Skype one-on-ones but maybe it's because throughout the course I'm always like, email me, email me and then I flash my email up on the screen, so maybe that's why we have the conversations over text as opposed to one-on-one. But I wouldn't be opposed to that. I think it’s really fascinating to hear like the different inventive ways that people are successful using Facebook ads for their practices. And, yeah, I like the brainstorming. In general, I’m like, just email me and we'll talk about your marketing. Spence: We’ll get you on yearly to talk about whatever ad platform, if it's Facebook or whatever, I’m sure Facebook isn't going anywhere, Instagram is on the rise, but just to kind of rehash. They're kind of like Google, at least they seem to be growing with some integrity and it's getting tougher and tougher for businesses to get news feed time. That's what Facebook was built, for people to connect. It wasn't a business platform although I'm sure Facebook is loving the ad dollars that are coming in, like, holy, I can't imagine, they make it so easy. It seems complicated but actually it's really easy just to get one going and give the money. Might not be good. Michelle: It's in Facebook's best interests for people to be successful using their ads, because then you're just going to keep doing it and they are going to keep making money. So definitely, yeah, they want people to be successful with ad creation. Spence: I think that is great, something for people to hear. It's not you against them. They really want your ads to be successful because you'll keep dumping money into them, and it costs them nothing, except for rebuilding their algorithms and trying to learn more and more and more, which is awesome. That's my difficulty, we've got a few ways that people can measure how it's affecting the opt-ins and views and stuff, I get that, but conversions, you know, Facebook ads equaling a patient. Is it referral checkboxes or…? Michelle: Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I kind of think about Facebook Ads, it is like starting from the result that you want to get, and we'll think backwards, creating an ad that is going to bring people to that result. So it sort of depends on the outcome that people are looking for. If they are creating an ad that brings in new patients, like, gets them on the schedule, and a new patient visit is $85, then they have to think about like, well, how much am I willing to pay per click or per opt-in in order for it to feel worth it to me. And I haven't checked in on like the average in a little while, but I feel like somewhere in the range of like $2-3 per click, at least it's typically what I'm aiming for. I'm sure it varies based on location and how many other people are advertising something similar in your gene pool area. But I feel like $2.60 per click, is pretty good. When my clicks get up to like $5 a click, then I really feel like my ROI is not going to be that good and I need to reassess. Spence: Right. Well, I mean, even big picture for us, it's in our intake forms, it's in speaking with patients and the admin kind of takes care of that in the clinic. It’s like, well, how did you come in, it's like, click the internet box. But it's like, okay, let's drill down a bit, it's not enough. But, realistically, with any marketing, in my opinion, you want to think of ROI or return on investments. So, say you spend a thousand bucks in a month on Facebook ads, just trying to pump traffic to your site, maybe you've got great landing pages for your conditions you commonly see and it sends them to contact us really quickly. And realistically, if you're seeing something like we do, which is primarily reproductive health concerns, if we got one patient out of that that pays for that, you got to think of that average lifetime value of one patient. And let's just shoot in the dark for a lot of people that might be around a thousand bucks. If you get one out of that, it's paid for itself, it's obviously not returning on your investment, but it's at least, paying for it. But a thousand dollars of ads on Facebook would drive you a lot of traffic. Michelle: Yes. I usually recommend people try to start out at like $10 or $12 a day. I have read that if you pour a lot of money into just one ad, like $20 or $30 a day can sometimes confuse the Facebook algorithm if you have like a small audience. Like, if it doesn't have a lot of hits on your pixel to work with or you didn't have a lot of emails to add up. But I could see if someone was doing multiple ads and directing them towards like different kinds of landing pages, then you could be doing like $10 on each ad. Spence: Right. So, ten bucks for an ad for a month, 300 bucks. That's just for people to get perspective. Try that, because that's 300 bucks, if you got to spend that on something in your marketing dollars. I mean, if you want to try Facebook ads, go to Michelle's course. Learn, because that'll save you a lot of money first. Spend that money and then experiment for a few months with 300 bucks, and see how it goes and learn from that. That's how I would move forward probably with it as that sounds like a kind of a plan I'm trying to boil things down here for people. Michelle: Absolutely. My marketing mentor from back in the day always said that you should really do any kind of advertising, you should try to do for three months in a row just to give it time to leverage and really stick. So, kind of think about, yeah, I usually recommend people, think about what would three months of this kind of advertising cost you and can you budget for that, does it feel reasonable that sort of thing. Spence: As our company's mature, I get to rest more because I think part of maturing is getting marketing schedules in place. I know you touch on that stuff in your other course, so you're not always chasing the next shiny object. Facebook ads can be some of that, but getting in there and experimenting with how it's going to work because there's going to be many moving pieces to your marketing planner. There doesn't have to be, but there definitely can be in this day and age and you'll pull from different -- and social and online definitely is a place that everyone should be at least optimizing their website or using social ads or whatever it is. But jump in and spend that three months to find what's kind of going to be working for you and to set that in motion and keep moving forward. I don't know, it’s so addictive to be always watching, but it's nice after a while to be able to sit back and let a year go by of marketing plan and then reassess. It's just less hectic. Michelle: I do think that that is the purpose, so that you can focus on other things ultimately. Like, it just becomes automatic, the marketing, and then you can think more about your patients. Spence: Yeah, freedom. This has been great. I don't know, is there any closing words? Again, your course, go right down here, click on the opt-in there, get the five-step quick reference that Michelle kindly made for everybody, and within, it's got the special discount code for her course, so grab that too. Go over to Michelle’s site and jump into our course today. How fast do you think someone can get through that course and start getting things going, pretty much right away or…? Michelle: I can't remember, it's a couple of hours. It’s not too bad. Spence: Okay, that’s great. So, basically, hit the ground running. I mean, it's not like you got to go through a semester of training. And this is just like get you going kind of stuff, so super practical, super worth, it’s super actionable. And thanks so much for being here. If there's any big changes to Facebook ads, you come on again, and we'll let everyone know. Michelle: Absolutely. I'd love to. Spence: Awesome. Thanks again so much for coming, you're going to be regular here, so everyone, get used to seeing this pretty face, and we'll talk to you again soon, Michelle. Thanks again. Michelle: Thank you.