Session - 0038 Stephen McGill on Marketing for Hypnotherapists

Today, we have a special guest, Stephen McGill, sharing expert insights on the power of video and digital marketing. 

We'll dive into the best practices for leveraging different social media platforms—LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok—and the importance of using video content to engage audiences. Stephen also introduces us to Opus.clip, a tool that efficiently reformats videos for various platforms, maximising content reach.

In this episode, you'll gain valuable tips on optimising your Facebook ad campaigns, mastering SEO, and the critical role of posting quality content consistently. Stephen will also discuss his 16-week marketing course tailored for hypnotherapists, designed to help them enhance their business strategies. Learn how to narrow your audience, set effective ad budgets, and build credibility through client testimonials and continuous value delivery.

Ready to transform your marketing strategy for 2024? Join us as we explore how anyone—from therapists to business owners—can become adept marketers in today's digital age. Plus, Stephen offers free audits and actionable steps to boost your marketing efforts with no strings attached. Don't miss this episode packed with actionable advice to take your business to the next level!

Lessons Covered in this Podcast

1. Marketing Focused Approach
    Hypnotherapists should see marketing as a serious venture.

2. Background on Stephen McGill
    Marketing and business experience rooted in web design and photography.

3. Venturing into Hypnotherapy
    Stephen chose marketing for hypnotherapists over clinical practice to help many.

4. Finding Your Market
    Identify and understand your target audience's demographics and psychographics.

5. The Importance of Social Media
    Posting quality content consistently on social media boosts visibility.

6. **Essentials of Effective Marketing**
    - Narrow down your hypnotherapy specialty and communicate the problems you solve.

7. Course Overview
    Stephen offers a comprehensive marketing course from beginner to intermediate.

8. Online Visibility
    Consistent social media presence is crucial for business growth and client acquisition.

9. Content Quality Over Follower Count
    Focus on content quality rather than the number of followers.

10. Solving Client Problems
    Highlight the practical solutions you offer rather than just your qualifications.

https://www.theramarketing.co.uk

Music Used is by:
https://soundcloud.com/ashamaluevmusic2/my-world?in=ashamaluevmusic2/sets/piano-music

Hi there, thanks for listening and please like this podcast where you listen to your podcasts.

The European Association of Professional Hypnotherapists is a group of like-minded hypnotherapists who are accredited professionals in their field. Many of our therapists have many many years of experience behind them which means you are probably in the best possible hands, available to you.

Why not pop on over to eaph.ie and choose the hypnotherapist that suits you. Many provide online hypnotherapy. eaph.ie

We welcome feedback on your listening experience at eaph.ie

Transcript

Aidan Noone [00:00:00]:
Now welcome, to the Professional Hypnotherapist Podcast.

Stephen McGill [00:00:03]:
Thank you very much. Good to be here.

Aidan Noone [00:00:06]:
Stephen, I met you firstly, in the Irish Hypnotherapy Conference in Dublin. And you were doing your presentation there. What what what was that, the the guts of what you were actually doing, in in that presentation?

Stephen McGill [00:00:23]:
That presentation was geared towards a more focused approach to marketing, for hypotherapists to take it more as a serious venture rather than just a byproduct of what they do.

Aidan Noone [00:00:37]:
So that's what we're going to talk about today, marketing for hypnotherapists. But before we get there, Steven, maybe just tell us a little bit about you. Who is Steven McGill?

Stephen McGill [00:00:47]:
Oh, what a question. It all started roughly around 2,007 when I decided to professionally then open a business in web design. So I opened a web design slash photography studio with my wife and Tracy in Derry here, and we were getting a lot of good business. It was just maybe 2 months before the recession of 2007 hit. Getting a lot of good business. The recession had didn't really affect us at all because everybody needed to advertise, still. So I was getting a lot of, web design requests, but then people were coming back not because they didn't like the website, but because they weren't getting the traffic to the website to convert. So that and I ventured into the world then of marketing.

Stephen McGill [00:01:37]:
Yeah. Fast forward to 2,012, then I got involved with Karl Lattney in the Irish Clinical Hypnotherapy Institute. Learned my craft in hypnotherapy with him qualified as hypnotherapist and then started to focus on the marketing. My view was I didn't want to go down the route of opening a clinic to help 1 to 1. I thought if I could help the hypnotherapists go out to many people, then I would be in some way responsible for helping more people than I could ever achieve in a clinic.

Aidan Noone [00:02:11]:
And, you know, as hypnotherapist, that the whole, you know, idea or the whole purpose is to help people.

Stephen McGill [00:02:20]:
Yeah.

Aidan Noone [00:02:20]:
And but, again, as you said, you know, if if if we don't know, if, you know, it's to help people. But, you know, if if we don't know who our market is or if we have to find our market so how do we actually do that, Steven?

Stephen McGill [00:02:37]:
Well, we're actually about to release a course, on how to do those specific things, set up step by step marketing from an absolute beginner to intermediate. But one of the modules in the course is called, working at your avatar, finding your avatar. That's what we call it in an industry of who exactly is it that you're looking to speak to. So So you would make a decision yourself on what, treatment you wanna specialize in to attract because each cohort looks different. So someone someone looking for relief from anxiety would look very different to someone that's looking to quit smoking. So decide, and you can have multiple cohorts. But if you decide on what that person look like, you focus on their demographic, which is their age, sex, location. And then also their psychographic is what makes them your customer? What do they value in life? What are they their hobbies and their interests? And then Yeah.

Stephen McGill [00:03:31]:
Reverse engineer it that way.

Aidan Noone [00:03:33]:
Mhmm. And, you know, so often nowadays, we're told, oh, you have to be posting on social media at least 3 times a day. So how how important is posting on social media?

Stephen McGill [00:03:45]:
It's essential, to quote someone that I learned from. A business without a sign is a sign of no business. So if you're not posting, people don't know you exist. The way the platforms now in 2024 work is that it's not necessarily about the followers that you have anymore, but it's the quality of the content that you're putting out there. So if you're not putting my content, then nobody knows you exist. So it is one of the most important things that you can do.

Aidan Noone [00:04:13]:
Mhmm. Now marketing, you know, it's a it's a sort of a buzzword that, people are, you know, some maybe familiar with. But let's get down to the nitty gritty and specifically for, let's say, Joseph or Mary, whatever, hypnotherapist down the road who wants to get their message across, what do they need to do?

Stephen McGill [00:04:38]:
They need to work out what, like I said, what their specialty is if or or even pick one of the the main avenues. And then but also communicate across what problems do they solve. Okay. So a lot of people focus on the features of what they do and the feature and or speak about themselves or what they qualify then. The public don't care. Oh, exactly. They care about, I have this problem. Who's the best person to solve this problem for me in the most efficient cost effective way?

Aidan Noone [00:05:08]:
Yeah. Exactly. And it's it's you know, you really hit the nail on the head there because it's all about solving a problem. And, yeah, and keep people aren't interested who you're qualified with, or, you know, they're very, rarely interested, about, you know, what exactly about hypnotherapy per se. They just want results, as I always say. Results, results, results.

Stephen McGill [00:05:35]:
Yeah. Client testimonials, like, again, I speak about this in my talk, but client testimonials are the social proof that helps people communicate across that I am the person to solve your problem. It's the reason why in this day and age, we don't go on holiday. We don't buy anything without reading the reviews first

Aidan Noone [00:05:52]:
Yeah.

Stephen McGill [00:05:52]:
To avoid pain, the buyer's remorse, all these different terminologies in marketing that we people want to avoid pain aversion for making the wrong choice.

Aidan Noone [00:06:06]:
Mhmm. Now in the world of therapy, you know, it's it's by by its very nature, it's very confidential. It's it's, it's personal. And you mentioned there about testimonials. Mhmm. So I mean, is it legit that you would ask a client for a testimonial? Or how do you in other words, how do you overcome that without, you know, infringing, confidentiality, if you want to call it that?

Stephen McGill [00:06:34]:
Well, I think the best thing once we in error quotations emerge the client, that's when they are at their most apt to ask them for the review at that stage. But it it all depends on the way you frame what you're asking. So a lot of people will directly ask, can you leave us a review? That's fine. But if you reframe it in a way of, say, John, we've just had a great session. You've got a lot of relief. There's other people out there like you. Is there any chance that you could put something on paper or go into my Google My Business and leave a review so I can help other people like you? As long as you give people a reason why they should do it, they're more susceptible then to doing it for you.

Aidan Noone [00:07:19]:
Okay. K. And there's an expression out there I beg your pardon. Go ahead.

Stephen McGill [00:07:24]:
Nope. No. No. Go ahead.

Aidan Noone [00:07:26]:
There's an expression out there, you know, to know, like, and trust.

Stephen McGill [00:07:31]:
Yes.

Aidan Noone [00:07:31]:
So how how do we build that that, you know, that trust with prospective clients out there? What what do you recommend?

Stephen McGill [00:07:40]:
Well, it's by showing up on a consistent regular basis so people then know, like, and trust you from your content that you're putting out there, that you're not putting out on very confidential things that they trust that you won't do that to them. It's showing up with a regular consistent message that you're putting across to people, that you're not veering from your message or your brand's voice, so to speak. It it's those types of daily actions or weekly actions or monthly actions, that'll gain you the trust in people. Also, a big one is to not sell to people, then they'll trust you more. But nobody likes to be sold to.

Aidan Noone [00:08:20]:
No. That's that's important. I like that. And it's as we said earlier at the beginning, it's about problem solving.

Stephen McGill [00:08:27]:
Yeah. It's by problem solving and over delivering on value so much so because information is not a commodity anymore. Any topic in the world, you can go online now and learn and be proficient in. So the to not gatekeep any secrets of your industry because there aren't any. But if you can over communicate the value in social media, then that creates that trust of this person not holding anything back.

Aidan Noone [00:08:54]:
So can you give us an example of, over communicating the value? What what do you need what does a hypnotherapist or a therapist out there need to do?

Stephen McGill [00:09:03]:
So just off the top of my head, say you were doing a TikTok video and you you'd shown someone you were talking about anxiety, say, and you you'd you'd demonstrated the box breathing or you demonstrated how to ground yourself or Yeah. Different things that you're you would have normally historically kept until the session if you show them. Because majority of people watching your video will appreciate it, but they won't actually follow through and do the thing as well. So a lot of a lot of businesses don't like putting their secrets out there, but they don't realize most people don't actually follow through.

Aidan Noone [00:09:37]:
I think that's really important. You know? Yeah. Because, you know, what I've experienced where, you know, you you, you know, it's important that you communicate and you over deliver with with the information. Because as you say, there's no secrets out there. No. And, I mean, without repeating what you've said as well, I have to repeat it, I suppose, is that, you know, you you you you you just over deliver. You communicate what you have, and you give away your secrets. Because as you said, people don't follow through.

Aidan Noone [00:10:11]:
They need that personal touch. Would you agree?

Stephen McGill [00:10:14]:
They need the personal touch, but also what I find helps massively is the accountability with them as well. So I can tell you I can tell you 13 things that you need to do with your Google My Business. Now that's that's enough information for you to create a €100,000 business a year. But will you implement them? Probably not as serious as you need to. But if we have a call every week or every fortnight and I check up on what you've done, that adds in the factor then of accountability where you'll make make sure you get it done for that next call.

Aidan Noone [00:10:46]:
Okay. Okay. So you talked about, well, 13 secrets?

Stephen McGill [00:10:51]:
Yep.

Aidan Noone [00:10:52]:
Okay. Can you give us a few of those?

Stephen McGill [00:10:54]:
Yeah. For example, making sure your profile on Google My Business specifically is completely followed out. A lot of people ignores certain parts of it. But if it's completely filled out, Google likes that. Google has a platform likes that. Another one would be to post quite regularly. A lot of people don't realize it is an actual platform where you can post your updates and your offers and your information on there. Like

Aidan Noone [00:11:17]:
Cool. Cool.

Stephen McGill [00:11:17]:
Yes, sir.

Aidan Noone [00:11:18]:
Really? And did they allow you to post videos?

Stephen McGill [00:11:22]:
Yes. They allow you to post written videos, images, and then links out to other say you written a blog. They'll allow you to to, link out to that or a podcast, a podcast link. So Yeah. The the more it it's basically you're putting out more information because on Google, you're competing with people in your area and in your niche. So to raise above them would be to have extra reviews, to have extra updates so that Google sees you're not a stagnant business that created your profile 2 years ago and haven't done anything about it. Are you still open? Are you closed? It doesn't know. Yes.

Aidan Noone [00:11:57]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's important. Alright. And, you know, nowadays, I mean, I'm hearing and reading and listening and watching about some people out there say, well, web, websites are becoming less important. What's your take on that?

Stephen McGill [00:12:18]:
Absolutely not. Websites are important for so many different reasons, maybe too many to list. But just say, for example, with the right ease of AI, where does AI get the information from? It obviously can scrape it from websites. So if you're not if you don't have any presence on the web, how does it know to scrape information or impactful quotes or things that you've said or techniques or advice that you said. Yeah. So it can't ever quote you. It's just one way, but it's still in this day and age in 2024, we're still as users of the Internet, we're still used to getting the credibility from people's websites and the information from people's websites.

Aidan Noone [00:12:57]:
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Stephen McGill [00:12:58]:
80, 82 percent of web traffic onto your website comes from mobile devices. So maybe that would be an important thing to make sure your website is responsive to mobiles and tablets. Yeah. Things like that. But it there is the some clients that we look after, they have thousands of hits per day on their website, so they're definitely not dying. The culture isn't there. It hasn't swapped over to any other medium yet.

Aidan Noone [00:13:21]:
Mhmm. Two questions. SEO and in your in your opinion, what is the most important social media site to be on?

Stephen McGill [00:13:33]:
So I'll answer the SEO question first. Just remind me of the second one whenever I come to it. But SEO is super important in terms of Google's. It's the largest search engine in the world, and SEO stands for search engine optimization. So you're optimizing your website to go on the I guess search engine in the world that everyone uses. So to ignore some aspects of SEO would be criminal, and you just have to accept your fate with it if you don't. You can combat it with admin blogs, informational valuable blogs that because Google has a framework that they've released called EEAT, which educate, experience, authority, trust. Basically, that's an acronym.

Stephen McGill [00:14:19]:
So if you're not providing value that or if you're not providing information that is educational, authoritative, and trustworthy, Google don't necessarily think that your site's valuable enough to rank above one of your competitors because they're definite they're definitely addressing these things, and their content, which makes sure it's looking at your website as a customer, not as a business owner. So how is the experience of it? Do they have to scroll? 72% of people don't scroll when they go on the website. So it's making sure you have everything above the fold as it's called. So all the information you call to action, your your email address, your telephone number, what benefits, what solution can you provide, all has to be above the fold to hit to hit that 72% that aren't even gonna scroll to see your fancy about about me section. Right. Right. What sorry. Sorry.

Stephen McGill [00:15:13]:
We were gonna ask any question.

Aidan Noone [00:15:14]:
Oh, no. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Stephen McGill [00:15:16]:
To answer your second, which platform, you have to reverse engineer. Each individual has to reverse engineer what they are most comfortable with in terms of what form of media are they most comfortable delivering. Are they a writer? Are they a speaker? Are they a video person? Are they better personality on screen? And then that determines what platform to be on. You have to go where the attention is. So if you're more susceptible to writing long form copy, LinkedIn would be the place for you.

Aidan Noone [00:15:49]:
Right.

Stephen McGill [00:15:49]:
If it's shorter form with images, Facebook if you're amazing on video, TikTok is definitely the place to be at the moment.

Aidan Noone [00:15:56]:
Right.

Stephen McGill [00:15:57]:
So it's there's really no right answer. It's try all of them, see which one you're most comfortable with, and then stay there with it where wherever your audience is.

Aidan Noone [00:16:08]:
Yeah. And the importance of video, would you speak to that?

Stephen McGill [00:16:13]:
It's the most important thing at the minute, and that's not to overwhelm people who don't like being on camera. You can do faceless videos, so not to worry about that. But video, if we think ourselves how we consume social media content or any content, it's mostly through audio now because audio allows us to do multitasks multitasking things. Whereas before, if if I we were to put out a long form content, you have to be completely engaged in that one activity of reading. But if you're listening to podcasts or if you're listening to, or watching a YouTube video in the car where you're listening to the audio where you don't need to watch, then you can do other things like drive or cook or clean or whatever it is. Video with captions, it's because it's there's been a a term coined recently, at a TikTokification of all platforms where all platforms are now moving towards video because Yeah. The visual and auditory cues that people are taken from is the most dopamine receptive things that they can get from. Mhmm.

Stephen McGill [00:17:20]:
People are it it attaches to 2 different learning styles of auditory and visual rather than just 1.

Aidan Noone [00:17:26]:
Right. And, you know, the the importance, when I we're talking about video, the importance or the significance of having, 16 by 9 videos, which is your your smartphone, and then you have the the broader ones for YouTube. So what what's your take on that? What what format should we post our videos in?

Stephen McGill [00:17:48]:
Again, it reverse engineers to what platform you're looking to go on, but what we do as an agency is we will record it first on landscape to then plug it into there's a website called opus.clip. So that will take your that will take your video and and then reformat it into different formats. So you can, you could post it on YouTube Shorts or TikTok or Instagram Reels or Facebook Reels, but you still have the original one to post on YouTube itself as a longer form video. So out of that one video, you can get 17 pieces of content. So posting 3 times a day becomes easier.

Aidan Noone [00:18:23]:
Yeah. And that opus dot chip, is that a paid website?

Stephen McGill [00:18:27]:
It has both. It is a free version and the paid version.

Aidan Noone [00:18:31]:
Mhmm. Uh-huh.

Stephen McGill [00:18:31]:
But just maybe as something to think about, if you create maybe a podcast like this where we're talking for 30 minutes. So number 1, we have a YouTube video we can take from it. We can take the audio for Spotify. We can transcribe it and put it on long form on LinkedIn. We can then take a snapshot of it and put it on Pinterest with the link out to our website. We can then break it down into YouTube shorts. We can put it on TikTok video. We can put little snippets on Facebook.

Stephen McGill [00:18:58]:
We can put it on the reels. We could put it on Instagram, and then we can put it on Snapchat. So there's 10 pieces of content from our 30 minute conversation.

Aidan Noone [00:19:08]:
Yeah. That's all done on on the that website you gave me.

Stephen McGill [00:19:12]:
Yeah. The

Aidan Noone [00:19:13]:
the, what is it? Opus dot clip.

Stephen McGill [00:19:16]:
Opus dot clip. You can transcribe it. Once you put it on YouTube, there's extra plugins called GLASP, GLASP. If you put it into your browser, it'll transcribe it all for you. That's interesting. GLASP. It's automatic.

Aidan Noone [00:19:32]:
Right. Now, earlier that thanks for that. That's really valuable information. Earlier, we spoke about, you know, the importance of being on Google. Google's your business profile being filled out there. And I come back again, I come back to to that, and I mentioned websites.

Stephen McGill [00:19:53]:
Yeah.

Aidan Noone [00:19:53]:
So does Google you know, does it take most of its information in your do you know, in your opinion, does it take most of its information from the Google presence, the the business profile from that, or does it actually, take it from your website? Which which is more important in other words?

Stephen McGill [00:20:12]:
So nobody really knows the main algorithm that Google uses, but the signals that it's putting out is it'll it'll put it into what's called the domain authority or domain ranking. So Yeah. It that determines how many other websites backlink to your article. So if you write a blog and you put it on Facebook, you put it on LinkedIn, you put it on, a different forum, a different community page, and they all backlink. The more backlinks that you have, then the more authoritative your domain is. So it'll take the information from that, but it'll also pull in from other search engines. It'll also pull in information from Facebook, from, YouTube. It's the 2nd largest search engine in the world.

Stephen McGill [00:20:51]:
So if you have videos on YouTube, it'll pull out that information. You'll get video video answers on the top of the SERPs, which is search engine results page, which is the first thing that you see whenever you search. So it pulls it in any reference. It'll pull in from all the different places that you're present on online, not just websites, but your your social platforms as well.

Aidan Noone [00:21:15]:
Right. And it's really important to know all all this stuff. What's what's the one thing, the one essential thing or maybe 1 or 2 essential things that a hypnotherapist must do nowadays in terms of marketing?

Stephen McGill [00:21:34]:
Understand that everything that we've talked about on this call and everything we talk about in general in marketing is free. This is the best time to be alive as a business owner because everything is free. And the worst thing that can happen if you put up a bad post is that no one sees it. So a lot of hypnotherapists have this imposter syndrome or Yeah. This idea that they don't know what to post. They're not confident on Yeah. You know, if if a hypnotherapist isn't confident on Avril, they could reach out to one of their peers and maybe get a session on confidence. Yes.

Stephen McGill [00:22:09]:
You know, we have we have the tools to overcome any obstacles Yeah. In know.

Aidan Noone [00:22:14]:
In other words, there's no really no excuse, is there?

Stephen McGill [00:22:16]:
No. No. Definitely not. The only excuse like, the amount of large language models or AI inside there now that you can input your your profile and your aid and get unlimited numbers of, brainstorming ideas back for types of content is just crazy at the minute.

Aidan Noone [00:22:36]:
Mhmm. And I'm going to ask you a question this question because it's a bugbear of mine.

Stephen McGill [00:22:44]:
Go for it.

Aidan Noone [00:22:44]:
Newspaper advertising. Mhmm. Tell me. What's your take on that?

Stephen McGill [00:22:52]:
So the way that I look at any sort of marketing is where is the attention at? And in 2024 in June, it's not on newspapers versus the scale that it is online. That's and it's not a criticism of newspapers. If newspapers started to get more attention tomorrow, I would be the first one on there. Yeah. But the attention is not there. And but the prices are still 19.90 prices Yeah. Which doesn't if you took, say, €300 for a quarter page ad, for example, in a newspaper and put the same €300 into a Facebook ads crafted properly and then compare compare the results, there wouldn't be a conversation needed anymore.

Aidan Noone [00:23:34]:
Absolutely. And, of course, the same goes for magazine advertising as well.

Stephen McGill [00:23:37]:
Correct. Yep. I'm not saying these things aren't necessarily a good thing or bad thing, but if you compare them against other things that work Yeah. The the return on investment is not the same. No. You know, I've done ads for therapists for quit smoking, and they've had to contact me to tell me to stop because there's too many leads. Yet there's 3 other people recently that did add, in their local newspaper and didn't get anything. Yeah.

Stephen McGill [00:24:03]:
The thing the main thing that I like about the newspapers versus paid advertising, If I put 300 into a newspaper ad and no one rings me, I'm down 300. But if I put an ad if I put an ad on Facebook and put 300 into it and no one clicks on it, I get my 300 back.

Aidan Noone [00:24:21]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen McGill [00:24:22]:
Yeah. It's pay it's page per click. You You know? So you're you're getting immediate feedback that you need to change something in your ad to convey more value and more trust and more authoritiveness and more call to action or change your word and change your image, change your graphic. You can't do that in the world of newspaper or magazine advertising. Once it's out in the ether, it's out there.

Aidan Noone [00:24:42]:
Yeah. And the age old saying of that w I I f m, what's in it for me? Exactly. So, How do we communicate that what's in it for me, that value? What's just give us 1 or 2 points on that if you can, please.

Stephen McGill [00:24:58]:
Well, by being direct in your message to what's in it for them and communicate across like, we're all therapists in our own way. We have all learned maybe NLP techniques or different language. So to put that to then use those techniques into our copy, which is what we call copy the the written or communicative way across. But, like, say, for example, if we put an if we're doing an ad for quit smoking, for example, and we're thinking about NLP, like, I would literally put it in the copy, close your eyes, and imagine how good it would feel to be a nonsmoker. Now we're using our language that we've already learned into our copy. We've been persuasive in that language. Just be direct with them. So what's in it for you? As soon as you quit smoking, you'll feel great.

Stephen McGill [00:25:46]:
Yeah. And you'll and you'll call yourself a nonsmoker.

Aidan Noone [00:25:49]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen McGill [00:25:50]:
So it's but what's in it for me is so important. That's the the crux of everything. Anything before you post anything, you should always ask yourself what's in it for them. What are they are you posting for the sake of posting? Don't do that. Make sure you're posting for answering the question. What's in it for them? Are they gonna feel good? Are they gonna be more relaxed? Are they gonna be more productive? Are they gonna be more x fill in the blank?

Aidan Noone [00:26:16]:
Yeah. They're really, really important points. And, unfortunately, it the, you know, the nature of, where we are at today in terms of the technology, it's all about, social media. And, unfortunately, it's not about newspapers because, you know, through the years, I've done a lot of what I would call, and you learn the hard way, business card ads that do nothing.

Stephen McGill [00:26:40]:
No. And I think part of the problem that we need to address that people might not like is they think if they do an ad in the newspaper, it takes it off their conscious that they've done something towards marketing their business. I've seen that regularly that and then it gives them if if they have no reply on it, then the it's confirmation bias to themselves that marketing doesn't work. Okay. Or or that type of marketing doesn't work. So I I would hear the phrase, like, I would get my all my referrals. Oh, I'll get all my my business through referrals.

Aidan Noone [00:27:13]:
But

Stephen McGill [00:27:14]:
Yeah. And don't ignore the fact that social media is referrals on steroids.

Aidan Noone [00:27:19]:
Yes. And it's also, you know, it's you know, we we briefly touched on that earlier about, you know, the, the locality, the to where you're located. But it's it nowadays, it's not about where you're locate located because social media has a far reaching outreach.

Stephen McGill [00:27:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's everyone's accustomed since the pandemic to doing everything online as much as they can. There are still a lot of people that, you know, aren't of that mindset, and they do prefer someone local to them that they can see face to face. But there's nothing to stop you doing an online course that people can take in their own time or do an online sessions in anywhere around the world.

Aidan Noone [00:27:56]:
It's just

Stephen McGill [00:27:57]:
an easier barrier gently. That's why I said it's the greatest time to be alive for a business owner.

Aidan Noone [00:28:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. About social media and all that. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, you actually specialize as we know in in you have a company called Theramarketing.

Stephen McGill [00:28:13]:
Yes.

Aidan Noone [00:28:14]:
So tell us about that.

Stephen McGill [00:28:16]:
Theramarketing was born out of, I suppose, the seeing the necessity for everything that I taught in the classroom. I was I used to go down once a month to train newly qualified hypnotherapists in person. But, again, going back to treating more or helping more people at a wider scale, and moved it online then. So myself and my business partner started up Theramarketing, directly aimed towards therapists of all caliber. I'm trained in CBT, NLP, timeline therapy, hypnotherapy, all the different modalities actually qualified in them as well. So I can speak to I could speak to what the challenges that have been presented to me and each of them. So we've created an online platform of a course where we can do paid advertising, organic or paid advertising. Organic is anything that doesn't have money behind it.

Stephen McGill [00:29:14]:
And then paid advertising is obviously like it suggests. You put money into an ad. It's Google pay pay per click or Facebook ads or TikTok ads or anything like that. So we have a 16 week course dropping soon. So it's essentially it's to take people from absolute beginners to being about what everything revolving around marketing is. Not so they can do it themselves, but also if they choose not to, they can be accountable. They can hold other people accountable and know what they're talking about and not get, a bad experience with all the people doing the marketing for them.

Aidan Noone [00:29:53]:
What's your advice to anyone out there, a therapist who is considering doing, you know, paid advertising, whether it be well, and the second question is, should they do it which which platform should they do it on in terms of getting a return on the investment?

Stephen McGill [00:30:13]:
I would firstly either contact myself or my business partner or the page to get advice on it and to consume some of our free content that's out there already. Or it doesn't have to be ours. It can be any sort of instructional things on how to set up a proper campaign because a lot of people will come to us and say, I hit the blue bus button. I put in 20 euros, and I got nothing. So there's a lot wrong with that statement. Basically, the blue push button is one way out of 12 different ways to advertise

Aidan Noone [00:30:46]:
Where is that, Steven? What? Where Sorry. Blue

Stephen McGill [00:30:49]:
On Facebook, the blue bus the blue bus button. So whenever you post something, it'll give you option to boost it. So that's Yes. That's the quick and easy and the less productive way of advertising. There's a proper way to do it. There's a a hundreds of free videos out there on how to. So if you go into Google or YouTube, you can learn how to set yourself up or speak to people like us, and we'll tell we'll help you for free. I just set this stuff up.

Stephen McGill [00:31:19]:
Nice. But if you think then one once the thing about Facebook is once you're advertising, this is where I would suggest to go first. If you're advertising on Facebook, as long as you have your organic posts on your timeline done first, That means just posting regularly before you're advertising. Because if you don't do that, you're sending people to a blank page where they can't see anything about you. They don't like, know, or trust you because there's nothing there. Yeah. So also the organic posts then lower the costs of your ad.

Aidan Noone [00:31:53]:
Right. That's interesting.

Stephen McGill [00:31:54]:
Yeah. So if you're paying, not to say, €2.50 for a lead, if you have a lot of good organic engagement content, then it could be 1 or €1.70 per lead. So then your money your money goes further.

Aidan Noone [00:32:07]:
Okay. Okay.

Stephen McGill [00:32:09]:
But if there's step by step, it's a big process, to to explain through in this. But if you're maybe putting on your target audience that you've already worked out from your avatar of who the demographic and the psychographic is. If you put those interests into a Facebook ad, that narrows down. And we'll we're looking to narrow down the audience as much as we can, which is sort of the opposite of traditional marketing, where we wanna speak to as many people as we can. Now we don't. Now we wanna speak

Aidan Noone [00:32:34]:
to focusing.

Stephen McGill [00:32:35]:
Focus on as level as we can, as as targeted as we can. Yes. And then that makes the the money go further as well. So if we build our audience down and say it gets to, you know, 1,200,000 people in that audience, that €20 is not gonna go very far. So it's maybe consider your budget or consider lowering, your audience size, for example.

Aidan Noone [00:32:57]:
What is it going to start a budget? But I beg your pardon. Sorry.

Stephen McGill [00:33:00]:
It's okay. It's a piece of string. It depends on your budget. Yeah. It depends on how long you want the campaign to run for. Do you want it to run evergreen in the background? I would put maybe €2 a day on an evergreen, so you're always in someone if someone searches anxiety relief on Google and then jump over to their Facebook, then you'll still see your ad. So if you put 1 or €2 a day. But if you're doing a bigger campaign, maybe €200 a week or whatever whatever your budget allows, but just just be be aware that your budget depends on your ROI.

Stephen McGill [00:33:34]:
Basically, if you're it goes into your audience as well. So if if you're only putting €200 in, you have to then be realistic that you may only get 4 or 5 leads out of that.

Aidan Noone [00:33:44]:
Right. Right.

Stephen McGill [00:33:45]:
Versus a bigger budget will get better leads. Okay. It all depends on what stage in your journey you're at.

Aidan Noone [00:33:52]:
Absolutely. Yeah. And, all excellent, excellent advice, Steven. Really good. And I know that our viewers and listeners are going to get get tremendous benefit out of this. I'm going to sort of back cycle a little bit, and and just briefly, SEO again. Is SEO for professional, you know, web people, or can, you know, Joseph, therapist do it?

Stephen McGill [00:34:24]:
Again, like we said, all the information's out there. There's not really much information that is specialized anymore that you have to like, you know, only access through paying for it. Okay. So anybody can learn SEO. But, again, it's the same thing. Anybody can learn engineering or mechanics. But Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen McGill [00:34:41]:
Do you have that time to invest into it, or are you gonna pay a mechanic to do it that's spent 18 years perfecting the craft that'll avoid the pet the pitfalls Yeah. Of you learning as you go.

Aidan Noone [00:34:53]:
Great answer to this.

Stephen McGill [00:34:55]:
Well, it's it's the only way I can think Yeah. Of of saying it. It it depends on what resources you have available. It depends what time and capability you have to absorb the information and understand it. It it is relatively easy. It's just time intensive.

Aidan Noone [00:35:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. Thank you for that. That that's really excellent. And again, and as I said, you know, the the viewers and listeners are gonna get tremendous benefit from this. You have a program that you're you're working alongside with Carl Smith. Isn't that correct?

Stephen McGill [00:35:29]:
Yeah. Well, it's the it's the 16 week course as well that Okay. That we're talking about. So it's basically there is like I said, the reason why we started it is everyone who qualifies learns the craft of hypnotherapy or hypnosis to perfection and any school that they go to, for example. But then

Aidan Noone [00:35:49]:
Right.

Stephen McGill [00:35:49]:
That doesn't necessarily translate into running a business proper play and running a social media based business properly as well. So it's to fill in that gap of now that you're qualified, what do you do next? How do you get your business off the ground? How do you get online? What do you say? When do you say it? How often do you say it? To whom do you say it? So we've been working with Carol Smith, Carol Anthony, Stephen Travers, couple of other of the, main trainers that we have in UK and Ireland, just to sort of bolster everybody that's qualified to helping more people. That's where I get my most satisfaction from.

Aidan Noone [00:36:27]:
Right. Right. Okay. And where do we get, where do we get information on that? If you can visit our website links later. Sorry. Go ahead.

Stephen McGill [00:36:38]:
If you visit our website, theramarketing.co.uk. So it's theramarkting.co.uk, all one word, forward slash course for the course we have dropping, or you can just visit the main page, as well. Right.

Aidan Noone [00:36:53]:
Right.

Stephen McGill [00:36:54]:
And get more information on the course. It's 60 16 week program, as an option, or you can contact us privately for any advice or help that you need. We do offer free audits, on your website or on your social media platforms. So we will go and look at all your your types of posts, how often you're posting, where you're posting, what your message is, and give you free feedback on actionable steps then on how to improve that.

Aidan Noone [00:37:22]:
So Steve or, Steven, is is this now is this forgive me. Is this hypnotherapy training plus marketing, or is it just marketing?

Stephen McGill [00:37:30]:
Just marketing.

Aidan Noone [00:37:32]:
Just marketing. Just marketing. Oh, that's important. Know that. Yeah. And, if there was one final thing that you'd want to say to our viewers and listeners out there, what what advice would you give them, finally, please?

Stephen McGill [00:37:50]:
It's a big one. To do with marketing?

Aidan Noone [00:37:53]:
Yeah.

Stephen McGill [00:37:54]:
To do with marketing, realize that again, I've said it twice already. This is the best time in the world to be a business person Okay. To help people, to realize the fact that everything that you do online and social media is free unless you're putting money behind it. But you can do 80% of it for free and get immediate feedback, immediate testing. If you're putting videos on TikTok and getting 200 views, that's a clear definition, a clear signal that you need to improve your quality or you need to improve something in that video. It's all feedback. It's not failure. It's all feedback that you're putting out there.

Stephen McGill [00:38:31]:
To compare your analytics, it's the information is so vast. There's free information everywhere on how to be a better market bidder. I believe everybody out there is a marketer first. Yeah. Then they're a therapist. Because if you're not marketing, you can't be a therapist.

Aidan Noone [00:38:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. That's very good. Important point.

Stephen McGill [00:38:53]:
Yeah. You need to view everything. Sorry to interrupt you. You need to view everything that you're doing on a day to day basis of, a marketer first or a media company first.

Aidan Noone [00:39:04]:
Exactly. Yeah.

Stephen McGill [00:39:05]:
Then I then I help then I help people.

Aidan Noone [00:39:08]:
Yeah. Not the other way around. Pre prior to this, you know, we would have thought, oh, yeah, I'm a therapist first and, you know, but you have to be in a position to be able to market yourself and, you know, sell the citizen as as I shall have to call it.

Stephen McGill [00:39:21]:
Well, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Sell the citizen at the stake. Well, if you if you think in the reverse, who are you actually gonna help unless you tell people? So you have to tell people first of what problems you could solve.

Aidan Noone [00:39:31]:
Yeah. Yeah. A question, that comes to my mind, you know, nowadays, you know, because Sure. Nowadays, people would have, you know, on their on their websites or on their media social media a link to book of what we call might call a strategy call. What's your take on that vis a vis posting your phone number online?

Stephen McGill [00:39:51]:
Again, these are all just microtactics and different things. So they will ebb and flow in their popularity. Links on social media, if you actually look at the Facebook algorithm, they demote posts that have links on them. So it is per platform. Some platforms like links. Some platforms don't. Some some like hashtags. Some don't.

Stephen McGill [00:40:12]:
Yeah. But the main thing you have to remember, if you're putting your phone number out there, it's not clickable. So and Yeah. And to to memorize a phone number or to write it down, that's an extra step you're getting them to take. So a lot of platforms will allow you to link in bio, that sort of thing, but it's to it's a waste of space if you're saying, you know, check the link in the bio because we're already attuned, and we already know to go to the link in the bio to it. A lot of it whenever you're say say we pick Facebook. If you're Yeah. Say, for example, John, hypnotherapy clinic, visit us now for quit smoking and finally become smoke free.

Stephen McGill [00:40:50]:
Call us 9086. That's pure sales. Go back to the question of what value am I communicating across to these people. There's no value in that. It's a sales pitch, and no one goes on. Everyone forgets the first word of the platform. It's social media. Yeah.

Stephen McGill [00:41:05]:
It's not sales media. You need to be have conversations, talk to people, give your advice, be sociable, give information. They do links and phone numbers and hashtags on the wrong platform, they'll be demoted, and you're going to less people. So you're giving yourself a less chance. So it's respecting the platforms. Cross posting is another big no no. So say, for example, what I mean by cross posting is, say, I have that post about Chris Smokin. If I post the exact same post in all the different platforms, then I'm not respecting the platforms of what they're there for.

Stephen McGill [00:41:38]:
So people don't go on to Pinterest for certain reasons. If you think of these things as shopping centers, so people go on to Facebook to catch up with friends and family. They go on to Instagram for inspiration and motivation. They go on to Pinterest for ideas and inspiration. They go into TikTok to be entertained. So people go on to different platforms for different purposes. So if they're seeing the same message crafted across all the different thing, then they become blind to it, and they'll just switch off because they're seeing the same nonsense on every you have to respect the platform and what works on there and what doesn't.

Aidan Noone [00:42:10]:
So much so the for you you change your your posting.

Stephen McGill [00:42:13]:
You can change the copy or you can change the image or you but it's something that you have to put maybe 10 hours into the platform to learn without posting, but learn how people use it properly. Learn the nuances of it. Learn the little micro things of Yeah. And do do research on it. That that 10 hours then it'll be your return on investment will be you'll get a lot more leads and help a lot more people in your clinic just by spending that time to to refine your message in there.

Aidan Noone [00:42:44]:
Wonderful. But that that I mean, that that what we've done here today, Steven, thank you so much for for your valuable time and giving us such valuable information and, content, beneficial content as they say. Hopefully. Yeah. How can, how can we contact you just finally?

Stephen McGill [00:43:03]:
If you reach out to me on any platform, we have Thera marketing page on all the socials. We you can visit Thera marketing dotco.uk. The email address is hello at theramarken.co.uk. And I'd be happy to give free audit to anyone that contacts and reaches out with actionable steps and no sales pitch. It's just communicating value of how you can improve.

Aidan Noone [00:43:26]:
Well, that was, Steven McGill. Thank you very much, Stephen, for your time and, tremendous, this powerful podcast. Thank you so much and talk to you again very soon, hopefully.

Stephen McGill [00:43:36]:
Thank you. See you soon.