Stacey Dunn-Emke from Nutrition Jobs interviews Orly Wachter, a dietitian and business coach, about intentional marketing and content for dietitians.

Orly shares her background as a dietitian and her transition into the online business world. She emphasizes the importance of understanding your audience and their needs in order to create effective marketing content.

Orly also discusses the value of email marketing and suggests having a welcome sequence for new subscribers.

She advises dietitians to focus on creating lead magnets or freebies to attract people to their email list and to collaborate with others in related fields to expand their reach.

Orly can be found in the Health Pro to CEO community Facebook group and offers one-on-one coaching as well as a group program called Email RX.

Takeaways from Orly

1. Understanding Your Audience: To effectively market your dietetics business, it's crucial to understand your target audience. This involves having conversations with them and discovering their needs, challenges, and desires. Many people overlook this step and dive into branding and social media without a solid understanding of their audience.
2. Market Research Methods: Orly mentions several market research methods, including talking to your audience, conduct surveys, engagement in relevant Facebook communities, or analyzing Amazon book reviews within your niche. These approaches help you gain insights into your audience's pain points and aspirations.
3. Speaking to Symptoms, Not Diagnoses: When creating content or marketing materials, avoid speaking solely to professional diagnoses. Instead, focus on addressing the symptoms or problems as your audience perceives them in their daily lives. This approach allows for better connection and resonance with potential clients.
4. Embracing Email Marketing: Email marketing is a powerful tool for dietitians. It allows for more intimate communication with your audience compared to social media. Building a strong email list and using welcome sequences can help you nurture relationships and provide valuable content to your subscribers.
5. Finding Your Marketing Style: There's no one-size-fits-all approach to marketing. Explore various marketing strategies and find the ones that align with your strengths and preferences. Whether it's video content, written articles, podcasts, or workshops, choose methods that suit you best.
6. Leveraging Collaborations: Collaborate with professionals in complementary fields to expand your reach. Building relationships with others outside of the dietetics field can expose your services to new audiences and create valuable partnerships.
7. Creating High-Value Lead Magnets: When seeking to grow your email list, offer high-value lead magnets or freebies that resonate with your audience's needs. Don't hold back on valuable content, as it can showcase your expertise and attract potential clients.
8. Building Relationships: Building relationships is essential for any successful business. Reach out to individuals and professionals who share your target audience, and focus on collaboration rather than expecting instant results.
9. View Marketing as an Extension of Your Work: Instead of seeing marketing as a separate, icky task, view it as an extension of the help you provide to clients. Your marketing efforts have the potential to impact more lives than just those who become paying clients.

Connect with Orly

You can find Orly Wachter in the "Health Pro to CEO community" Facebook group, listen to her podcast, and explore her coaching and group program offerings to enhance your marketing and business strategies in the field of dietetics.

Website: https://orlywachter.com
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/or...
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/orly...
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/group...
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/...
Other: https://orlywachter.lpages.co/...

Intentional Marketing for Dietitians

Stacey with NutritionJobs

Okay. Alrighty. Hello everyone. I am Stacey Dunn-Emke with Nutrition Jobs, and I am delighted that we are here together with one of my very favorite dietitians. We're going to talk about intentional marketing and content as a dietitian, working for yourself, working for others, whether you are in business for yourself full-time or part-time or working for somebody else. I think intentional marketing is so important, so I am delighted to be able to welcome Orly Wachter. Orly, welcome!

Orly Wachter

Thank you so much for having me. I am really excited to dive in and talk about this with you.

Stacey with NutritionJobs

You don't know this, but I have been a fan of yours for years. I found you on social media and your content has always been super impactful, exactly what I needed and worded in a way that I could understand and could apply right away.

Your podcast HealthPRO to CEO is fantastic. I highly recommend that old episodes as well as new ones. She has this really, you have a really great way of speaking to your audience and being able to share really, really valuable business insights. And so I thank you for that over the years. So tell us a little bit about your background as a dietitian.

Orly Wachter

Yes, absolutely. I'd be happy to share. And also I want to say how much I appreciate those kind words, and I think it's helpful for anybody listening to see that sometimes there might be people in your audience who are consuming your stuff and being impacted by it. And Stacey and I didn't actually connect. We connected online, but we didn't actually have a conversation until recently and I had no idea how much you loved my podcast. So I think it's just nice to remember. Sometimes there's lurkers in our audience and we don't know, so you got to keep putting stuff out there and trust that the right people are seeing it. But in terms of my path, it's been a long one. I graduated from Boston University in 2007, so quite a while ago, and my first job was as a resource dietician for Sodexo, which was kind of a cool opportunity because I got to do short-term placements at a variety of different hospitals.

I worked at three different hospitals in my time with Sodexo before moving back to Toronto, which is where I'm originally from, where my family is. But yeah, so in my internship, my favorite rotation was oncology and all three of my placements with Sodexo had some element of oncology. And so I just realized that was the area that I loved. And I happened to get an amazing job back in Toronto, which is why I moved as a full-time outpatient oncology dietician. And at the time I thought that was my dream job. Things changed, but I worked in that job for eight years before moving into the online business world.

Stacey with NutritionJobs

Tell us a little bit more what you're doing now for dietitians and health professionals.

Orly Wachter

Yes. So first I had a different business, an online business called the Skincare Dietitian. It was a great niche, but at the time it was kind of an unconventional one. I see a lot of people doing that now, but at the time I did get quite a bit of pushback. A lot of other health professionals were kind of saying, oh, there's no evidence for that. But I stuck with it. And through the process of building that business, I realized how much I just love all things business, marketing, writing, coaching, and I decided to pivot in 2018. But it wasn't an immediate like stop that, start the new thing. I had a gradual transition where first I took on a handful of dieticians. I think there were three dietitians that I took on for free just to see if I really enjoyed helping dieticians grow their business to test it out. So I'm a big fan of, especially if you're starting out, if you don't have any experience in your niche, doing some free work is always such a valuable exercise because it not only it helps you understand or realize if you enjoy doing it, but you get feedback, you can get valuable testimonials. It's just really, I think one of the best things you can do when you're starting out.

Stacey with NutritionJobs

I love that. I am always curious about how dieticians go into different areas of practice, how they are going to use their degree, their education, their lived experience. What skills do you think that you were born with that have made you successful as a health coach and or business coach? And what skills did you develop or work on over time to become better at what you are doing?

Orly Wachter

I love this question. I think, no, it's such an important one because what I see a lot of health professionals do is they focus so heavily on the areas where they're not strong and they try to improve those areas.

But what I like to work on instead with my clients is really identifying and clarifying your strengths so that you can build on those. And that's how the path entrepreneurship becomes a lot easier when you're playing to your unique strengths. So for me, it's writing, it always has been. It's an innate gift. And I used to write short creative stories as a child, and my mom always said, you're going to be an author one day, so maybe I will haven't done it yet. But yeah, it could be a part of my journey at some point. So I've always loved writing, but what I realized when I started the online business is that the way we're taught to write in school, the academic style of writing is very different from how you need to communicate and market your business.

So I took a certification in copywriting, so I'm certified as a direct response copywriting specialist. And so for those of you listening who may not be familiar, it's not copywriting in the legal sense, but copywriting is just a specific style of writing that helps you communicate in a more persuasive way and really inspires people to take action from your word. So this is the type of writing that works well when you're marketing your business. And so I did get that additional certification, which has helped me, but also is so valuable for me to be able to help my clients with as well, to improve their writing, improve their content marketing through that skill. The other thing I wanted to mention, which I think is important is I've always had a love for psychology and just understanding human behaviors and what drives human behavior. And so my undergraduate degree was a double major in psychology and physiology. But beyond that, I'm just an empath. I just feel like I really understand people on a deep level. And that combined with the writing has helped me immensely because business, it's not just about tactics and strategies, it's about understanding humans. And the more you can understand the people that you're trying to help, the better you'll be able to do that and communicate that to them.

Stacey with NutritionJobs

I think that's what superpower your special sauce, your secret sauce. I think that is sort of the beauty of the work that you do, and I think that's how I became magnetized to the work that you're doing is that you really are a unique copywriter. You have this very well, I see you doing two different things, certainly a cheerleader for health professionals and dieticians in getting people out there to connect with their audience and to connect with their clients and what their client needs are and just do it. Obviously not spend a lot of time perfecting and perfecting, but getting out there and doing it so you have that, but also in actually creating that content. I know that that's part of what your business is, but I think you're really, really adept at doing that. And now I think I understand why. Obviously you're a good writer, but it's because you have that ability to flip around and think of who is receiving this information and how can we meet their needs by receiving this information. So I think that is sort of your gold. Now I understand where it all comes from.

So as business owners, as entrepreneurs, maybe you can start now by giving us a few tips on how we can better understand what our client's needs are and be able to write to that or be able to speak to that.

Orly Wachter

Yes. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for that reflection. It's so nice to hear that. And really the way that you understand your audience is by speaking with them and having conversations with them. And it's the thing that I see people resist so much. It's really interesting. People enter the online business world or just even business in general, and they want to dive into the flashy stuff like the logos and the colors and the brand shoots and social media. But the most important thing you should do to build a solid foundation for your businesses to first understand who are you trying to help, what do they need, what are they struggling with, what's keeping them up at night? And the way that you get that information, there's a number of different ways you can do market research. You can do surveys. You can go into Facebook communities that are relevant and ask questions, have conversations.

You can even, one way that I like to do market research is to go on Amazon and find relevant books within my niche. So if you're, say you're a dietician who helps people with their skin, what else has been written or created? And then by looking at the reviews, you can really get a sense of what that person, why did they buy the book in the first place? What were they struggling with and what was the outcome of that? What did they like about the book? Or maybe what didn't they like about the book? But knowing that information helps you get a sense, a bit of the transformation they're looking for, where they're at, where they want to be. So that's one easy way to do it. But the best way is to get on the phone with people to actually have real conversations with people, because that allows you to probe deeper, to ask follow up questions.

Tell me more about that. How is that impacting your relationships? Dive really deep because these are the things that you want to understand. You need to have a really solid understanding of how the problem is presenting in people's lives. So the big mistake I see a lot of health professionals make with their content is they're sort of speaking to the problem as they see it. As a health professional, you're speaking to the diagnosis, but when somebody, say somebody went to a doctor and they were struggling with digestive issues, they're not showing up saying, I have IBS, right? They're showing up saying, my stomach hurts all the time. I feel like I have to go to the bathroom right after I eat. By the end of the day, I'm bloated, I look pregnant. So we need to speak to the symptoms or the problems as they're seeing it in their life versus speaking to the actual diagnosis that or the problem they have.

Stacey with NutritionJobs

So understanding their pains, understanding what it is that they are struggling with. I love that there's some great tips in there. I know for myself running nutrition jobs, I like to go to the annual conferences or any conference really, and just chat with people and understand what are dieticians looking for. So it's the same idea, it's just being able to reach out to your audience and hear from them. I think for years, I used to run my business way back when I originally did it before there was a lot of social media where I can get some more input. I would just sort of guess, I would guess at what they wanted. And then I always wondered, why is this particular article getting so much volume when I think it's the most uninteresting topic? So I can't always guess. I can't, as a business owner be able to serve my client, be able to serve my population, my people if I don't know what it is that they want, if I'm guessing for them.

So I love that you can just find different ways to connect with them and meet their needs. And I think that's going to make you successful, and that can actually help inform what it is that you're going to write about as well. You hear their actual words, I feel bloated by the end of the day or whatever the pain is. So I think that's really helpful. I think as business owners, the marketing part can, well, I'll speak for myself. I could spend all day just looking at learning about trying to implement some sort of marketing stuff, whether it's emails or content or whatever, instead of actually helping my client actually getting in there and doing the work. So can you give us some ideas about how we can reduce our resistance to marketing and make it more of a natural part of what we're doing? Because we're not all natural marketers. That's not the degree that the majority of us have come out of school with as health professionals or as dieticians. Can you give us some help there?

Orly Wachter

Yes, exactly. You're so right. This is something we do not learn in school. And the unfortunate thing is that there is so much misinformation online about what needs to happen in order to market your business effectively. So the first thing that I want to share is just that there is no one right way to do it. I think sometimes we can get stuck looking for that perfect strategy, especially a lot of dieticians tend to be perfectionists, and we just want to have that perfect plan. And there's a lot of cookie cutter formulas out there, but there's so many different ways to market your business, and ultimately it's about finding the one that suits you best, that plays to your strengths. I have some clients who really love speaking and they communicate best in that way. And so doing video content, being a guest on podcasts, maybe doing workshops in their community that works really well for them because they enjoy it and they're good at it.

For other people who maybe communicate better in written form or are more introverted like I am, we really like to write and share content in that way. So there's a lot. And there's also ways to market that don't even require social media at all. So the first thing is just know that there isn't one right way. And I'd suggest in the beginning to dabble, try, experiment, approach it like a scientist, and try different approaches. And through doing that, through taking that action, you're going to realize which ones feel best to you, which ones seem to get the best response. And from there you can really hone in and double down on what's working for you. So that's number one. But another thing that I see really getting in people's way is that they tend to just think marketing's this icky thing that you have to do to run a business.

And I hear this all the time. I love coaching my clients, I love working with my clients, but I don't want to market. I, I just wish I could hand this over to somebody else. And so I think a really helpful shift there is to view your marketing as an extension of the work that you do with your clients. Because the truth is you could have say a thousand followers more than that, even less, it doesn't matter, but the number of followers you have, it's only going to be a really small percentage of that who actually take the next step and work with you. And I'm not saying that to be discouraging, that's just like we know there's low conversion rates and that's okay, but just if you think about it that way, your content, your marketing has the potential to impact way more lives than just your paid services alone.

And so I really like to think of it in that way, like my content, I approach it with a lot of respect and a lot of thoughtfulness because I know there's people out there who will never work with me, but if they're having getting an impact and being transformed through just my content, that gives me a lot of satisfaction. And I put a lot of thought and effort into it. So thinking of it that way, instead of just thinking of this is something annoying and annoying chore I have to do, think about it as another way to help people. I know you want to make an impact. All the health professionals I work with, that's one of their deep core values is you want to make an income of course, but you also want to make an impact and your content has huge potential to do that.

Stacey with NutritionJobs

I like that. One thing that as you were talking that came to mind for me was the idea of email marketing and how easy actually it can be. You can really find your own voice in email marketing campaign. And so one of the questions that came up from myself, but also from somebody in the community, he replied to one of my emails in making sure and sharing this event today was wanting to know about how to write or asking about email sequences. Do we have to do email sequences and how do we write that? I always feel like I need a little bit of help with it. I know what my voice is and I know what my audience is, but still, it takes a little bit of effort. I know that you help people with that. But maybe you could just give us some insight on the idea of do we need sequences or not and maybe some tips.

Orly Wachter

Okay. Yeah, good question. And also to anybody who is putting effort into email marketing, I want to congratulate you for doing that because it is a really smart decision with social media. There's always the possibility that your accounts can get wiped out. I've seen it happen, and you always want to have an email list because you own that. That's much more of a sure thing. And we also see much higher conversion rates, higher return on investment through emails. Because if you think about it, it's just so much more intimate when you send somebody an email, it's in their inbox, they're taking the time. Typically when you're on social media, you're just scrolling and it's a bit mindless. You may like something but not even read it. Whereas I find with me, at least with email, if it's somebody I really like to receive emails from, I'll just flag it and go to it when I have time, sit down with my cup of tea and really give it the attention that it deserves because it just feels like a more intimate form of communication.

So I think email marketing's amazing, and yes, it's something I help people with. Now, in terms of sequences that can get really complicated, I will say that it is helpful to have at least a welcome sequence. And that is when somebody first gets on your email list, we can talk about lead magnets kind of part of the process, but having something enticing, a freebie, some sort of guide or video series, there's lots of different options, but having something that your people want and in exchange for their email address. And once they get on your email list, this is when they're most excited. They've just taken that step. They really want the resource that you've created. And so having a welcome sequence, it could be a series of three to five emails even more. There's no right way to do it, but I usually like to do at least three to five emails that follow up and they get sent out within the course of a week or so, because this is when you're going to be top of mind for people and it's an opportunity.

Now they've decided to be on your email list and now you have the opportunity to continue to build that trust with them, nurture that relationship. So typically for the first email, I like to just deliver the goods of course, and give them a sense of what to expect. You can say, you'll be hearing from me x times a week or X times a month. Here's the type of content I'll be sharing. You could ask them to just flag your email so it doesn't end up in spam. There's different things you can do. That's the first email. It's really simple. The second one is where you want to give people a bit more information on what led you to create this business in the first place. So it's like building any relationship. Who are you? Why should I listen to you? Give some backstory on that, and then you can go on to share other valuable resources you've created. You can have an email that's more of a case study or a client testimonial that you're sharing and you really want to know where you're leading people. But so it's kind of a long-winded answer. I do think having a welcome sequence is really valuable. But when you say sequences, I guess, is that what you were referring to a welcome sequence? Yeah,

Stacey with NutritionJobs

That was perfect. And as you were talking, I was getting all these great ideas for my own business, but one of the things you said was, and I have another sort of follow-up question on that, but one thing you mentioned was a video. And I always think of when we're marketing, when we're email marketing, we're committed to writing, but now you like this great idea of maybe we can insert a little video in there or a link to a video in a couple of sequences. And if you're working with clients, it could be how to snack, create snacks for toddlers, or it could be ways to increase your lactation ease if you're a lactation consultant or recipe development, whatever it might be, you could get in there and show people exactly what it is to do. So I'd love that idea that this is always like what you do early is you're just really great at meeting us where we're at and giving us some really great ideas and very inspiring. So you mentioned the lead magnets as well. Can you tell us a little bit more? Well, I guess, so getting people on our email list is something that everyone's always very much interested in. Can you share all different ways, or not all of them, but as many ways that you think that would be helpful for us in business, whether it's private practice or working with other dietitians, some ways of getting people into our community.

Orly Wachter

Yes. Yeah, definitely. And just going back to your point about the videos, I think always just being in tune, and this is why market research is so helpful, not just when you're starting out, but at all phases of your business, the more you can tune into what are your audience's questions, what are they frequently asking, and creating short videos or resources to answer that because then you have somewhere to direct people to, and you can include that in your sequence. But in terms of getting people on your email list, again, there's so many opportunities, so many possibilities. But the two that I would suggest really focusing on are, number one, having that lead magnet or freebie because most people aren't signing up to just be on a newsletter. Sometimes I see people get on my newsletter, and that sounds like it doesn't sound that enticing.

We are all on a lot of email lists already, so we need a good reason to sign up. So having that lead magnet and lead magnets have really transformed over the years, because I've been doing this for a long time now, and it used to be just a simple checklist, and now people are giving away whole courses. So even though it's free, this is a taste, it's an intro to what you can offer. And if people get so much value from your free stuff, they're only going to want to work with you even more because they realize, wow, she's not holding back. She's got even more she can offer. So don't skimp out, give away your best stuff because what people are coming to you for is not just information, it's the implementation and individualization, support, accountability. So your free content's never going to replace that.

So having a lead magnet's one really great way and then sharing it everywhere you can. But the other way is just to leverage other people's audiences because I see a lot of people focusing on things like hoping they'll go viral and get a huge influx of new people, but that's not really something you can control. Of course, you can have good hooks and have trending audio or whatever you think you need to do, but ultimately it's somewhat out of our control. So instead of trying to hope to go viral, what I suggest instead is building relationships. Relationships are the foundation of any successful business. And so identifying people who are complimentary to what you do. So for example, if you're a dietician who helps moms of picky eaters, okay, who else helps young children? Maybe a sleep consultant, maybe somebody who does just positive parenting in general, not related to food.

There's so many people who do adjacent things and then offering some sort of collaboration first, build a relationship. Don't just approach them asking for something, but reach out, see if you have a connection, compliment their work, if you love their work. And then see in the future if there's an opportunity to collaborate, maybe you do a giveaway together. Maybe you are a guest on their podcast, but that way you're exposed to new audiences. Just even kind of how I'm doing this interview with you, Stacy, right? It's a collaboration opportunity. So I love doing these kinds of things and they can be really impactful.

Stacey with NutritionJobs

I like the idea that you just said of collaborating with somebody outside of dieticians, outside of health professionals going into another sector to expose what our business and services can provide for their audience and vice versa. I love that idea. So this has just been fantastic. I am swirling, I hope everybody else is too, with ideas and I know that people can work with you. So can you tell us a little bit how people can find you and connect with you?

Orly Wachter

Yes, thank you. So I have a free Facebook group. It's called the Health Pro to CEO community. And I share a lot of great content in there, and there's almost, I think 900 people in that group. So it's a really welcoming community and I'd love to have you join us there. Also, if you can listen to my podcast, as Stacy mentioned, it's been on a bit of a break, but thinking of revamping it and there's a lot of, there's over 200 episodes there that are really going to help you jumpstart your business. And in terms of how I work with clients, I do a lot of one-on-one coaching, but I also have a group program that is focused on email marketing. It's called Email rx, and it's a seven week program to help you get that freebie set up, get your email sequence set up and learn how to market it and grow your email list. So I'm not running that again probably until the new year. But if it's something you're interested in, you can always reach out and I'll put you on the wait list for that.