Copywriting And Lead Generation For Medical Sites

Hello everyone and welcome to another eJenn Solutions podcast! Today we’re going to be talking to Christina Major! She is the owner of Crystal Holistic Health and is a holistic nutritionist and naturopath. On top of that, she’s a professional copywriter for health and wellness professionals and of companies. I had a great conversation with her which I’m sharing below:

Jennifer: Thank you so much for being here Christina! I’m hoping you can give us more details about what you do as a holistic nutritionist and naturopath.

Christina Major: Thank you for having me Jennifer! What I do at Crystal Holistic Health is to work with health and wellness professionals (health coaches, doctors, supplement companies) to produce blogs, articles, emails, newsletters, etc. so they can connect with the right type of people.

Jennifer: What kind of professionals do you typically work with? Is it a variety of backgrounds and experiences, or more of a specified niche?

Christina: Oh, it’s a wide variety. I’ve worked with private practice medical doctors to clinics to chiropractors, doctors of acupuncture, osteopath, and even naturopaths. A lot of the naturopaths in many states are now officially medical doctors, which is an absolutely fabulous thing.

Jennifer: I’m curious, what is your favorite type of profession/doctor/herbalist to write for?

Christina: I really don’t have a favorite niche within the holistic community, but I really enjoy working with doctors and companies that aim at helping people help themselves. I want the doctor to focus in on how they can help their patients take that first step to better health.

Jennifer: Which is perfect because you’re helping your clients find people who are searching for a specific problem that they may have. You then use your copywriting to establish authority and connection to get to the doctor.

Christina: Yeah. Every single client I’ve worked with are phenomenally intelligent people and I’m blown away by how much these people know. On the other side, there are the people that don’t know anything about health . So I step in and create that path to clear communication between the doctors and their patients.

Jennifer: I’m just curious, do you find copywriting should be more long form or short form?

Christina: I think there needs to be a good mix. I’m following a lot of the trends that are saying long form is better, meaning 2,000 to 4,000 words per article. But I also have a lot of clients doing very excellent work with 500 to 750 word blogs. We also have to balance that out with what the search engines are looking. Are you putting things out regularly? If you’re only putting out a 5,000 word article every month, then the other website that’s putting out four 500 word blogs are going to be better.

Jennifer: Yeah, the four articles are going to beat out the one. Do you have any tips for the small business owner that you can impart to us?

Christina: Sure. One important thing I always tell my clients is to look out for questions that are asked over and over again because that’s what people want to hear and read about. For example, one of my clients is a lymphatic drainage massage specialist and she focuses specifically on the plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery right after. Many people will say, “Well, what’s the difference between lymphatic massage and a regular massage?” So that’s what we’re writing about. Answer your customer’s questions. That’s a really big thing. You don’t need to worry about the latest trend. You don’t need to worry about some exotic thing that most people aren’t going to buy anyway. Just answer the questions your clients seem to ask the most.

Jennifer: That fits in well with social media because I know we like to have those key questions in our social media posts. So that’s your advice: just write about the things that customers are asking you repeatedly. Have you found a difference between having sales funnels, “click here,” and free downloads versus writing good content or a contact us form?

Christina: They’re all different pieces of the marketing puzzle. There should be some free content or free download for people who are just browsing. That way they can get more information about you and you can start developing a customer relationship. Then it depends on your type of business and how you want to funnel them into your business. Are you going to jump straight to a high ticket program? Are you going to sell a book? Are you going to sell an online program? It depends on exactly what the person wants to do. Where I really step in with my clients is that first and second level of getting the free traffic, get them to your website. Once they’re on the website then we can get them to the next step.

Jennifer: That’s critical because a lot of times when we pick up a brand new social media client, we’ll go to their website and there’s no content or it needs a serious update. There’s a lot to be said about having the foundation of your website built before you even start social media. Can I ask how long it took you to develop a copywriting mentality? What made you want to do this?

Christina: I practiced as a nutritionist and naturopath for eight years and I always wrote my own copy. I was OK at it, but then some friends in the industry said they liked what I wrote and asked if I could write for them. As I started to make more money writing, I realized I didn’t have to go out and have one-on-ones with clients. It cut down on the amount of work I had to do and it really kept me involved in the research. So I started putting more effort into asking: what is Google looking for? How do I write these articles? What is the SEO? As I got more involved, it improved my writing. My clients were getting more money off of their blogs, so I transitioned over in the past three years. It’s been my full time writing gig and I love every minute of it.

Jennifer: How many years have you been writing for yourself versus writing for other people?

Christina: I would say about seven years writing for other people. I don’t do social media posts; I tend to stay on the blog side, but everything I do really has a tone and it’s in tune with what are people searching for and clicking on within social media.

Jennifer: Sadly we’ve become a society of headline readers instead of content readers. While your work isn’t clickbait, your job is to attract someone to read more than just the headline. It’s definitely a specialty to be able to do that.

Christina: Well, even if you don’t hire a good copywriter, having some kind of writing is better than nothing.

Jennifer: Yeah and there are definitely ways to get around mediocre writing, such as having a client create a video or podcast, or even having them fill in the blanks for an FAQ. So on your website, you offer a free 20 minute session. Can you tell us a little bit more about this session and what it involves?

Christina: Sure. I like connecting with people, particularly over Zoom, because I can see the person and we can start a connection right away. Then I’ll ask a lot of questions about the business and why they want someone to write for them. As long as I think it’s a good fit and it’s something that I can write for, I’ll take it and start looking at how your site is doing on sites like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. On then will I send somebody a quote and recommend the type of work that I would recommend doing.

Jennifer: That’s great! It’s important to have someone who understands the lingo and will be able to clearly connect that disconnect between client and patient. If things get lost, then that’s really bad for your website. So check out Christina’s website here and read some of the published articles she’s done. I’m putting you on the spot here, but any advice for a small business owner, either in their business or in general, or just being in the online world itself?

Christina: Well, being in the online world is absolutely fabulous! It opens up so many possibilities for people, even places like massage therapists and manual therapies. Being online can be a big benefit because there’s so many things you can teach without being hands-on and it can also save you time. Also remember that if you’re struggling with something, sometimes it’s easier to just shell out some money to save yourself the stress. Then you can focus on what you actually want to focus on. I tell my clients in order to produce a good blog post and do proper research with SEO, it can take about four hours.

Jennifer: Would you say that’s 500 to 700 words for a blog post?

Christina: That comes in right around the 750 to 1000 word mark.

Jennifer: So many people don’t understand that it’s not just the writing; it’s finding all the information and then editing, editing, editing. On a personal note: because you’re an herbalist, what did you do with that in the past?

Christina: I incorporated food-based herbs when I was counseling people one-on-one for nutrition. Things like tossing ginger into stir fries, or using other herbs like peppermint, cloves, cinnamon, because they just make everything taste better.

Jennifer: Do you have a book or anything like that?

Christina: I have a much older book on diabetes that’s on Amazon and my most recent book is about how to help small business owners do blogging a little bit better.

Jennifer: Oh, I love that. Thank you so much Christina!