Nada Pupovac is VP of Marketing Strategy at Animo Sano Psychiatry, where she leads a multidisciplinary marketing team and develops strategies to support the organization’s growth, reach, and mission. Her work sits at the intersection of marketing, healthcare, and mental health, with a focus on building ethical, human-centered approaches that connect people with the care and resources they need.
At Animo Sano, Nada works cross-functionally with clinical and operational teams to translate complex mental-health services into clear, accessible, and meaningful communication for patients, clinicians, and the wider community. Her work spans the broader Animo Sano marketing strategy as well as the development of educational and community initiatives, including the Thriving with ADHD podcast, which she hosts and produces, and the Adults with ADHD Meetup – Educational Group for Adults with ADHD, which she facilitates on behalf of Animo Sano Psychiatry.
Through these initiatives, Nada brings together strategic marketing, mental-health education, community building, and storytelling to help make mental-health information and support more accessible. Her perspective offers a practical look at the opportunities and challenges of marketing in the mental-health and healthcare space, while keeping the needs of patients, clinicians, and communities at the center.
Why branding in behavioral health goes beyond logos and colors to brand voice and the experience patients have with you
How Animo Sano builds trust by addressing first-appointment anxiety and refusing to make false guarantees
Why marketing can’t compensate for quality of care, and how word of mouth fueled the practice’s early growth
The four staples of Animo Sano’s patient acquisition (organic search, paid ads, word of mouth, and referrals) and how local SEO and paid ads feed each other
How Animo Sano pairs Collaborative Care partnerships with an independent brand presence to expand access in rural areas
How a “pet project” ADHD podcast with 25,000+ downloads and a 3,000+ member meetup became patient acquisition channels
How to get providers comfortable on camera, and why repurposing short-form video to YouTube Shorts made views skyrocket
Where AI fits in Animo Sano’s marketing, why human and medical review still matter, and the early signs of AI fatigue
Josh Dougherty:
Welcome back to the show. Today I'm joined by Nada Pupovac, who is from Animo Sano Psychiatry, and she runs their marketing. She's a VP of marketing strategy there. And today we're going to talk all about marketing in the behavioral health space and building a brand in the behavioral health space. She's been working with Animo Sano since they started and have grown from a small practice to someone who has a presence in multiple states, providing behavioral health through telehealth, partnering with Collaborative Care partners, etc, and really having a thriving practice. And so, I'm excited for you to hear about not only her approach to building a brand that can be trusted in this space, but also all the tactics that she's leveraging and using and how she's responding to changes and evolutions that are happening every day in marketing. So without further ado, I'd love to welcome her into the show.
Well, Nada, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show.
Nada Pupovac:
Pleasure to be here, Josh. Thanks for having me. Happy to get started with the questions. Very excited.
Josh Dougherty:
Great. Yeah, I'm looking forward to all the conversations we’ll have, but before we dive into it, I'd love to give you a chance to introduce yourself to our audience. Can you tell me a little bit about, and our audience, a little bit about your career path and where it's taking you and how it brought you to where you are now?
Nada Pupovac:
Perfect. Yeah, so, and I'll try to be short and sweet, but basically, yeah, I started as a visual and marketing assistant over 10 years ago, and I slowly built my skills and expertise from there. And I worked across different areas of marketing, different types of organizations.
And I eventually joined Animo Sano Psychiatry in September 2021, right at the beginning, basically when we were just a small practice. And my role at the beginning was to be a marketing advisor. And of course, as the clinic grew, and we will talk about it a little bit more, but as the clinic grew, my responsibilities grew with it. But why I liked it at the beginning, especially, was because my background is in psychology and I hold a graduate diploma in psychology. So, mental health was and still is very close to my heart. So I saw that as an opportunity really to connect my marketing experience with the industry I am deeply passionate about. So, I'd say it was a win-win.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, that's amazing. I think it's a rare thing when we get to connect those two things together, unfortunately, today. You know?
Nada Pupovac:
Yes, yes. I say I was very lucky that way. So 100%, yeah, yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
So now you're the VP of Marketing Strategy and you all have grown a lot over the last few years. So, can you share with our audience a bit about what your focus is with Animo Sano and what you all are trying to accomplish as an organization
Nada Pupovac:
Yes, yes, so that's true. So as I said, I was fortunate and privileged to be there since the very beginning and to actually witness the growth, all the good and maybe not so good moments. But yeah, every organization comes with the growth pains as we know, but I saw it all, we've been through that, and we keep going strong. So again, a privilege, a privilege, absolute privilege to witness that.
So as you said yesterday, I serve as a VP of Marketing Strategy, and I'd say my role is twofold. On one hand, I'm just making sure to oversee our whole marketing strategy. I see it as an ecosystem rather than individual channels, to make sure that all these pieces are working together. So that includes content, paid ads, SEO, social media, website, digital experience overall, podcasts and community initiatives—we will talk about this a little bit more—email reporting, analytics. And a big thing that we are increasingly paying attention to is patient experience and online reputation. So, that's one side of my role.
The other, and I think it's very important as well, is just making sure that we as a team are not working in silos. I'm making sure that we are collaborating with clinical operations, admin, development, other teams, and that I believe they depend on us too. So all those departments and everything that's going on, we are working to get together to achieve one goal. So there are different projects, there are different things that we are working on, but as our founder likes to say, our ultimate goal is volume, volume, volume. So shout out to our founder, Dr. Mina Boazak. But yeah, our ultimate goal is having patients to treat, to take care of. So yeah, that's what we are all trying to achieve. And yeah, I'm absolutely making sure that we are doing that as a team, so.
Nada Pupovac:
And marketing is part of the big picture, yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
Totally. Oh, I think it's so important what you say, because if you think about a brand that's growing fast and trying to serve and be available for many patients, you do have to ensure there's continuity across all the experience that patients are having from that first experience, maybe when they see one of your ads, to the clinical experience-
Nada Pupovac:
Exactly.
Josh Dougherty:
... to the post-appointment experience.
Nada Pupovac:
Yes, yes, yes. And there are so many things going on in the background to make sure that this experience is as smooth as possible. I'd say we will be talking a little bit more about it and what goes into that, but yeah, 100%, 100%.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. Well, before we dive into all the details, we're going to talk a little bit about how you've built this brand, but I'd love to hear how you define branding as a marketing professional.
Nada Pupovac:
It's a great question, Josh. And well, I was thinking about the question, where I go, the same boring stuff that everyone knows. And I realized that, I hope this is true for all brands, but especially in healthcare and mental health, I'd say that branding should go beyond logo, colors, font types, visual identity. They're all important, and I'm passionate about these things for Animo Sano, don't get me wrong, but I think a brand should go beyond that.
You absolutely have to pay attention to your brand voice. What are you talking about? How are you talking about it? How you create experiences for people who encounter you online. And these messages have to align with your values and what you stand for as a business, I really, truly believe that. So, and this is across all platforms. Do you have a website? Do you have a blog, social media? From small caption to a long form blog post, all of these need to be aligned with what you are standing for.
And again, especially in healthcare, you can separate brand from the experience people have with you. And I'd say it depends on both visual and communicational aspects of your brand. So I'd say these two are inseparable. That's what I believe, absolutely, 100%.
Josh Dougherty:
I 100% agree as well. I think we'll talk. It leads me to a question that I had around behavioral health, because I think it's especially true in behavioral health because people are coming in a moment when maybe they have to be vulnerable to seek the help that they're looking for. And so as you think about your brand and how you've constructed it, what role does trust building play in this? How does this look in your space and how you've built the brand?
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, yeah. So for Animo Sano as a brand, there are a lot of things, but there are two, I'd say, that are in our core, and these are accessibility and high quality of care. Accessibility was important to us from the very beginning because it allowed us to create and provide care for people who otherwise might not have been able to access it. Just imagine if you have to take half a day off work just to drive the long distance to make it to the psychiatric appointment. Or, maybe there is no psychiatric office in your area. So, I'd say telehealth allowed us to meet people where they are and to fit mental healthcare more realistically in their lives. So, that's one thing. But I'd say it's not enough if the high quality and standard of care is not part of the picture.
So yeah, I'd really say, yeah, we do have then trust building, education, consistency, collaborative, responsive, compassionate care, etc. But the core of it stems from the two fundamentals, and that's making high-quality care accessible. Yes. And then I think you asked me about the trust?
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah.
Nada Pupovac:
And when we talked about this, I mentioned I feel very strongly about trust building in healthcare and especially in the mental healthcare space. And yes, when someone is already vulnerable and maybe thinking about getting help for a long time, maybe they feel embarrassed, maybe they worry about being judged or simply don't know what to expect. We could see that with the questionnaire that we had for people who didn't show for their appointments. Sometimes it's just the first appointment anxiety. Absolutely, you don't know what to expect and you just give up and don't show for your care.
So, that's true as well.
So I think that's why a big part of the whole practice, but the marketing department especially, is to build trust through education and reassurance. Again, as I said, we've been doing this—but especially lately, and this is maybe the last month or so—we absolutely started putting more effort into talking about first appointment anxiety and what it looks like and what to expect because it's a real factor. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Josh Dougherty:
And once someone gets over that, I mean, having someone who's... I mean, I've gone in and done therapy and those sort of things, but I remember that first time and once I was able to make it over that hump, I was like, oh-
Nada Pupovac:
Exactly, exactly.
Josh Dougherty:
... this is going to be very helpful. It wasn't easy, but you can see the benefit as soon as you get started.
Nada Pupovac:
Exactly. But to get to that point, yeah, we do our best to educate, to provide reassurance. And there is another thing that I spoke about this and I feel very strongly about, is being honest about what you can and cannot offer. We are very careful not to promise that someone's problems will disappear overnight. If you're expecting magic solutions and a fairyvery godmother to just simply remove your problems overnight, I'm sorry to say, but that probably won't be happening. So no false guarantees, that's a very important part. And we are careful not to say that we are offering something that when in reality we are not. So if we say we offer something, we need to be able to stand behind it. That's I think the fundamental of building trust, if you will. So, yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's almost every healthcare. I mean, that's true for every brand, but I think oftentimes in the healthcare space it's simplified because people are so, especially in the United States, so, how should I say it, cynical about their healthcare that they don't expect to get someone to talk straight to them and tell them exactly what to expect and follow through on it. So there's a little bit of like, if you can do that, you're going to break through that barrier.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, yeah. We are very careful to do it and actually, people will call us out on the things. If we say something on the website that turns out it's not true, that we will be called out on that. So we are very careful what we are saying that we are doing. So yeah, yeah, we try to be as comprehensive as possible, to give opportunity. Our providers are amazing, come with loads of skills, but again, on the other hand, we're very careful to just be careful about expertise, insurance, people care about this, our location, stuff like that. So, yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
Awesome. Well, I wonder if we could shift a little bit to talk about telehealth and behavioral health, because this is something that obviously has fueled a lot of growth, but it's become a crowded space. A lot of people are doing, I don't know, not the same thing, but they have similar offerings. So, what do you think it takes today to stand out and get noticed amongst the different organizations that are doing this similar work?
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, okay. This is another great question, Josh, and I'm afraid that I have to give a boring answer, but I'll give it a go, and you can let me know what you think.
Josh Dougherty:
It's okay, sometimes boring ones are good, so.
Nada Pupovac:
Yes. I was thinking about this, and as someone who witnessed everything from the beginning, I have to say, marketing cannot compensate for the core quality of care. You can create awareness, you can remove friction, you can educate, you can build trust, you can bring people through the door, but if the service is not good, then I'm afraid that sustainable growth won't be happening.
So, and why I'm saying this? Why? So I saw it. So when I started working with Dr. Mina, it was essentially two of us. Yes, we had accessibility through telehealth on our side. And yes, we had a website, we sorted out our website, we had a blog, we had paid ads, all that. That's true. But once people started seeing Dr. Boazak and we started getting reviews and we started building trust and people started recommending Dr. Boazak to other friends and family, etc, then with other marketing elements, but trust building and word of mouth, I think is still very important. One of the top lead generation channels for us, absolutely. Then we were able to hire additional providers, admin staff, other support team members that allow us to serve more patients, and then it snowballed from there.
But yeah, marketing absolutely helps people to discover the business, to understand why they may choose you over someone else, but then the quality of care needs to follow through.
Josh Dougherty:
Yep.
Nada Pupovac:
And-
Josh Dougherty:
And then it's natural to grow, right? Because people will tell others about the experience.
Nada Pupovac:
Yes, yes, yes. Again, as I'm saying, we do have loads of, and we will be talking about it, we have marketing tactics in place.
Josh Dougherty:
Sure.
Nada Pupovac:
But I'd say we wouldn't be able to sustain them if the quality of care wasn't there. Absolutely, 100%.
Josh Dougherty:
Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's true, especially in this space, and marketing can only be a reflection of the organization that it's representing at the end of the day.
Nada Pupovac:
Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, so-
Josh Dougherty:
So you have this organic growth, you have a great quality of care, you're able to get good reviews and good word of mouth, but then marketing's job is to spread this information and share this authentic story about the impact you're having. What do you think are some of the tactics that are working best for you right now to be able to spread that story and continue to drive growth?
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, yeah. I love talking about this, and I think we are very passionate about it. And I'd say it's the situation of... I'd say there is no one magic trick or tactic that you are implementing. Rather, it's a combination of different tactics and channels that help us to achieve our goals. So it's kind of an omnichannel situation, if you will. And different channels are helping in different stages to achieve the goals.
So yeah, for us, and I have to give a shout-out to our SEO team, they're fabulous and their work is fantastic. And organic search is doing lots of heavy lifting, not just for discovery and education, but patient acquisition as well. It's always, if not the number one, the top three, always, always, always, a patient acquisition channel for us. So, that's one thing. Then paid ads, so we are advertising our Google Ads and Meta on the B2C side. For B2B, we use LinkedIn. But again, for patient acquisition, Google Ads and Meta. So that's, again, a shout-out to our paid ads team, they're fabulous. Then again, I have to say word of mouth, family and friends, and then from B2B, referrals, other primary care providers. And recently, we started putting more effort into collaborating with schools, etc, to fill out-
Josh Dougherty:
Interesting.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, for child and adolescent psychiatry. So we are trying, again, all shout-outs to our business development team. They're working on the ground and connecting with people in the locality for now in North Carolina, but a big, big factor in our growth. So they're connecting either with primary care providers and now we started connecting with schools, etc, that can refer younger populations of patients to us. So yeah, again, our staples are organic, paid, word of mouth, and referrals. I'd say these are four of our staples.
And then very important, I would encourage everyone not to be afraid to experiment and test other channels and see where the opportunities are. For example, I know we'll talk more about this, we started investing more into video and TikTok and very, very recently YouTube shorts, and we are already seeing some very interesting results. Very important for our top-of-the-funnel game, very important. So again, we are consistently looking into what's working, what's changing, where we should put more effort.
So again, another important bit is not to look into the channels in isolation because, for example, we do have a podcast. Someone is discovering us through the podcast, then they go to the search, then go again to social media, reading something on our website, and eventually deciding to book. We also saw that a local SEO is helping pay that and vice versa. So again, they're all connecting and helping each other. So I'd say step up your game and be present on different channels, either paid or organic, and if done right, they will feed into each other and help you grow. So yeah, that's all.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, that's great. And I think that message of understanding that there's maybe unintended connections between the different channels is so interesting because if you think about how, I think sometimes as marketers, we forget that. And then if you step back and think about how you engage with brands digitally, it's very asynchronous across multiple planes or multiple channels, and you never know how one thing is going to connect with the other, so.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, yeah, we do have stories. I can talk about it a little bit later about when we speak about podcasting, but we have some interesting trends there. It's not an educational channel anymore, and absolutely serves as a patient acquisition. And then we definitely saw a strong connection between strong local SEO and then paid ads performance, they feed it into each other.
Josh Dougherty:
Totally.
Nada Pupovac:
And even SEO with paid ads, even that. So now we work in synergy when we are researching some services, etc, we are making sure to check both from the organic side of the volumes and then from paid ads, and then we see competitiveness and volumes and stuff like that. And then we see, okay, what we can do with a content to help it. Yeah, they absolutely feed into each other, 100%.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. I'm a little bit curious, this is a little off script from what we had planned on, but how have you seen SEO evolve as we're seeing AI search become huge, not just in LLMs, but also Google's reformatting their page every single day of how they're setting it up?
Nada Pupovac:
Yes. No problem at all. So okay, we are, I'd say, educating ourselves, following the trends, very careful. As you know, this space is shifting constantly. From the time when we first spoke to today, I think even in this short period of time, so many things changed. We changed the way we structure our content, of making sure we have FAQs on every page, how we structure our headings, technical SEO schemas, our SEO team is on the top of this. And thenx, very recently there were some things happening with... We were present on Reddit, we had our strategy, but there are some things happening, not sure when, by the time you publish this, not sure if these things will be resolved.
So that's why we are like, okay, we are learning, we're educating ourselves, but we are also very careful not to put all our
Josh Dougherty:
Totally.
Nada Pupovac:
... efforts maybe into one channel and stay open to what's going on. Yes. Again, we are investing into the knowledge, investing into the skills and tactics that prove to work, but consistently watch the space because things are shifting almost on a weekly basis, I'm afraid, so.
Josh Dougherty:
I think so. Daily almost, it seems like sometimes.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
So it's like you're trying to stick with, what are fundamentals? So like you talked about, you have a content program that's a fundamental, doing good technical SEO is a fundamental, but the way that all the additive items around it are shifting constantly.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, yeah. absolutely. Yeah. So, do you agree? Do you find it kind of similar experience on your end?
Josh Dougherty:
That's how, yeah, it's very similar on my end and with the clients that I work with on a day-to-day, it's just we're trying to... It's almost like we spend time focusing on something for two, three weeks, and then we have to come up for air and re-look at the metrics and say... I mean, it's ultimately about testing quickly, I think, because you're-
Nada Pupovac:
Testing, yes.
Josh Dougherty:
And then responding to the data you're seeing.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, yeah, and not being afraid and just understanding that we are all learning now, I'd say. And yeah, quick to learn, but quick to test and then see how it goes and then try something else if it doesn't work, so.
Josh Dougherty:
Yep. I think the other thing is trying to figure out, we're in this early stage of everything happening on LLMs, and so it's trying to figure out which tool has the best insights to knowing how you're going to get ranked for certain prompts, etc, because I think everyone's still guessing a bit at this point.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, but yeah, true, true.
Josh Dougherty:
Let's talk about another big source of patients is through referrals, and I know you mentioned the school referrals you're working on, but you're also building a Collaborative Care model on primary care referrals. So, can you share with me how you're approaching that and how you build value into the partnership and also keep your brand strong through that process as well?
Nada Pupovac:
Yes. And I just have another shout-out to Jen Street, our Vice President, because she's actually our Vice President and Director and Coordinator for the Collaborative Care program. And when we spoke in preparation for this episode and how our in-house marketing and Collaborative Care feed into each other, she said that they're working together. It's not one or the other, but really, there is a balance between these two because Collaborative Care directly supports one of the things and core values, if you will, that we talked earlier about, and that's accessibility.
So what Collaborative Care does is we are partnering with primary care practices and other organizations to make psychiatric care available to the patients who otherwise would have a harder time accessing this, for example, in rural areas. Right? So one part of it is partnering with primary care providers to provide the psychiatric consultation component of Collaborative Care. And we also have escalation referral pathways, where behavioral healthcare managers and primary care providers can refer patients who need more comprehensive psychiatric evaluation. And then the patient can either continue treatment with us or return to their primary care providers. So it depends on, I suppose, everyone's situation.
Josh Dougherty:
Totally.
Nada Pupovac:
Yes. So, what's also important with the Collaborative Care is that we are involved in the grant-led work with Collaborative Care organizations, which includes initiatives of looking at how we can improve access to care, as I mentioned, in the rural areas. So, that's very important.
So, and what we learned through experience with the whole project is that actually, yes, partnerships in Collaborative Care are important, but we are also making sure to have a strong presence as a brand, an independent brand, in those states that we are providing Collaborative Care. Independently because for the sustainable building of the operations in certain state, we do need both, we found that we do need both. So I'd say we are creating a pathway to the more accessible care through the Collaborative Care model but also making sure that we have our own presence and build patient acquisition independently as well. So, I'd say we have the best of both worlds, and yeah, they help each other in our overall goal of acquiring patients and helping as many people as possible. So, that's the goal, yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. I reflect back as you're talking about that or your comment about high-quality care is ultimately the goal alongside accessibility. And in some ways, having those Collaborative Care partners, having a primary care you can refer them back to, it enhances the quality of care because then they're looking at, they're receiving care that's more comprehensive or holistic, right?
Nada Pupovac:
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And then maybe you don't necessarily have in-house so you can basically refer, but then either way they can come back to you for further assistance or stay with the practice. I mean, whatever works best. And our referral system is pretty much streamlined and is made easy for all sites to access, so I think that's a big part. Well, again, accessibility not only of the care-
Josh Dougherty:
Totally.
Nada Pupovac:
... but the streamlined process of getting into the partnership with us is a big part of the picture as well. So, yeah, yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
Totally, awesome. Well, thank you for digging into that a little bit.
Nada Pupovac:
No worries. Yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
As we're headed towards the tail end of this conversation, I did want to talk about a couple of channels, because I am interested in hearing—you've mentioned a little bit about both video and content—and I want to hear some more about how you're leveraging those. I think first, obviously video is content, so maybe that's a funny way to say it. We'll talk about content more generally first. I would love to hear a little bit more deeply about your strategy on educating first, because you've obviously built multiple podcasts, you have meetups that you're running, all these sorts of things.
So for someone who maybe is starting down that journey, I think everyone does a little bit of content like this, but someone who's starting down that journey, how has that strategy paid off for you? What did the journey look like to understanding what the impact was?
Nada Pupovac:
Yes, and thanks for that question, another great question.
Josh Dougherty:
Sure.
Nada Pupovac:
So yes, we do have actually two podcasts now. So we have a podcast that's Thriving with ADHD and it started a couple of seasons ago. It was a pet project. Our basis, core of our expertise, one of the core things that we do really well is adult ADHD care, so we wanted to have an educational channel around it. So I'd say when people think about ADHD, they usually picture maybe unruly boy running around the classroom, etc, but it affects more than children and-
Josh Dougherty:
Totally.
Nada Pupovac:
... it's very real and present in adults. So we thought, okay, we know a thing or two about this and let's talk about it. So basically, it started as a pet project. I did one episode per month, but actually from this season I will start doing two because there is an interest. And yeah, what started as a pet project has more than 25,000 downloads now. And, also, it was an educational channel at the beginning, but now we realize it's also a patient acquisition channel because what we realized is when we host someone from our team on the podcast, after the episode goes live, searches for these people increase. We can see that, especially on the paid ad side, and then people visit pages for these providers and eventually schedule appointments. So actually, it became part of the patient acquisition journey. So, that's one thing.
We also have a meetup group that's called Adults with ADHD Educational Group. And now, actually, we surpassed 3,000 members. And in July alone, we had more than 250 registrations for the session. We had a fantastic session. Again, part of the education, but also part of the patient acquisition journey, absolutely.
And because we were so successful with these two, we decided to start a general mental health podcast. It's called Healthy Mind, Happy Soul, and it's hosted and produced by our physician assistant, Brock Carter, who's also a lead for our Tennessee branch. So yeah, fantastic. Again, we wouldn't be starting this, we wouldn't be doing this if we didn't see a value. Education for sure, but a game-changer for the acquisition of our patients as well. So, yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, but I think a game-changer because it's so interconnected with providing value to people who are living through mental health challenges or who have ADHD or know someone close that they love that... Because at the end of the day, the marketing only works if it's truly helpful to people, right?
Nada Pupovac:
Yes. And another interesting bit. What we found is it helps in a way to connect people to, when they see this person talking and share their thoughts and expertise, it helps to connect with a certain provider and then you're ensured, okay, this is... You like this person for some reason, they're nice, they're talking nicely, they know what they're doing. We are very lucky in that all our providers are really experts in their field and when they come to talk, you can get some really valuable advice, so that absolutely helps. But yeah, it also helps to connect on some human level and then they're saying like, "Oh, okay, I really like this person for this or that reason. And yeah, here we go. I want to schedule with them." So yeah, it helps. It absolutely helps, yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
Similarly, video helps too. I think you talked about how you started to work in TikTok, YouTube shorts, etc.
Nada Pupovac:
Yes.
Josh Dougherty:
How has that helped you make your medical teams feel more approachable, and how did you get providers on board with doing that work?
Nada Pupovac:
Yes. Oh, okay. That was not easy, to say, to get them on board. Again, great question. And yeah, that took us some time to get people on board with it. And still, not everyone is thrilled about the idea, but it's better than it used to be. All we knew is, look guys, we need to step up our video game and it's important for this and that reason. And I started with a small group of volunteers who didn't mind doing this.
I think part of the "problem" is people imagine that they would need to do silly stuff or become a next influencer. And I'd say, part of my role is to give them reassurance that "No, you can show up as yourself. I won't expect you to do anything silly or anything that you're comfortable with. No, it's not that." And I'd say that was part of the onboarding process, if you will. But then also, I made sure that I have a process in place, that I have topics, that I have a script. Then if some people wanted to follow them, great, if they want to do something on their own, perfect. But yeah, it was also an important part to take away the thinking and the heavy lifting process from the video recording, and yeah, also saying to people that, "Just be you. Natural light, no fancy setting or anything." Also, when I'm editing things and publishing, it's minimal, minimal editing. It's just people as they are, and it helps absolutely, 100%.
We have fantastic engagement when we started repurposing on YouTube shorts as well. So we had a TikTok and then I read somewhere, oh, YouTube will be very important for the awareness, top of the channel, yeah, patient journey towards us. I was like, we have all this content, why are we not repurposing? We start repurposing and our views on YouTube skyrocketed. So, I would absolutely highly recommend. So yeah, it's important. It takes some time convincing, but absolutely helps with not engagement, but people getting to know our providers. And we also started reusing the same content in Meta as well, so it helps with, and they're performing really well, so.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, so it gives you the ability to use it all over the place. Yeah.
Nada Pupovac:
Yes, exactly. Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. And have you gotten more providers on board as they've seen how it looks like?
Nada Pupovac:
Yes, yes. Yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
All of a sudden they can see it and they're not imagining it and it's like, "Oh, I could participate in this."
Nada Pupovac:
Yes. Not all, but definitely more. So I'm grateful to those, the first few people who said, "Yeah, sure, let's give it a go."
Josh Dougherty:
Absolutely. Yep. Well, the final thing I'd like to ask about is AI and how your team's using it. I find this fascinating because everyone's in a different step of maturity for their organization about how much they're leveraging AI in marketing. Where are you as an organization? What are you using it for?
Nada Pupovac:
As I mentioned earlier, yeah, we were fairly early adopters when it was just a thing. So we use it for literally everything from social media to blogs. Again, technical SEO, as I mentioned, structure, structured data, and schema. Then also, but not just for the content creation, ad copy, you name it, we do it. But we also starting using for our project management, if you will, task management, task organization, preparing for the meetings, summary, action items, literally everything. It helps so much, it saves time.
I think just one very important thing that I notice and it's important to mention is that, especially in healthcare and mental healthcare, I don't think it should replace people and fact-checking and you're making sure that it's your brand voice 100%. So although yes, it does the heavy lifting for us, we still do fact-checking and brand voice, as I said.
Josh Dougherty:
Of course.
Nada Pupovac:
And also, we have an extra layer of medical team members checking for the medical expertise and that side of the things, and then and only then we go live with anything we are posting. And again, it helps with graphics, with video, with I mean, everything.
And again, yes, we use it for creation of, I'd say ads and graphics, etc, but we also try to keep a human element as well. Yeah, what we notice, for example, I'm doing voiceover. We build stuff. For example, we have digital TikToks, we call them, but I still kept doing the voiceovers myself because we found that it performs better than doing an AI voiceover.
Josh Dougherty:
Totally.
Nada Pupovac:
So I'd say we use it for literally everything, but we are also careful to, in an industry where connection still matters, to keep the human factor.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, I like that.
Nada Pupovac:
Yes. And also to, yes, we can do more and help us to be more efficient, but to not also be a source of burnout because
Josh Dougherty:
Totally.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah. That's another important-
Josh Dougherty:
There's a lot, right? Yeah.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. So, I hope it's satisfying answer if you need to... yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
Totally. No, I think it is a satisfying answer. I think all of us are figuring out that right balance of, how do we work it into everything? Because I think everyone is thinking about how do we get this to fuel our backend marketing operations? How do we help it make our analytics make us smarter in how we're looking at analytics? How do we get our project management going? And I think we're at varying levels of how much they're integrating it into content.
But the key point I think you said at the end is there's a desire to do more, and more, and more. And it's how do you figure out that balance of, what is the right amount of more with AI versus just always trying to squeeze more in?
Nada Pupovac:
And it just crossed my mind. It looks like to me there is also, we have to be careful about AI fatigue. So what I noticed is ads jumping on my Instagram feed with handwriting on piece of paper and actually stop. While you have this beautiful AI created, you can recognize it now, people are not reacting, or one or two likes or no likes. I think we're almost scrolling past. We are glazing over.
Josh Dougherty:
Yes.
Nada Pupovac:
So it'll be very interesting to watch the space from this perspective as well.
Josh Dougherty:
Yep. I think this is true of most things. You see this huge growth and a trend and everyone's doing all the things, and then you begin to see a dip as it becomes an accepted practice and then it's figuring out, what is the right use? And we're maybe in that process right now of figuring out what is the right next.
Nada Pupovac:
Yes, yep, yep. I definitely saw that. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, something to be mindful of as well.
Josh Dougherty:
Yep, absolutely. Well, thanks so much for the conversation today. I wanted to give you a chance as we wrap up here to share how people can connect with you. What's the best way for people to follow along with you and the work that you're doing?
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah. So, yeah, well, as we were talking about Animo Sano, so I'd say if people want to learn more about the practice itself, it's animosanopsychiatry.com. I'd say you would have show notes so we can leave the link.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, we'll put that in there.
Nada Pupovac:
So yes, absolutely. So again, even if you just need, we have loads of educational resources and content around mental health, absolutely you're more than welcome to check it out. Again, pathways for both B2C and B2B connection, you're more than welcome. Check out our podcast, Thriving with ADHD or Healthy Mind, Happy Soul. Or if you care about ADHD, you have ADHD or know someone, you're more than welcome to join our meetup group for adults with ADHD.
And if you would like to connect with me personally, maybe the best would be to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm Nada Pupovac. That's N-A-D-A, P-U-P-O-V-A-C. And yeah, again, I think we will have a link in the-
Josh Dougherty:
We'll add that to the show notes.
Nada Pupovac:
... show notes.
Josh Dougherty:
We'll link to the, yeah, podcast episodes or podcasts and meetups as well.
Nada Pupovac:
Yeah, this would be the best way to either learn more about the business or connect with me.
Josh Dougherty:
Excellent.
Nada Pupovac:
So yeah, that's all.
Josh Dougherty:
Well, Nada, thanks for the time today and thanks for sharing your expertise. I really appreciate it.
Nada Pupovac:
No worries.
Josh Dougherty:
And-
Nada Pupovac:
You're more than welcome, Josh. I loved talking to you, so my pleasure.
Josh Dougherty:
Excellent. Well, thanks so much.