Heather Gansel built Ask Doctor Heather around a simple idea: athletes should understand why their bodies hurt, not just how to relieve the pain temporarily.

As a movement specialist and performance educator, Heather helps athletes and active adults identify movement imbalances, address recurring pain and build more resilient bodies through virtual coaching, corrective programming and education.

That education-first approach extends well beyond her client sessions. Heather shares content about movement, injury prevention and performance across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook, helping people understand their bodies while building trust with potential clients.

The challenge is producing enough content.

"If I'm trying to put out almost 42 pieces of content a week, there's no way I can set aside time to batch-record videos while working full-time, seeing clients and doing everything else," Heather said.

With HeyGen, she doesn't have to.

Turn one photo into a consistent video presence

Creating polished video used to mean getting camera-ready, finding time to film, writing scripts and sending footage to a video editor.

Heather discovered HeyGen after watching another creator demonstrate an AI avatar. She was impressed by how hard it was to tell the AI version apart from the real person, so she decided to try it for herself.

She started with a still photo and provided video clips so HeyGen could recreate her voice and movements.

​"I was really impressed by how it animated my whole self," Heather said. "It used my actual voice, which I really liked too. I thought, okay, this is really cool."

Heather now uses her avatar for talking-head videos and can add B-roll, exercises, captions and other visual elements without filming every piece herself.

Create days' worth of content in under an hour

Heather has integrated HeyGen into a broader AI-powered content workflow.

She uses Claude to analyse existing content, identify topics and keywords, and help write scripts. She then brings those scripts into HeyGen to quickly turn them into videos.

​"In less than an hour, I can have nearly three days' worth of content set up, scheduled and ready to go," Heather said.

That speed makes a demanding publishing schedule possible. Heather has increased her Instagram cadence from one morning Reel to as many as three Reels throughout the day, organising content around weekly themes such as lower back pain.

She still films herself for demonstrations where showing a precise technique matters. HeyGen handles more of the educational talking-head content that fills out the rest of her calendar.

​And Heather hasn't seen any drop in engagement when her avatar takes her place.

"It doesn't matter whether it's HeyGen or me personally," she said.

Heather says no one has identified the videos as AI-generated, and friends she’s shown them to were surprised to learn they hadn’t actually been filmed.

"They're like, wow, this is really impressive. I never would've known it wasn't you unless you'd told me," Heather said.

Build trust before the first conversation

For Heather, creating more content isn't simply about filling up a social media calendar. It's how potential clients get to know her expertise before deciding whether to work with her.

Her YouTube channel is already a major source of demand. Heather estimates that nearly 50% of her leads come from YouTube, often after people have watched several educational videos.

"They've taken in quite a few videos," Heather said. "They think, okay, she definitely knows her stuff. She's teaching us something. Then they get in touch."

Consistent video content gives Heather more opportunities to explain movement patterns, clear up misconceptions, offer injury-prevention advice and help athletes understand their bodies before they even speak with her.

HeyGen makes it possible to create those touchpoints without taking time away from existing clients.

Produce more without paying for each video

HeyGen has also changed the cost dynamics of Heather's content production.

Previously, she worked with a professional video editor who charged roughly $175 to more than $200 for a single video. Heather still provided the script, storyboard direction, B-roll suggestions and other creative input before the editor assembled the final product.

At that price, producing the volume she wanted wasn't feasible.

With HeyGen, she says the cost is "still a fraction of what I was paying just to have a video editor."

Now she can produce the volume of educational content her strategy demands while keeping her voice, appearance, brand and messaging consistent.

Next, Heather wants to extend the same workflow beyond short-form social content to ads and longer YouTube videos. In the longer term, she sees an even greater opportunity: making more of her expertise available to people who may not be able to work with her one-on-one.

For Heather, that’s the promise of sharing her knowledge more widely without putting further pressure on her schedule.

"You can't see everyone," she said.