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Writer's pictureDaniel Madhan

Patient Retention Podiatry Email Marketing - From Inbox to Appointment

Updated: Jul 9

Personalized Foot Updates: Send targeted Email Campaign based on patient needs.


When a patient subscribes to your mailing list for foot updates, you should know that they expect relevant and personalized content.


Personalizing your email to a subscriber involves targeting an email campaign to a specific subscriber of your podiatry practice by leveraging the data and information you have about them.


It could be information like their first name, the last service they sought, where they live, or other data points.


Studies have shown emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened than those without, so by sending your patients personalized foot updates, there’s a high chance of increasing your open and click-through rates. These stats have a measurable impact on your ROI and revenue.


Engagement Boosters: Use engaging subject lines focused on foot health


After identifying who you’re emailing, their needs, and the services they may seek your practice for, you should focus on engagement boosters. The subject line is your opportunity to make a good first impression on recipients and help your email stand out in a flooded mailbox.


When it’s well-crafted, the subject line can lead to higher open rates. The best ones are short, clear, and give just enough information to leave your reader wanting more. The best and most engaging subject lines are short and clear and give just enough information to leave your reader wanting more.


Writing subject lines using all caps and a ton of exclamation points is unnecessary and can make your subject line look spammy and make your recipients feel like you’re yelling at them.


Monthly Foot Tips: Share monthly advice to keep feet healthy


After having direct access to your patient’s mailbox, avoid misusing this access; you don’t need to bombard your subscribers with emails.


You could come up with essential foot care tips that you can share with your subscribers monthly, including the best practices to avoid certain serious foot conditions, the proper care for the feet and simple solutions available to specific foot concerns.


Avoid irrelevant stuff. To provide subscribers with information they want to read, provide them with information they want to read so they look forward to your monthly foot tips.


Clinic News and Updates: Share events, new treatments, or team updates


It’s not only monthly foot advice your patients’ subscribers should hear from you; they should also be among the first to know of any clinic news or updates your practice may have.


If you now offer a new treatment at your podiatry clinic, be sure to inform your patients through the mail; a new member joined the team, or other team updates essential for your patients to know should also be shared with them.


Foot Care Reminders: Prompt regular check-ups or follow-up treatments


A good way to increase patient retention is to schedule prompt checkups to know how the patient is faring and remind them of the essential foot care practices. You should also schedule prompt follow-up treatment reminders.


The reason is that upon getting relief from the foot condition on the initial visit to the clinic, the patient may not be so concerned with follow-up treatment. Still, you remind them of the long-term benefit of following up on their treatment and encouraging them to come in.


Attention-Grabbing Designs: Use clear, foot-related visuals in emails


Most patients on your mailing list have other things to do and may not have the time to sift through a text-heavy email, especially when foot-related visuals could better convey the message.


So don’t rely on long-worded email copy and include attention-grabbing images to make your content more engaging.


Special Offers and Discounts: Promote deals for loyal patients


If you have special offers and discounts for your patients, you can promote them to your loyal patients on your mailing list. You only need to craft a compelling email copy to inform your patients about the offer and discount.


Craft your subject line so your subscribers know that specific email is in their inbox to provide them with special offers and discounts on your podiatry services, but avoid making them look spammy.


Keep it short, and the offers are urgent so your patients know it won’t last forever, and take action promptly.


Best Times to Send: Pinpoint when your patients are most likely to read


Timing matters when getting subscribers to notice and open your emails. It’s usually better to send it during the daytime, not when people are asleep. Studies have shown that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days to send email campaigns.


But the best thing is understanding your demographics as a podiatrist clinic is the most important thing you can do to get the nail at the right time.


They’re your audience, you should know their habits and cater to them; you can also test out days and times to know the right time.


Feedback Surveys: Ask patients about their foot care experiences


The only way to know whether or not you’re catering to the needs of your patients is to ask for their feedback. Email shouldn’t just be a means of sending updates and sharing foot care tips; you can also use it as a valuable channel for gathering email feedback.


Use Email feedback to solicit, collect, and analyze your patients’ opinions, suggestions, and insights about your podiatry practice and treatment service.


Create feedback surveys to help streamline the feedback collection process, analyze the feedback constructively, and effect appropriate changes to make your patients able to gather valuable insights, improve your services, and foster stronger patient relationships.


Understanding Email Stats: Check open rates and click-through rates


Email stats differ from most of the other marketing channel stats. There’s more to email marketing than encouraging your patients to subscribe and sending them monthly newsletters; you need to properly understand podiatry email marketing stats to know if your marketing efforts through email are yielding good results.


When you understand the email stats, you can track your campaigns’ performance, analyze the results, and draw conclusions to improve your future efforts.


The relevant email metrics to know about include open rate, which is the percentage of delivered emails that have been opened at least once, and click-through rate, which is the percentage of opened emails that have been clicked on at least once.


Bounce rate, spam rate, block rate and unsubscribe rate should also be monitored. Personalization helps increase the open rate and minimize the spam rate.


Spam complaints are taken very seriously and can be detrimental to your spam score; avoid making your nails look spammy with all caps and exclamation, and ensure you’ve explicit consent to send emails to the patients on your mailing list.


Using Patient Feedback: Refine content based on responses and needs


Patient feedback consists of the views and opinions of patients on the care they have experienced at your podiatry clinic. You can gather patient feedback in various ways, including surveys, emails, comments, and complaints to help you better shape your services to suit the needs of your patients.


Patient feedback can help you connect more with your patients and ensure they keep coming back to you for their foot care needs. You can also use patient feedback on your content to determine what email content your patients need and prefer.


Using patient feedback strategically can encourage referrals, increase patient loyalty, and identify new growth opportunities you can take advantage of.


Promote Online Booking: Make it easy to schedule or reschedule visits


Email marketing is considered one of the best marketing channels for increasing online bookings for your business. Studies have shown that the average email open rate across all domains is 21.08%, and the average click-through rate is 2.78%.


Thus, promoting online booking through your emails makes scheduling an appointment easy for your patients. Types of emails that can help you increase your online bookings include discount offer emails, emails creating urgency offers, appointment reminder emails and new offerings promotion emails.


Also, make it easy for patients to reschedule appointments online with a single click.


Clear Call to Action: Direct patients to the next step in their foot care.


The call to action (CTA) is one of the most important elements to help you achieve your email marketing goals, including forming stronger relationships with your patients and getting more monthly appointments.


Some of the best practices to increase your chances of clicks and conversions when using CTA include using a compelling, specific verb to create a powerful CTA. Locate CTA strategically on the top half of the page so it’s one of the first things your patients see when they open the email.


Make the CTA unique, employ contrasting colors, and a larger font size to ensure that the CTA button stands out from the rest of the email content. Ensure the CTA directs your patient to the next step to take.


Consistent Branding: Maintain a familiar look across all emails


Maintaining brand consistency is key to creating a strong and recognizable brand image for your podiatrist practice. Have a professional logo that you can insert at the header of each email.


Use consistent typography in your email marketing so your patients can identify your professional appearance and recognize your messages immediately after seeing them. Seeing consistent branding images helps with familiarity and integrity.


Establish and maintain a consistent branding that distinguishes you from your competitors.


Stay Updated: Share the latest foot care research and innovations.


It’s essential to stay updated so you know the latest research and innovations in the podiatry industry. Continuing education is important for a podiatrist who wants to know about the latest industry trends, evidence-based practices, and advancements in foot care technology.


Attend events hosted by industry leaders so you can have something relevant to share with your patients. You can also subscribe to industry newsletters to stay updated.


5 Tools for Optimal Podiatry Email Marketing


Mailchimp: Craft and automate foot-care campaigns


Mailchimp has proven to be a reliable and effective tool for delivering email campaigns times without numbers. Its interface is well laid out and easy to read, the analytics suite is excellent, and the deliverability rate is pretty high.


SendinBlue: Combine emails with SMS for appointment reminders


SendinBlue is another email marketing software you can use for podiatry email marketing. A unique feature of this tool is that it allows you to combine emails with SMS so you can easily send appointment reminders to your patients.


It offers all the necessary features a brand requires for a responsive and successful email campaign.


Canva: Design foot-focused email visuals


Visuals are an integral part of a responsive email design, and Canva is just the best graphic design tool for your foot-focused email visuals. It’s quick and easy to use, with many features to create professional and stunning visuals


Typeform: Gather patient feedback on foot treatments


Typeform is a great tool for creating forms, surveys, and quizzes. It is easy to use, and its wide range of features makes it the perfect choice for anyone looking to create engaging forms.


You can easily get patient feedback on your treatment and services by creating a survey or feedback form with Typeform and mailing it to your patients.


Calendly: Let patients directly schedule check-ups via email.


Online booking has been made much easier with Calendly. It’s a perfect tool for scheduling and managing appointments and events.


It’s easy to use, straightforward and allows a lot of customization. With this, your patients can schedule check-ups through emails themselves.

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