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Podiatry Email Marketing: From Inbox to Appointment (Texas Guide)

Sep 25, 2023
9 min read

Updated: Oct 18

Podiatry email marketing keeps the patients you already have. A patient in Plano you treated for heel pain, or a diabetic patient in Houston who is due for a yearly foot exam, already trusts you. A short, useful email brings them back. This guide covers what to send, when to send it, the Texas consent rules and the tools that make it easy for a Texas podiatry practice.

Email works best when search keeps bringing new patients in. For Dr. Graff, a podiatrist in Dallas and Plano, we built pages for heel pain, plantar fasciitis and diabetic foot ulcers. In 2020 his Plano Google profile drew 146 calls in one month from Google search and Maps, no ads, with about 100 reviews against competitors with 500+. Every podiatry email can link back to pages like these.


Personalized Foot Updates: Podiatry Email Marketing Based on Patient Needs


When a Texas 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 a podiatry 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 (Plano, Katy or San Antonio), or other data points.

Personalized subject lines tend to get more opens.


Podiatry Email Marketing in Texas: Get Consent First

Some podiatry emails are part of care and some are marketing. Texas treats them differently: marketing that uses patient information needs the patient's clear written or electronic permission (Tex. Health & Safety Code §181.152). The easiest fix is a consent checkbox on your intake form.

Podiatry email marketing consent steps for a Texas practice: patient, front desk and email system
Podiatry email marketing: who does what, from intake to newsletter

Which podiatry emails need marketing consent?

Email

Type

Consent needed?

Appointment reminder

Care

No

Aftercare for a nail or bunion procedure

Care

No

Yearly diabetic foot exam recall

Care

No

Monthly foot tips newsletter

Marketing

Yes

New treatment or laser offer

Marketing

Yes, plus check OIG rules

Every marketing email also needs an unsubscribe link and your postal address, and opt-outs must be honored within 10 business days (FTC CAN-SPAM guide). Email vendors that handle patient information need a business associate agreement. Appointment reminders by email are allowed with reasonable safeguards (HHS). This isn't legal advice.


Engagement Boosters: Podiatry email 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.


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: Seasonal Advice to Keep Texas 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 in a monthly podiatry email to your Texas patients, 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. Give subscribers information they want to read, so they look forward to your monthly foot tips.

Podiatry email marketing calendar for a Texas practice

When

Email topic

Why it works

Jan to Feb

Cracked heels and dry skin care

Dry winter air

Mar to May

Running and sports foot checks

Spring sports season

Jun to Aug

Sandal, blister and athlete's foot tips

Long, hot Texas summers

Sep to Oct

School sports and new shoes

Back-to-school

Nov

Yearly diabetic foot exam recall

American Diabetes Month; 12.7% of Texas adults have diabetes


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 tell patients in a podiatry email; a new podiatrist joined the team, a second office opened in Frisco or Sugar Land, or other team updates essential for your patients to know should also be shared with them.


Foot Care Reminders for Texas Patients: Check-Ups and Follow-Up Treatments


In podiatry email marketing, 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.

In Texas, 12.7% of adults have diabetes (Texas DSHS, 2025). The CDC advises people with diabetes to get a full foot exam at least once a year, so a yearly recall email is one of the most useful podiatry email marketing messages you can send.


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 podiatry email copy and include attention-grabbing images, such as a photo of your own Texas office or team, 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 in a podiatry email to loyal patients who opted in. 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. If you treat Medicare or Medicaid patients, check the OIG's rules on patient discounts first.


Best Times to Send: When Your Texas 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. Most of Texas is on Central time, but El Paso is on Mountain time.


But the best thing is understanding your demographics as a podiatrist clinic is the most important thing you can do to send the email 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 podiatry 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 emails look spammy with all caps and exclamation, and ensure you’ve explicit consent to send emails to the patients on your mailing list (see the Texas consent rules above).


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 at a Texas podiatry practice.


Thus, promoting online booking in every podiatry email 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 podiatry 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, such as the Texas Podiatric Medical Association's yearly conference, so you can have something relevant to share with your patients. You can also subscribe to industry newsletters to stay updated.


5 Tools for Podiatry Email Marketing


Mailchimp: Craft and automate foot-care campaigns


Mailchimp has proven to be a reliable and effective tool for delivering podiatry email marketing 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.


Brevo (formerly Sendinblue): Combine emails with SMS for appointment reminders


Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is another email marketing tool 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.

Podiatry Email Marketing FAQs

How Often Should a Texas Podiatry Practice Email Patients?

Send care emails whenever care is due, and a newsletter once a month. More than that and unsubscribes rise. For the full Texas and HIPAA email rules, see our guide to email marketing for patient retention.


What Should a Podiatry Newsletter Include?

One seasonal foot tip, one clinic update and one clear button to book. In Texas summers, sandal and blister tips do well; in winter, cracked heels. See more podiatry marketing ideas.

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