The Most Underused Marketing Tool in Your Podiatry Clinic: The Receipt
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In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Jim McDannald, DPM, and Tyson Franklin discuss using clinical receipts as an underused marketing tool in a podiatry clinic. Tyson explains that receipts already have unused space, so clinics can add one short, clear, memorable message to educate patients about services they may not know you offer (e.g., children’s foot care, running assessments, shockwave therapy), avoiding confusing “catalog-style” lists.
He recommends rotating the message like a mini campaign—typically running proven messages for 6–8 weeks and testing new ones for at least two weeks—adjusting quickly if there’s no traction, and only promoting services you want to grow.
They also suggest using color printing to grab attention, promoting specials on retail products, reinforcing the clinic website look, and applying the same idea to invoices, appointment cards, emails, treatment plans, and packaging, emphasizing consistency once you start.
✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com
Jim McDannald, DPM:
You're listening to Podiatry Marketing Conversations on Building a Successful Podiatry Practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald. Welcome back to Podiatry Marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald. Joined as always by my trusty co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are doing today?
Tyson E. Franklin:
Fantastic day, Big Jim. Good to see you again. Looking forward to today's episode. What are we going to jump into today? Well, today we're going to talk about something that I was thinking back when I had my clinic.
Tyson E. Franklin:
What are some of things that we used to do that I didn't see a lot of other people do? And one of them was we used to use our clinical receipts as a marketing tool. So we didn't just give a receipt out to a patient and go, Hey, thanks for coming. See you later. We would actually use it as a marketing tool.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So we would print things. Sometimes it'd be at the bottom of receipt. Sometimes it would be on the back of the receipt where we'd already have them pre printed with whatever it is we want to talk about. And even for whenever the transaction had finished, and I know these days some people say, a lot of patients go, I don't want a receipt. We would just print it out and give it to them anyway.
Tyson E. Franklin:
It was just part of the process. We'd go through the transaction, do all that, and we'd print out the receipt, staple their receipts to it, and just hand it to them. And we used to use it as a marketing tool. So that is what we're gonna talk about today is the most underused marketing tool in your podiatry clinic, the receipt.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Nice. I'm interested to kind of dive into this and see what you did and how you kind of use that real estate to your advantage and to really kind of help patients kind of understand who you are and jump into the specifics of today.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Okay. So the first thing is, of course, yes, your marketing receipt is proof of payment. But if you're already going to be printing it out and handing it to the patient, then why not just put a little bit of thought into what else could you put on that receipt and actually hand to them? And every receipt usually has unused space. And like I mentioned, it could either be at the bottom or it might even be on the back if it's if you're not printing a a two page one.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So and look at it this way. You're already paying for that paper, which is inexpensive. So if you if you're already paying for it, then it's a perfect place to actually put something.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. You just since you're already giving it away, might as well just use that unused real estate to to really help kind of promote and highlight what you're doing there in the clinic.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. And the other part too is patients don't know everything that you do. We've spoken about this so many times that you can't just assume that every patient knows every aspect of podiatry and all the full range of services you actually offer. So, someone seeing you for heel pain might have no idea that they might be an adult. So they think, oh, you only treat adults.
Tyson E. Franklin:
No, you treat children as well. So you mention that they might know that you treat fungal nails or different types of sporting injuries or that you like you might do running assessments. You might have a treadmill with all the really fancy equipment that's set up in a room that patients don't see it unless they go into that room. All they will see is your reception area, the treatment room where you might be doing routine foot care, totally unaware there's a whole other side to your podiatry business. And because they don't know that, then you use the receipt to educate them.
Tyson E. Franklin:
And the main thing is just talk about one service at a time. Even if you only teach every routine patient that you have a treadmill, you do running assessments, just try and teach them at least one thing.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Yeah, like you said, sometimes we're just sitting in our clinic all day, patients come to us and we feel like, you know, we're treating different types of things. So for whatever reason, we kind of feel or kind of assume that other people know exactly what we do, that our patients understand that we provide these different types of service. But in reality they don't, they're coming for a fracture or ingrown toenail or something of that nature, but they don't know you do something else. By, I like how you mentioned focusing on just trying to showcase one item. I think sometimes people they'll hear what you have to say and they're like, oh, try to show them all the things that we do.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
And like we talked about on previous podcasts that like, when you try to be everything to everybody, you're not going be able to speak directly to that ideal patient. So I think selecting a an assessment or diagnosis or maybe type of modality or way you treat something in a way that's unique and differentiate yourself is going to be a great way to, you know, that receipt real estate fill up that receipt real estate with something that will maybe not resonate exactly with that specific patient, but maybe with they have a kid or they have a neighbor or they have a parent who is could benefit from something like that.
Tyson E. Franklin:
And I always say, a confused mind says no. So when you're thinking about this receipt, you just get one receipt, one message on that receipt, depending on what it is. Don't turn it into like a shopping catalogue. Have you seen some of the receipts you get from some shopping centers and then on the bottom of it, it'll have three or four different offers and they all looking very similar. So most people don't look at it because it's always there and it can get a little bit confusing.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So you just think of, just promote one service with like one very, very simple message. For example, you might go, do you know, we also treat children's foot problems. Ask us how we can help them. Do you have children? We help children's feet.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Like you mentioned before, if someone was coming in for routine care, they'd be totally unaware of other services like shockwave therapy. So you mentioned, would you like to learn more about shockwave therapy and how I can help heal pain? Everything like that, if it's just that one simple message, you just gotta keep it short, clear, and also easy to remember. Because if they see it a few times on a receipt, it's going to stick in the head. And like you mentioned, Jim, it may not be them that needs that service, but they're back at home or they're at work and somebody else might even mention Shockwave and go, Well, actually, do you know the podiatrist down here have never got a Shockwave?
Tyson E. Franklin:
Because they've seen it on the receipt?
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Oh, and I think it's also kind of the way you craft the copy, like you mentioned, how do you make it memorable? You don't want to make it clear to the patient what it is, but in a way that is going to make it memorable and not just like you said, there could be, if you're putting competing offers or you're making a list of more than three to five things on that receipt, then they're just going to like basically kind of compete each other away from the attention of the potential patient. So, when you have these offers or too many types of diagnosis or treatments, it's just going to be confusing the patient. So if you can craft some copy or some write some things down that, you know, clearly describe what you're offering, like you said, keeping it short and easy to remember, it's going to make a big, big difference.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. And so it is simplicity, clear message will make it easy to remember. The other part is rotate your message so you can change the message as often as you want. In our clinic, we used to come up with an idea, something we wanted to do. And we used to always run with it for about six to eight weeks that we would just pump that message and then we would see what sort of reaction we would get.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Then we'd come up with something else. If we came up with another idea and we noticed within the first couple of weeks of doing it, we were getting next to nothing from it, we would then move on to the next idea. And if that didn't work, we'd move on the next one. So we would If something was working, we keep it six to eight weeks. If we were promoting something, weren't getting any traction, we'd change it quickly.
Tyson E. Franklin:
But then if we did it again, didn't get any traction, we'd go back to that original one. And if all of sudden that was working again, we would keep running of that until we came up with something new. And that's the best thing about it is you can change this as often as you want. It doesn't cost you a huge amount of money to do it. It's easy to promote different services depending on, it might be seasons, for example, would be a perfect time.
Tyson E. Franklin:
If it's running season, you might be talking about some of the running offers. If it's football seasons. But I always say, only wanna promote what it is that you wanna grow. If you do not want routine foot care, do not put on your receipt anywhere about routine foot care. If you don't want to treat runners, don't mention that you treat runners.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Should never promote anything you don't wanna do. But if you think it's seasons, it could be, yeah, summer could be cracked heels. You could have back to school or something about children's feet. Like I said before, the running season, you're gonna talk about different types of, could be a running injury instead of just a specific treatment. But your receipt basically in the end just becomes like a mini rotating marketing campaign that I think if you use it the right way, could be very beneficial for your clinic.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
When you were doing this in your clinic, Tyson, what was the minimum? Was it two weeks, four weeks? How long should you measure to see if you get results before maybe kind of rotating this campaign?
Tyson E. Franklin:
Maybe two weeks would be the minimum. If we had something that we knew worked, six to eight weeks easily. Usually eight weeks because we go, okay, we'll just block it out in an eight week period. But if we were coming up with something you would always be at least two weeks just to see what sort of traction you were getting. But a lot of times too, you would get a reaction.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Patients that used to see you on a regular basis, they came in, say it was a routine patient and they were coming in every two months, They would notice the receipt had changed based on the message that was on there. If you're printing black and white receipts, which most people do, we used to also have a colour printer. So we used to print on the back of the receipt in colour and then run that through the printer. So the printing would be black and white and there'd be a colourful message on the back. Patients would always look because they're wondering this colorful thing on the back.
Tyson E. Franklin:
And sometimes you'd get a reaction from a patient. Other times they look it over and you get no reaction. And that also goes an indication if this was gonna be something that was gonna work or not.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Yeah, that's a great point. I think the color of the receipt is something that is kind of maybe a little bit under, you know, overlooked by, you know, just printing stuff on the back of it may not be enough. Maybe you have to do something to get a little bit of attention. I know that the receipts that I think of when they printed on the back, it's usually some bright color that I think of yellow for some reason on the back of some of these receipts because it's for what it just sticks in my mind. Some of the receipts I've had that have some marketing on them, but yeah, there's some additional ways to get to grab attention either through a really well written copy or colors.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
I think that's huge. But I think you also touched, like you said, every two weeks is a good kind of touch point because you want to measure it. And the seasonality I think is a great point as well as that just knowing what you want during each part of the year is gonna make you developing these rotating marketing campaigns much, much more simple and more repeatable in future years. Maybe that first year you're trying to like figure it out and you're probably learning the whole time you're doing it. But after a year or two, you probably have a general sense of the normal rhythm of a certain month or a certain season about what you want to go after.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
So I mean, those are important things to keep in mind.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. The two other things we used to do it with too was you could if you're doing an offer, so you might sell some retail products in your particular clinic. And like you said, that yellow dot, we used to have a certain spot because we had them pre printed beforehand that we knew when the receipt was getting printed, that we could put an offer in a particular area. And patients were looking at that offer. What is on special this month?
Tyson E. Franklin:
Oh, it's the certain footwear or it might be a cream that we had that that was the special this month and patients would be looking for that. The other thing we promoted on our receipt was our website. We used to have a certain sheet set up and on the receipt itself, the receipt would be printed in amongst what our homepage of our website looked like. So when people got that, if they'd never been to our website straight away, they would see the familiarity between it. But if they hadn't, it was promoting our website at the same time.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
I think that's huge to kind of build that connection between the offline and online worlds. Like we talked about previously, like you want your website to like get certain expectations. So when they walk into your clinic, there's a kind of a, there's not a disconnect. There's a continuity between the offline and online world. And I think this is another perfect example of that.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So sort of finish up on, this is a shorter episode than normal, which some people might be thankful for. But look at everything that is leaving your clinic. That's the big lesson from this particular episode. Now we're talking about receipts, but it's about identifying unused marketing opportunities. It could be receipts.
Tyson E. Franklin:
It could be invoices. It might be your appointment card. We used to do the same thing on our appointment cards. We would have a marketing message or something on the back, or we used to mix up and put quotes or funny sayings sometimes on our appointment cards. And because you were turning them over pretty quickly, appointment cards were not expensive to get printed.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So we used get batches of like 500 and we would change the message on there quite easily. Even emails that you're sending out to people. Every email that you send to a patient or even to a professional referrer is a marketing opportunity. And I receive some emails and you see down in the footer of the email, there, yeah, regards whatever. And then sometimes it'll have a marketing message underneath there.
Tyson E. Franklin:
If you're doing treatment plans, even packaging, if you're giving a patient something and you're providing the packaging, there's also a marketing opportunity that you can do something with. I posted something, I don't if we did an episode on it. I talked about VinoMofo or was that on my other podcast? I can't remember.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
So It sounds kind of familiar, but I don't I'm not sure if did a full episode on it or not.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. But anyway, got some wine delivered and the box that it came in had all this really clever marketing and funny information on the box. And think actually, I think I might've done a YouTube video on it. What was funny though is I ordered something from them only a week and a half ago. It arrived and it just came in a plain box and I was very disappointed.
Tyson E. Franklin:
I was like, Where's the funny messages? And that probably comes back to when you're doing marketing and when you're doing things, if you take on this idea, one, have fun with it. Keep promoting things that are working. But once you start it, just keep doing it. If all of a sudden you stop, your patients may get disappointed that they're not seeing those special offers anymore.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Yeah, I think the consistency is a huge part of any type of thing you do in life, especially in marketing. The more consistent you can be and you show up, the more likely people are gonna be attracted by you and know you exist and you can become that local expert. So I think that's sage advice.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah, so just the final thing I wanna say is just really think about every single thing that you potentially could give to a patient, whether it's on paper, or even if it's an online, if it's an email, just think about all those interactions. Every single one of them is an opportunity to promote something else that you do that they may not be aware of, or an an offer or a special or just something else about your business or or a team member.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Oh, that's a great way to leave it, Tyson.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Okay. Jim, I do you notice I call you big Jim at the beginning and I just call you Jim when we finish? So anyway, big Jim. That is all I have to say of that for this week's episode.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
No. Was a good one. It was short but sweet, and I think the people who listen to it will get a lot out of this one. So until until next week, Tyson.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Okay. Look forward to talking to you then.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Bye. Bye now. Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.