📊 Free for Practice Owners: Get custom insights showing exactly how patients find you online (or why they're not) → https://podiatry.marketing/report

In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Jim McDannald, DPM, and Tyson Franklin discuss how podiatrists can use LinkedIn as a collaboration tool rather than a promotional megaphone, drawing on Tyson’s list of 26 podiatrists to follow on LinkedIn in 2026 and a companion PDF featuring responses from 20 of them.

They outline five practical ways LinkedIn can grow a practice: co-creating content instead of pitching (webinars, panels, podcast swaps, thoughtful commenting), building two-way referral networks across cities, countries, and specialties, recruiting or getting recruited through consistent posts and networking, turning vendor relationships into marketing leverage via outcomes and case studies, and forming a peer “brain trust” for major business decisions. They encourage listeners to make one concrete LinkedIn move this week and download the 2026 list via LinkedIn or podiatrygrowth.com.

✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com

📊 Free for Practice Owners: Get custom insights showing exactly how patients find you online (or why they're not) → https://podiatry.marketing/report

In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Jim McDannald, DPM, and Tyson Franklin discuss why podiatrists often chase new patients while overlooking existing professional referrers, emphasizing that referrals are a transfer of trust. Jim shares a framework: from 100 referrers, 50% will never refer, 5% will refer immediately, and the key opportunity is nurturing the remaining 45% over time.

They outline 10 ways to strengthen referral relationships, including remembering referrals are earned, making referrers look good through excellent care, thanking people more often, closing the communication loop with updates, not only contacting referrers when you want something, understanding each referrer’s ideal patient, becoming a resource through targeted education, building personal relationships, tracking where referrals truly come from, and creating a referral experience patients talk about. They conclude that caring for current referrers can outperform paid ads over the long term.

✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com

📊 Free for Practice Owners: Get custom insights showing exactly how patients find you online (or why they're not) → https://podiatry.marketing/report

In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Jim McDannald, DPM, and Tyson Franklin outline a five-part marketing plan to turn a $50K equipment purchase (such as a laser or shockwave) into a predictable investment by asking not “Can I afford it?” but “What plan pays it off in 12 months or faster?” They advise running the math backward to set monthly patient targets, then mining your existing patient database 30–60 days before the device arrives with multi-touch outreach and staff scripting.

They recommend building landing pages and ads around the condition and patient frustrations rather than the device name, activating local referral sources (PCPs, physios, athletic trainers, and even other podiatrists) with repeated outreach, and tracking cost per consult, consult-to-treatment conversion, and months to payback. They also note the need to budget for ongoing maintenance and replacement costs.

✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com

📊 Free for Practice Owners: Get custom insights showing exactly how patients find you online (or why they're not) → https://podiatry.marketing/report

In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Jim McDannald, DPM, and Tyson Franklin discuss how podiatrists often confuse external and internal marketing, reducing the value of their spend. They argue external marketing should lead with patient problems (like heel pain) to grab attention within seconds, while internal marketing should educate patients on available solutions (such as shockwave or laser therapy) once they’re in the clinic, building trust and improving treatment acceptance.

Tyson shares a real example where advertising shockwave therapy caused a drop in results compared to problem-focused heel pain ads, and they note treatment pages and blogs still belong on the website for those researching modalities. Practical takeaways include reviewing homepage and ads for problem-first language, training staff to explain options, and using in-clinic materials and newsletters to highlight treatments.

✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com

📊 Free for Practice Owners: Get custom insights showing exactly how patients find you online (or why they're not) → https://podiatry.marketing/report

In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Jim McDannald, DPM, and Tyson Franklin discuss whether podiatrists—especially new graduates and practice owners—should handle marketing themselves or hire help. They emphasize starting with numbers: average value per patient visit, current monthly revenue, and schedule capacity to determine an appropriate marketing budget (often a small percentage of gross revenue, higher in growth phases) and to evaluate ROI in terms of patients needed to break even.

They advise being honest about skills and interests, DIYing low-risk tasks like posts and reviews while avoiding high-risk technical work such as advanced SEO, ad strategy, website migrations, schema, and Google Business Profile recovery. If outsourcing, they recommend choosing providers who understand podiatry and avoiding generic “we do everything” offers. Success should be measured by new patients and cost per new patient, not vanity metrics.

✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com

📊 Free for Practice Owners: Get custom insights showing exactly how patients find you online (or why they're not) → https://podiatry.marketing/report

In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Jim McDannald, DPM, and Tyson Franklin discuss the marketing idea “go where the buffalo are,” meaning podiatrists should position their services and messaging where patient demand already exists rather than trying to create it from scratch.

They contrast high-demand topics like heel pain with low-awareness offerings like shockwave therapy, noting that external promotion of shockwave therapy reduced new patient numbers, whereas heel-pain ads consistently performed well; shockwave therapy worked better as an internal marketing channel after patient education.

They stress using patient language, placing the right message in front of the right audience, both online and offline, and avoiding mismatched channels, such as advertising for running injuries in a nursing home newsletter. They also highlight “hidden herd” follow-ups for stalled treatments, choosing high-value patient groups, aligning services with desired niches, and doubling down on proven referral sources (e.g., specific physicians or specialists).

✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com

📊 Free for Practice Owners: Get custom insights showing exactly how patients find you online (or why they're not) → https://podiatry.marketing/report

In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Jim McDannald, DPM, and Tyson Franklin discuss the “80/20” reality of using AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude for podiatry marketing: AI can help with the easy 80% (drafting blog posts, tightening writing, brainstorming headlines, translating text, outlining pages like plantar fasciitis content), but it can’t replace the hard 20% that determines results—strategy, diagnosis of what matters for a specific practice, judgment on what to ignore, accurate editing (especially in healthcare where AI can hallucinate facts), and consistent execution like managing Google Ads, posting Google Business updates, coordinating website edits, and responding to reviews.

They emphasize that AI often produces inconsistent plans, can misread human intent (e.g., podcast titles), and that experts help turn plans into outcomes. They suggest listing tasks AI can do versus tasks requiring human judgment and execution, and share contact details and a free visibility scan.

✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com

📊 Free for Practice Owners: Get custom insights showing exactly how patients find you online (or why they're not) → https://podiatry.marketing/report

In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Jim McDannald, DPM, and Tyson Franklin discuss how a clinic’s reception area acts as a key marketing touchpoint that can either boost or kill patient flow by shaping first impressions and patient feelings. They explain that bottlenecks often start at reception due to unclear processes, last-minute paperwork, slow payment systems, and poor zoning among arrival, waiting, and departure, and share examples from Jim’s recent MRI and doctor visits.

They cover practical improvements such as making the desk approachable and uncluttered, optimizing seating quantity and layout, adding clear signage, and using technology like online forms, tap-and-go payments, and membership-style billing to reduce friction. They emphasize that small changes can have a big impact and recommend designing the clinic around reception flow.

✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com