In the digitally dominated healthcare industry, e-mail marketing can bring huge success when medical practitioners use it effectively. E-mail is one of the main forms of communications today. In most businesses, it has become a critical component of the workforce. The medical field is no different. In fact, when e-mail marketing is done right, it can change your practice by leaps and bounds. So, how do you deploy an effective e-mail marketing campaign? What are the best practices to engage your patients and improve your practice through this technology driven marketing strategy?
How Does E-Mail Marketing Affect Medical Practices?
Since e-mail is the preferred communication tool of most people today, you can grow your practice when you use e-mail to better engage your patients. Not only does e-mail marketing result in quality lead generation, it is a way to become better connected with your existing patients. Through e-mail marketing, you can:
- Keep your patients informed
- Develop a relationship that allows you to stay well connected to your patients
- Market your services and/or products
- Get the word out about your practice
- Improve existing provider/patient relationships
- Deliver informative content that can easily be shared
- Develop a loyalty and trust in your practice
Develop an effective, consistent, well-planned strategy for your e-mail marketing campaign. Once implemented, this serves as a reliable and influential digital marketing channel to improve your practice. E-mail marketing can help you generate more leads when you encourage your patients to share your practice information on social media or forward your message to friends and family. When you track the patient journey from start to finish, you can drive conversion rates and benefit from improved sales.
Tips for an Effective Email Marketing Strategy
Once you have decided to use an e-mail marketing campaign to improve your healthcare practice, you need to be sure you are delivering the right content to your patients. Here are some different tips for creating effective e-mail marketing campaigns:
1. Build Your Patient List
While many healthcare practices buy or share lists from one another, this can actually do damage to your practice. Patients can get frustrated when they begin getting e-mails without their agreement. When you develop your own e-mail list for your practice, you create a sustainable system that is of better quality and has fewer unsubscribes.
2. Solve Problems Over Selling Services
Many people turn to healthcare professionals to solve their medical problems. An effective e-mail marketing campaign will deliver educational and informative information that can help your patients. Instead of trying to market your services or sell products, supply your e-mail recipients with informative content. When you give them information they need, for free, they will be more likely to trust your practice and request your services.
3. Encourage Action
Once you deliver relevant content to your patients, give them a “next step.” Since many people truly care about their health and wellness, they are more likely to engage in action once you deliver them engaging content. Provide links to important information, encourage patients to follow you on social platforms, and provide options for them to share your practice information. Word of mouth (referrals) is great for lead generation.
4. Watch the Frequency
Once of the biggest mistakes people make with e-mail marketing involves the frequency of e-mails. Too many e-mails can be a big mistake and lead to more unsubscribes from your patients.
5. Use Proper Segmentation
When you segment your list into groups, when appropriate, you can deliver more relevant information to your patients. This will make your recipients more likely to take action from your e-mail because the information is appealing to them as an individual.
6. Double Check Your Security Measures
This is probably one of the most important parts of your e-mail marketing campaign. HIPPA compliance is important for many reasons. Not only are there repercussions from violating the federal regulations, you can easily lose patients if they feel their personal information is being revealed through your e-mails.
Remember, patients want you to keep in touch with them. They want to have a doctor they can tell their friends about. Your job is to make your practice look like a superstar so they can brag about you.
E-mail marketing is an effective way to generate leads, communicate important information about your practice, and develop better relationships with your patients. E-mail marketing can effect your bottom line through increased traffic to your website and increased number of scheduled appointments for your practice for both current and referral patients. When you integrate an e-mail marketing system into your practice marketing, you can track your e-mail performance and identify areas of your campaign in need of improvement. E-mail marketing is a cost-effective, results driven method of improving your healthcare practice.