We’ve already talked about the ways you can boost your number of checked-in appointments on our blog. As a rehab clinic, you can improve patients’ attendance with the help of email notifications and you can increase the volume of appointments by launching successful email marketing campaigns.
Both email notifications and marketing campaigns imply a high number of emails being sent in a batch or broadcast. Email hosts – such Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail – have daily limitations on the frequency and quantity of outgoing emails. These restrictions prevent eBroadcast and other third-party applications from sending bulk newsletters.
This is when transactional email services come to the rescue!
What Do Transactional Email Services Do?
They specialize in sending bulk emails, increasing the deliverability rate, and avoiding the spam folder. On top of that, they also offer commercial-grade security. For more information, check out Why Bulk Email Service is Better Than Your Inbox for Broadcast and Notifications.
How Do You Integrate With Them?
There are two primary integration methods: API (Application Programming Interface) and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). SMTP is the protocol that allows sending emails to the server and API is the window to another code. While they both have the same end goal – keeping the email deliverability rate as high as possible – these methods use different approaches. With the most recent Universal Office update, our eBroadcast module can integrate using both methods, API and SMTP. Our Knowledge Base article Configure Mail Server for eBroadcast will get you going.
What Integration Method to Choose?
To decide, let’s go over the pros and cons of both approaches.
SMTP Pros
- Widely adopted, SMTP settings are used by every email-sending device.
- In case of a failure, SMTP includes an explanation to why email was not delivered to a recipient.
SMTP Cons
- Requires multiple communications with the server. That means a greater opportunity for something to go wrong and longer bulk send times.
- It is common for firewalls to block ports used for SMTP.
API Pros
- The protocol used by API is allowed by most firewalls with the exception of the most restrictive ones.
- Unlike SMTP that makes several round trips, API requires one round trip, which makes this method faster.
- Has an extra security layer – the API key. In addition to your password, an API key adds another level of authentication, which significantly lowers the chances of your account being hijacked by spammers.
API Cons
- Unless you use a practice management software – such as Universal Office, which can be easily integrated with transactional email service via API – it requires a knowledge of codes to set it up.
- Comparing to SMTP, fewer email services use API.
Since our team has done all the coding work for you, we recommend using the API method. API’s “good relationships” with most firewalls and fewer checkpoints where something could go wrong will result in less headaches and more delivered emails.
Universal Office and Transactional Email Services
Our software is integrated with these transactional email services:
Simply create an account with one of them (if you don’t already have one) and configure the API key in Universal Office.
Tip: When using API, you cannot change the “From” and “Reply To” in eBroadcast. This information is set up directly on the Mail Service Provider.
What tools do you use to help you communicate with patients successfully?
