Make the most of the holiday season with email marketing – one of the best free marketing tools and a powerful way to reconnect with your patients. Creating email campaigns allows to offer your patients festive discounts, holiday specials and reminders about soon to-be-expired extended health benefits.
For many people, waking up and checking email is part of a morning routine – and you have a chance to be a part of that routine! The first step toward successfully reaching your audience through email is understanding the fundamentals.
The following tips will ensure your approach to email marketing is a success.
First Comes First, Use a Professional Email Address
You may wonder why you should spend extra money on a custom domain email address, especially when you can use a free one from Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.
The first reason is professional appearance. Which one looks more trustworthy, newsletter@samplephysio.com or samplephysio@gmail.com? A custom email address will add credibility to your practice.
The second reason is deliverability. Spam remains one of the leading sources of computer viruses. Therefore, all email hosts want to protect their users from potentially fraudulent and harmful emails. Hosts such as Google and Yahoo have implemented a strict DMARC policy of rejecting messages that don’t pass the authentication checks spelled out by the DMARC protocol. We talk more about it in Gmail Users, Are You Ready For DMARC?
How does it affect your practice management? Email marketing campaigns that are sent from those free domain emails may not pass DMARC policy authentication. As an outcome, many emails would never reach your patients. After all, free domain email addresses were never meant for the commercial purpose, but for personal use only.
Sending email campaigns from your own custom domain email address will help identify who you are to subscribers, as well as spam and DMARC authentication filters. Learn how to set up a custom domain email for your clinic in Your Company Email Address: Done right! and Professional Email Options For Your Practice on our blog.
Another main reason for underperforming marketing campaigns is weak design. Unlike the emails we send to our friends and family, the purpose of marketing emails is to call your target audience to action.
More Tips for Creating Successful Email Marketing Campaigns
- Select your tool. Use the right tools to transform your campaign into a marketing masterpiece. MailChimp is considered one of the best marketing tools in the industry. And guess what? Universal Office is integrated with MailChimp! That means you can effortlessly synchronize your patients’ emails with your MailChimp list – and Universal Office will keep the list up-to-date, too!
- Personalize the subject line. Did you know that adding a subscriber’s name in the subject line increases the chances of the email being opened by 26%? Try avoiding the use of caps lock and multiple exclamation points in your subject line.
- Use power words. Do not underestimate the power of the subject line. Aside from personalizing it, you can also use so-called “power words” to stimulate your patients to open the email. Here are some examples:
- Service related: discover, free, safe and effective
- Holidays related: holiday special, season’s greeting
- Sales related: promotion, discount, hot deal
- Time related: now, limited-time, last chance, complimentary
- Use emojis wisely. According to Experian research, 56% of companies that use emojis in their subject line have a higher email open rate. Did you know that the snowman emoji is one of the most effective? Right in time for winter holidays! Remember to check emojis when testing your email campaign – you don’t want them to look like a square.
- Add preview text. Use an email pre-header to give your patients a sneak peek that will grab their attention.
- Keep your email concise and friendly. Write to your patients as if you were having a conversation with them. Don’t take too long to let your patients know what you have to offer. With the huge volume of emails these days, no one wants to go through a long email trying to figure out what it’s about. Emails with 20 lines and three images or less have the highest click-through rate.
- Check the readability. Make it simple to skim. When picking a font and size, make sure it stands out, but also doesn’t irritate the readers’ eyes. Group information into paragraphs, using headings and bullet points when applicable.
- Use images. Humans are visual creatures. Pick relevant high-quality images. They play a big part in engaging your audience to respond to your email. (For example, by booking an appointment with a service provider during a holiday special or buying custom orthotics with an exclusive discount.) You can find sites like www.pexels.com that allow you to download images for free.
- Don’t forget about the footer. Make sure you are easy to reach. Include your facility’s contact information and social media pages in the footer.
- Test your campaign. It is important to preview your campaign and send a test to yourself before it goes to your patients. This way you will avoid mistakes and get an extra chance to make it perfect.
- When to send. In this busy time, patients who want to take advantage of your offers may forget to take action. Constant Contact recommends using the three-email series approach to remind your subscribers what they are missing out on:
- An announcement (send two weeks from offer date)
- A reminder (send one week from offer date)
- A last chance (send a day or two from offer date)
For even more tips, learn 4 Marketing Tips For Healthcare Providers on a Limited Budget and how to Plan to Engage Your New Patients with Follow-up Emails on our blog.
We hope these tips will help you get your piece of the holiday pie! What do you do to increase the volume of appointments in your practice?
