Every year, a new think piece is published extolling the death of emails to trendier communication channels like Slack, IM, or SMS messaging. Sometimes we wish this were true, like when we look at our inbox on Monday mornings, but studies on consumer preferences tell a different story. In a 2017 SendGrid-commissioned study, Egg Strategy found that 74% of respondents chose email as their preferred communication method for company interactions. It’s easy to imagine why. Emails help us organize our lives, search past communications, and are easily accessible by laptop, smartphone, tablet, and even smartwatch. Consider investing in email marketing to promote your brand, improve patient engagement, and establish a solid communication channel.
But first, a little context:
In this blog series, we will guide you through social media marketing, website must-haves, and email marketing. Click here to view the full series of articles.
Digital marketing can seem overwhelming starting out, but it's important to keep in mind that digital marketing can be phased into your overall marketing plan. After all, it's a marathon not a sprint. It's also okay to ask for help because digital marketing requires time to set-up and manage. Consider hiring a little help such as a full-time marketing specialist, a part-time social media manager, or outsource to a marketing agency.
Okay, let's dive in.
How do I send a marketing email?
Consider investing in a marketing platform – Yes, theoretically you could send a mass email via Outlook or Gmail, but it’s a hassle and you risk accidentally sharing your patient’s email addresses with other patients (not good!). Furthermore, Outlook and Gmail do not provide valuable analytics, which makes it hard to decipher which messages are resonating with your audience. Marketing platforms, like Constant Contact, MailChimp, or SharpSpring, are all-in-one solutions that includes email, social scheduling, contact management, workflow automation, and more. It’s well worth the investment, with a median email marketing ROI of 122%, according to an eMarketer study.
Just like creating a website, email marketing efforts can be time consuming. While it is easier than ever to learn how to send marketing emails, the time and energy it takes may not be an investment you’re willing to make at this time. When looking to outsource marketing emails or marketing automation, consider your budget and overall goals to help you decide on the best agency.
What should I send in a marketing email?
Examples of email content include newsletters, appointment reminders, patient forms, service updates, health tips, and event announcements. Whatever you send, make sure it corresponds with your why. What is your goal for sending an email? Before you click send be sure your goal is clear and that the email supports this goal. Here are Do’s and Don’ts for creating an email:
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Looking at a blank email template can be intimidating, but you don’t need to start from scratch. Marketers have been sending emails and measuring results since 1978, so there is a wealth of resources to find design inspiration. You may have plenty of attractive emails in your own inbox that can be a reference source. If you need more inspiration, visit Really Good Emails, which has a large directory of emails with helpful design feedback.
Who should I send emails to?
You compiled a patient email list via patient forms, imported these emails into a marketing platform, and now you’re ready to send your first email—not so fast! Before clicking send, you need to be sure the majority of emails are valid. If you send a message to multiple invalid email address, you risk gaining a bad reputation with internet service providers (ISPs). When this happens, deliverability rate will drop as emails are sent to a patient’s spam or junk folder. Protect your email reputation and improve open rates by giving your list a scrub, here’s how:
- Remove fake emails, like “email@gmail.com”
- Remove old patient emails
- Correct obvious typos, like “gmial.com” or “outlok.com”
- Never purchase a contact list
An email list will never be 100% clean, but giving your list a hygiene check-up periodically will vastly improve deliverability, increase click rate, and decrease spam reports. After you send your first email, remember to remove bounced emails. Bounced emails are emails that never reached the recipient’s inbox. Reasons an email bounced could be because of an invalid address, or the patient deleted their email account. If there are only a few bounced emails, delete the email addresses before sending future emails to signal to ISP providers that your emails are safe. If you have a lot of bounced emails, it could be because an ISP has identified your content as spam. If this is the case, review this article by Constant Contact on handling blocked emails by ISP providers.
Email marketing can help you promote your brand, improve patient engagement, and establish a solid communication channel. Leave a comment below if you have a question or helpful tips for sending marketing emails.
To view the other posts in this blog series, click here.
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