Email Marketing for Doctors: Converting Leads Into Appointments

Did you know there are 4.48 billion email users worldwide? Email marketing is a goldmine for doctors, attracting new patients and enticing old ones to return to their clinic. Proper planning is integral to a winning email marketing strategy. To simplify email marketing for doctors, we created a step-by-step guide with plenty of helpful tips for creating effective campaigns.

Why Leverage Email Marketing to Reach Prospective Patients

What value can healthcare email marketing bring to your business? Medical professionals like you can stand to gain several benefits from creating email marketing campaigns.

Cost-Effectiveness

Email marketing has proven to be a very cost-effective marketing strategy. For every dollar spent, you get an average 36 dollars in return. That’s why email marketing is a favored channel among marketers, especially with small businesses that want to maximize their budget. Whether you’re a veteran in the healthcare industry or a new doctor establishing your own practice, there is much to gain from email campaigns.

Ease of Execution

Another factor that makes email marketing attractive to doctors is its ease of execution. You can use professional templates to make your messages look legitimate, and automation makes it easy to schedule campaigns and send them to your email list. No need to manually send emails to each recipient. Instead, you can make time for more important matters with your patients.

Better Engagement

As you build and strengthen relationships through email marketing efforts, more patients become inclined to open the links you share. Clicking on the links you share through your marketing emails is incredibly crucial. Your efforts will go to waste if people don’t do something after. While you may not get every recipient to open the links or take action every time they receive your message, an effective campaign can increase your chances of better engagement with your audience.

Wider Reach

Email campaigns remove barriers to your target audience. Let’s say you buy a billboard to promote your services. Your audience will be limited to those passing through your billboard location. You’re not limited to a particular location with email marketing. You can enhance your mailing list through social media channels, in-person events, paid ads, and other methods. You can ask clinic visitors if they want to join your email list.

Improved Appointment Management

Email marketing allows you to inform your audience how they can book an appointment with your practice. This can lighten your staff’s load because they won’t have to spend time educating people on correctly booking an appointment. Once a patient has booked an appointment, you can send them appointment reminders to help ensure they show up for their schedule. If a patient reschedules or cancels their appointment, you can inform others there’s an available slot via email.

Better Patient Retention

Your email marketing program can help build patient loyalty. Medical practices don’t want patients to visit just once. You want to strengthen client relationships so they’d return to your practice. Through your email marketing campaign, you can share helpful resources, promote good health practices, and spread the word about your latest offerings.

Even if your email recipient doesn’t interact with every message you send, you’d still be top-of-mind when they or someone they know need your expertise. You have a better chance of enticing them back into your clinic.

Different Types of Email for the Healthcare Industry

What email types can you send for future campaigns? Take note of the following to add to your toolkit.

Welcome Emails

This type of email is the perfect way to make a good impression. Your welcome email should showcase your unique brand personality. This email type is also the best way to show what value you can bring to each patient. If you’re able to, you should give them an exclusive welcome voucher or discount to encourage them to visit your clinic.

Appointment Reminders

Let’s say a patient has scheduled an appointment with you. You can send appointment reminders to ensure patients attend their appointments or make changes as needed at least 24 hours in advance. You should also include your clinic location so it’d be easier for them to find your office. This email also provides an opportunity to help them complete sign-up forms so they won’t have to finish those once they go to your clinic.

Online Review Invitations

After an appointment, you should encourage patients to write reviews about their experience. Sending patients surveys or invitations to leave reviews via email is a great strategy for your reputation management efforts. The positive messages you receive will improve people’s perception of your practice. You can even post them on your website and other channels to showcase how highly your patients think of you. Negative ones are opportunities to mend relationships and show that you care.

Special Announcements

Do you have any special promos, new services, or holidays coming up? You can inform your audience by sending this type of email. These emails help set expectations and build excitement, improving your overall patient experience.

Email Newsletters

This email type is the most vital one in your toolkit. You should send regular content to establish your credibility as a healthcare expert, and demonstrate how you can serve their needs. Email newsletters can also prompt your audience to check the content you and your team worked hard on. If you’ve published a new blog post or video on your YouTube channel, you should ensure people get to see them through email blasts.

Steps to a Successful Email Marketing Strategy

Are you ready to create a stellar email marketing campaign? These steps can help you get on your way to a successful email marketing game plan:

1. Establish your purpose.

What do you want to achieve through email marketing for doctors? You should find out your ‘why’ to determine your game plan. Will your campaign focus on more appointment bookings or promote an upcoming event? Your purpose will provide the cornerstone for your email communications.

2. Define your target market.

You can determine your target market by thinking of your ideal patient persona. What are their pain points and how can you be of service? This step is vital as it helps sets the tone of your emails. You’d want to tailor your campaigns to what your email recipients might find appealing.

3. Determine your campaign goals.

Each campaign should have measurable goals to help you improve future campaigns, and there’s no singular metric for all campaigns. Your goal can be increasing your click-through rates, encouraging more people to book appointments online or expanding your website visitor count.

4. Choose an email type.

Email types vary, and you wouldn’t want to overwhelm yourself and your team by cramming too many messages in one email. Less is more, and it would be better if you chose one email type at a time to establish some structure and space out your messages.

5. Craft a schedule.

Decide how often you want to send messages. While you want to keep in touch with your audience, you wouldn’t want to bombard them with too many messages, which may lead you to their spam. Set a schedule (weekly or bi-weekly) and keep it consistent. However, you should be flexible if there are time-sensitive messages you want to share, like holiday announcements or seasonal offerings.

6. Write compelling email messages.

This is where the magic happens. The key to a compelling email is starting off strong with a catchy yet relevant subject line. Your subject lines should stand out, enticing subscribers to read more. From there, your goal should be to add value. Every email you send should showcase benefits, such as helpful information, healthcare tips, and practical information like your office address.

7. Measure your email marketing results.

Analyzing your email marketing performance can help you stand out from other medical professionals trying to get their attention. Some campaigns may be popular and some might not, and you need to learn from past campaigns to craft better ones in the future. Fortunately, you’ve already established metrics to determine the campaign’s success.

Noteworthy Points for Effective Email Marketing Campaigns

Do you want to maximize emails as a marketing channel? Here are some tips your healthcare practice should consider as you craft stellar email campaigns.

Utilize a clear sender address

Always clarify who you are and why you’re contacting them. You have to prove that you’re a legitimate healthcare practice to build trust and display your authority. Your medical practice should use an email sender address that’s easy to recognize. A good example is ‘[email protected].’

Customize email per audience segment

Tailor your email to the people receiving that message. Use the date you have on-hand and segment your recipient list accordingly. You can group them according to gender, personal interests, or location. Organizing your list makes it easier for you to craft personal messages that would resonate with them.

Keep it personal

Relevance is one of the most vital elements to an email marketing campaign’s success. You should write personal messages that would address your audience’s needs. Let’s say you know your patient’s birthday through your sign up sheet. You should send them a happy birthday greeting and a special discount voucher.

Ensure your emails are HIPAA-compliant

While you want your messages to be personal, you should ensure that you comply with HIPAA privacy laws. Take time to learn the rules to avoid any email faux pas. Violating privacy laws can result into fines, criminal charges and worst, jail time.

Give them the option to unsubscribe

In an ideal world, all your prospective patients become current patients, and every email brings new clients. However, that probably won’t happen in real life. You should ensure that you include an unsubscribe link in every message so you don’t violate the CAN-SPAM Act.

Optimize your subject line

The first thing you audience sees upon receiving your email is your subject line. Those 60 characters determine what your recipient will do with your message. You should be straightforward and ensure people would understand what you’re sending in a glance. Tailor the line to the people receiving it and avoid using click-bait spam words that can be perceived as promoting false information.

Make it mobile-friendly.

Most people use their mobile devices to check their emails while waiting in line or commuting to or from work. Your email should look the same whether the recipient is reading it on a computer or via mobile. You should adjust the text, buttons, and images based on the screen size.

Don’t forget your CTA

Every email should have call-to-action to ensure people take action upon receiving your email. Your CTA should depend on the email type and message you’re sharing. If you’re promoting a new blog post, include the link to that post. If you want them to set an appointment, add a link to your booking platform.

Creating Effective Marketing Campaigns with iMatrix

We hope our blog on email marketing for doctors assists you in achieving your goals and launching your next campaign. While there are many avenues one can take for marketing emails, these tips work as a great base to refer to for foundational knowledge on this key marketing channel.

Given everything you have on your plate, medical professionals like you probably don’t have time to craft email marketing campaigns. Fortunately, you don’t have to be on this journey alone. iMatrix can help you create stellar email marketing campaigns to reach your target audience and more. Contact us at 800.792.8384 or click here for a FREE consultation.