Although email marketing is generally considered an old-school approach, it has the highest return on investment (ROI) of any form of digital marketing. It also reaches all demographics with ease, and through various strategies, assists healthcare service providers in retaining patients and adding new ones. In this article, we will look at ways to improve the already impressive ROI of email marketing in the healthcare sector for 2022.

Why Email Marketing Is Still The Go-To Method Of Communication

Digitalauthority.me reports the number of emails sent daily continues to grow. According to Statista, they estimate that volume to explode to well over 300 billion emails moving back and forth daily this year. That should tell you that email use is still a popular and reliable means of communication. Additionally, email marketing has a return on investment of $36 for every dollar spent. That makes using email a cost-effective tool in your healthcare service marketing plans.

How To Build On That ROI

Here are several tips on how you can turn email marketing into the most successful of the promotional tools at your disposal:

Tip #1 – Organically Build Your List

There are simple ways to collect email addresses for use later with your digital marketing plans. You can have a spot on forms that patients fill out in the office with their contact details or have a form on your website. Be sure to include a box for them to mark if they would prefer to opt-out of receiving emails. That prevents you from sending unwanted communication to patients.

Tip #2 – Use Personalization in Communication

The data you collect from building your email list will give you some excellent details about your patients. Use this information to personalize the emails you send them. This means more than including their names. It means sending only information that is relevant to their health concerns or interests as indicated on the forms they filled out. In other words, target the right audience.

Tip #3 – Make It Easy to Unsubscribe

It happens. Sometimes a subscriber just gets tired of all the extra blurbs and extended ads showing up in their inbox and they purge their emails. If your emails end up getting cut out of some of these subscribers’ inboxes, you can prevent further frustration by making it easy for them to unsubscribe. It should be a simple one-step process to take them off your list immediately.

Tip #4 – Use Segmentation with Your Audience

When you segment your audience, you are creating different categories of people using the data you have collected. Then you send these people your emails according to their category. Essentially, you are targeting your audience by sending them emails that contain content relevant to their interests, health concerns, or whatever category you have assigned to them.

Tip #5 – Use Automation Programs

By automating your emails, you save time and effort with your digital marketing program. This increases engagement and improves your return on investment. Some automation ideas that are helpful include sending educational information related to specific health issues, automatic notification of health fairs, notification of free community health events.

Tip #6 – Personalize Subject Lines

Spammy subject lines will increase the number of times an email will be deleted without getting opened. However, if you include a patient’s name in the subject line, or something related to their specific interests, you increase the likelihood that the email will be opened. The idea is to show that you have an interest in building and maintaining a connection with email recipients.

Tip #7 – Mobilize

Statistics show that there are more searches conducted online with handheld devices than any other tool to access the internet. This means that to be seen and effective with your email marketing program, you have to have your email program optimized for mobile use. This ensures that content, images, forms, etc. can be opened and read with a handheld device.

Tip #8 – Always Use the Data You Collect

Make sure that as you gather all kinds of data on your subscribers or patients, that you also analyze it and use it to improve communication, service delivery, and your awareness of your audience’s concerns. Customer data should form the foundation of every action to take with your email marketing strategy. By not using the data, you will not be able to effectively target your audience and reach them with relevant content that interests them.

Tip #9 – Don’t Spam Your Subscribers

Once you have a few names and email addresses on your mailing list, it is important to remember to not overwhelm them with too much too soon. A welcome email is a good idea following sign up but when you start to automate your email activity, try to keep it down to weekly emails. Sending too many will result in subscribers unsubscribing to your list.

Tip #10 – Pay Attention to Special Dates

Another great way to build loyalty and establish a connection with your subscribers is to ensure that the information they sent to sign up to your mailing list includes their birthday. That way you can send a special message and recognition to them on their birthday. It will increase engagement and make them feel special and valued which improves loyalty to your healthcare organization.

Tip #11 – Request Updated Information

Every so often it is a good idea to send an email through your automated system that essentially checks on how your subscribers feel about your contact. Ask them for feedback and find out also if they are enjoying the regular emails you are sending. Ask for suggestions on how to improve what you are doing and request updated information for your data files.

Final Thoughts

With the ROI on email marketing already at a significant level, you know that you are going to be successful as soon as you launch your subscription-based marketing program. However, it always helps to tweak these programs where possible to increase results. The tips noted above should give you some assistance in achieving this. Essentially, when you target subscribers with information that interests them, they will stay with your healthcare organization for the long term. But you need to collect data and understand data on each one of them for this to be possible.