5 Unbeatable Healthcare Email Marketing Tips

Healthcare email marketing has many applications that can serve healthcare organizations wanting to connect with new clients or patients. For instance, you can use it for retargeting, converting leads, and engaging and retaining current patients.

This guide gives you five unbeatable tips for building your email marketing strategy:

1. Organize Your Mail List and Campaigns
2. Avoid Getting Stopped by Spam Filters
3. Use Formatting to Get Your Point Across
4. Find the Best Schedule for Your Emails
5. Track Your Metrics to Learn What Works

There’s a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes.

Let’s go!

1. Organize Your Mail List and Campaigns

Having a robust mailing list is crucial to any email campaign. You can source your list in several ways, such as:

• Patient Intake Form
• Consent Form
• Event or Activity Sign-Up
• Email Inquiries
• Newsletter Sign-Up

The next step is organizing your patients into different interest groups. These groups form your target market for your various campaigns. For example, a person who participated in a hospital’s blood drive might be interested in attending future blood drives or other charity events.

Here are three ways to help you organize your mailing list:

• Let patients choose what marketing emails to receive beforehand
• Tag patients based on their health concerns and how you can help
• Allow patients to update or change their mailing preferences later.

Another point to consider for successful healthcare email marketing is selecting which campaigns to run. Consider these ideas for your email campaign besides charity events, monthly newsletters, and personal health concerns:

• Seasonal health tips for cases such as extreme heat or cold, hay fever, and flu
• Information campaigns for major health issues such as COVID-19 and Mpox
• Holiday-related promotions such as discounts on services and health packages

Although they do not add tangible value, sending a birthday or seasonal greeting is another way to strengthen connections with patients.

2. Avoid Getting Stopped by Spam Filters

Avoiding the spam box is a challenge in email marketing. If your patients do not receive your emails, they cannot open them. When that happens, you waste resources on nothing.

Following HIPAA and the CAN-SPAM Act helps you avoid that. In a nutshell, you must:

• Ensure you use an email service configured with proper security features such as end-to-end encryption. Email filters also help deal with scams and phishing attacks.
• Create robust email security policies to govern use and limit risks. All staff must be oriented, trained, and follow the security policies as strictly as possible.
• Write an honest header for your message. It should accurately reflect the content of your email. As much as possible, make it clear in the subject that you are sending an ad.

In addition to encryption and security policies, email authentication protocols help protect your messages and make sure that patients can trust you, the sender.

Here are the most commonly used protocols you should include in your security framework:

• Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
• Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance (DMARC)

3. Use Formatting To Get Your Point Across

With email marketing, less is more. Since most people use apps on their phones, it's important not to take up too much of your patients' time. In short, your intention should be clear the moment a person receives your message.

Here are some pointers to help you clean up your marketing emails:

• Make sure the whole title is visible on mobile. Use eight words or less in your subject.
• Use a clean, professional font and stick with it. Default email fonts are typically good.
• Beware of attaching large files and images. They slow down your email’s load speed.
• When adding colored images, be careful of how contrasting colors affect readability.
• Use short sentences and bullet points to make important information stand out better.
• Use links instead of attachments. Accompany them with the appropriate anchor texts.
• Add call-to-action (CTA) buttons to direct patients on what to do and drive engagement.

4. Find the Best Schedule for Your Emails

Getting people to open your emails is a tough challenge. Many factors affect whether or not someone interacts with your message. Your subject line, among other things, is one of these.

However, other factors also affect the chances of a patient opening and reading a well-made marketing email. For example, while most people probably open their emails at least once a day, when they do so is different for everyone. Therefore, sending emails at the right time is critical.

Different sources and statistics address this issue. However, what is clear is that understanding your target market helps provide some clarity.

In general, the following is consistently true:

• Since most people work from 9-5, sending your emails within the workday is best.
• If you want to boost open rates, aim for times of the day when patients read their emails.
• Avoid sending emails after work hours or on weekends when open rates are low.

Test samples on experimental groups to find the optimal email time for your healthcare organization. It also helps you earn trust in email marketing because you simultaneously evaluate other parts of your strategy.

5. Track Your Metrics To Learn What Works

As mentioned above, testing is an essential component of a successful marketing plan. However, it goes beyond making the email itself. It is part of improving your strategy.

Here are five metrics you should track for your campaigns:

• Deliverability: Refers to whether your email reached the recipient’s inbox.
• Open Rate: This is the percentage of emails recipients opened.
• Clickthrough Rate (CTR): The ratio of people who click your CTA.
• Conversion Rate: This refers to the number of people who converted to clients.
• Unsubscribe: The number of people who have opted out of your emails.

You might also want to divide your mailing list based on how people respond to your campaign. Segmenting makes mail marketing more manageable. Active leads are worth investing more time and effort into converting, especially once you know what medical services they want.

Summing Up

Healthcare email marketing is part of any good online strategy. The proper configurations can boost ROI and conversion rates for your organization. Following the tips here is a great way to improve your strategy little by little.

Need help with healthcare email marketing? Contact us today to get an expertly-made campaign tailored to your organization’s goals.