Why Do Hospitals Need Effective Email Marketing? (Steps for Success)

Healthcare marketing is one of the most challenging fields to work in. Not only do you have to worry about communicating with a large, diverse audience, but you also have to be aware of constantly changing regulations. And that's before you even start thinking about your marketing strategy!

Fortunately, there are a few basic steps that you can take to make sure your healthcare email marketing campaigns are as effective as possible. In this article, we'll outline some of the most important ones to help you get started. Let’s begin!

Is Email Marketing Necessary for Hospitals?

With so many marketing channels to choose from, you might be wondering if email marketing is really necessary for your hospital. After all, couldn't you just rely on social media or your website SEO to get the word out? The answer is yes and no. While it's true that you can reach a large number of people through other channels, email still has a few unique advantages that make it worth considering.

For one thing, email is an incredibly cost-effective way to reach your audience. You don't have to pay for advertising space or worry about the cost of production. Additionally, email is a great way to build relationships with your patients and keep them updated on what's going on at your hospital.

Another reason to consider email marketing is that it allows you to target your audience in a way that other channels don't. With email, you can segment your list and send targeted messages to specific groups of people. This ensures that your message is always relevant and tailored to the needs of your recipients.

Finally, email is a great way to measure your results. With most other marketing channels, it can be difficult to track your return on investment (ROI) and gauge the success of your campaigns. With email, however, you can easily track who opens and clicks through to your website, as well as any other actions they take. This allows you to fine-tune your campaigns and make sure you're always getting the most out of your marketing budget.

Top Tips To Create a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

Now that we've established that email marketing can be a valuable tool for healthcare marketers, let's take a look at some of the key ingredients of a good healthcare email.

     1. Make It Easy to Register Online for Your Emails

If you want people to sign up for your emails, you need to make it as easy as possible. That means having a clear and concise registration process that doesn't require too much information from the user.

Ideally, you should allow people to sign up for your emails directly from your website. This can be done by including a simple sign-up form on your homepage or in the header of your website. You can also include a link to your registration page in your email signature. The goal is to make it simple for people to find and sign up for your emails.

     2. Provide Incentives for Sign-ups

People are willing to provide their email addresses when they know that they will receive something of value in return. That's why it's important to offer an incentive for patients to share email addresses with you for more than receiving test results or appointment confirmations. Those communications are protected by HIPAA, as are the email addresses. You also want to be able to reach your audience for marketing purposes, so you must incentivize them to share their addresses with you for those purposes.

Think about what would be most valuable to your audience and offer that as an incentive for signing up for your emails. For example, as a healthcare provider, your audience is current and prospective patients. A regular healthcare newsletter on conditions prevalent to their gender or  age group; information on new treatments for conditions and illnesses; vaccination reminders and opportunities to schedule them electronically; announcements of free healthcare fairs; opportunities for free blood pressure, heartbeat, or blood sugar check ups – all of these are low- or no-cost ways to reward your audience for supplying their email addresses.

     3. Keep It Personalized Through Segmentation

One of the great things about email marketing is that it allows you to segment your list and send targeted messages to specific groups of people. This ensures that your message is always relevant and tailored to the needs of your recipients.

For example, you can segment your list by location, age, or gender. You can also segment your list by interests. The key is to segment your list in a way that makes sense for your healthcare business and your audience.

The more targeted and relevant your messages are, the more likely people are to engage with them. So, take the time to segment your list and make sure you're always sending the right message to the right people. For example, as a healthcare organization that offers a variety of services, you might want to segment your list by the type of service each person is interested in. This way, you can send targeted messages about specific services to the people who are most likely to be interested in them.

     4. Test Different Email Types and Track Analytics

You can send different types of email, each with its own purpose. For example, you can send promotional emails to promote your services, or you can send educational emails to provide valuable information to your audience.

The key is to experiment with different types of emails and see what works best for your business. Once you find a few email types that work well, track your analytics, such as your open rates and click-through rates, to see how effective your emails are.

Summing Up

Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with your current and prospective patients and promote their healthcare and your healthcare business. By following these tips, you can create high-quality and effective emails that will help you achieve both goals.

At Digital Authority Partners, we specialize in email marketing and can help you create a campaign that is tailored to your specific needs. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help you grow your business.