The rumor is that email marketing for health care is dead, or at least dying a quick and painless death, ever since Google updated it’s email platform to include Promotions and Updates Inbox Tabs. In reality, the rumors that email marketing has died have been floating around the health care industry since social media and mobile marketing blasted onto the scene. The truth, well, according to the email marketing team at Quaintise, couldn’t be any farther from the rumors.
Email Marketing More Effective Then Ever
We will give the critics of email marketing one thing; the old “batch-and-blast” strategy for email marketing has fallen off of a cliff. With the popularity of big data, as well as increased targeting capabilities in the healthcare market, email marketing has transcended into an effective, highly operational strategy for physicians and specialists to reach patients and potential patients.
Buyers and health care patients are better informed, smarter about their purchasing power, and understand better then ever how to opt out of unwelcomed communications, whether it’s on social media or in the form of email marketing. The challenge as a health care marketer is to understand these shrewder patients and consumers and to reach them with relevant, engaging information that is personalized, speaks to them on an individual basis, and thus generates engagement.
Yes, the old ‘blast’ out a million emails to an email list that was purchased from a larger data collection company strategy is long dead. It has been successfully replaced with a more targeted, personalized strategy that is, in fact, far more effective.
Understand the Numbers
Whether you use Mailchimp or Constant Contact, one of the most important aspects to be vigilant about watching is the numbers. What are you click rates? What are you open rates? Who is opening your content? Who is interested in your stories? What stories are they interested in? Who is unsubscribing?
Just like analytics for websites and insights for Facebook are crucial to keep an eye on, email marketing numbers will tell you a great deal about your audience. Be vigilant about monitoring your open rates and click rates to understand the effectiveness of your campaigns. There is no excuse for ignoring this gold mine.
Get a Better Email List
At Quaintise, we’ve seen many, many physicians make the mistake of purchasing email list from companies who are experts at selling ketchup popsicles to women in white gloves, but just don’t have the lists that you should be targeting. If you’re list is made up of email buys and single opt-ins who subscribed to your content to win a contest, your open rate is going to reflect that, as is your unsubscribe rate.
In healthcare marketing, you must be constantly building your list and cultivating relationships. Do not use those third party lists that can get you into big trouble. You want double-opt-in patients and potential patients who actually care about what you have to say. You wont voluntary sign ups who have put forth some effort to sign up for your content and genuinely want to see what you have to say.
Personalization
In today’s health care marketing environment, personalization is key. The most effective way to email market is to create content that looks like it not only came from a human, but is personalized, solves a problem that a specific individual might have, and is both timely and educational. At Quaintise, our email marketing team uses newsletters to foster conversations that listen to patient’s needs and respond to those needs. With social media integration and a commitment to success, Quaintise email marketing has highly successful open and click rates.
Don’t get caught in the old-school ‘batch-and-blast’ way of email marketing in the health care field. Your metrics will show your lack of creativity. Let the email marketing team at Quaintise give you a hand.