Healthcare Email MarketingAny healthcare business will know the challenges associated with nurturing patient relationships in the digital age.

With so many methods of communication available, picking the right one to educate people about treatments and provide general health and well-being information isn’t easy.

Thankfully, email marketing remains something of a constant in digital marketing. It can be used by healthcare businesses and organisations to build long-lasting, meaningful relationships with patients.

In this blog, we’re going to run through 6 brilliant, actionable tips for healthcare professionals who want to harness the power of email marketing.

1. Opt for educational healthcare content

The priority for people looking for healthcare is support – and finding it quickly. That’s why they’ll generally carry out a great deal more research before settling on a solution.

As a healthcare business, that means you need to educate rather than sell, because that’s the kind of content people will be looking for. So, tune your email campaigns to help, rather than convert.

2. Make the appointment journey ultra-simple

The ultimate goal of your email campaigns will probably be to encourage people to book appointments.

With that in mind, you need to make the journey to that appointment as simple as possible, so keep the call-to-action (CTA) in the email simple (“click here to make an appointment”) and the corresponding landing page as easy as it should be to fill out.

3. Be sensitive with your content

It’s worth remembering that the people reading your emails may often be in an emotional state or in need of support for a serious condition.

The content you create – both words and imagery – therefore needs to be sensitively constructed. Make sure you ask several people within the business to proofread your emails before sending to ensure the tone is just right.

4. Segment and target

By segmenting your customer database demographically and by forms of treatment booked or requested, you can send far more targeted email campaigns.

This is an essential, if time-consuming tactic if you’re to enjoy the highest levels of engagement for every email you send. By instead emailing information about treatments to people who have no need or past history with the condition, you’ll only encourage more people to unsubscribe than engage.

5. Focus on special ‘awareness’ days

There are a huge number of awareness days that take place each year, and they all represent great opportunities for you to tap into the national conscience about a subject and encourage people to book an appointment.

For instance, if it’s national testicular cancer awareness day, sending an email to your carefully segmented list of male clients (see tip 4) will work wonders in terms of open rates and click-throughs, because it’ll likely be on your audience’s mind.

6. Spend 80% of your time on the subject line

Constructing great email marketing campaigns takes time, but it’s vital you spend the majority of that time on the subject line.

It’s the first thing people will see, and therefore does 80% of the work in terms of encouraging them to engage with your email. Keep it short, snappy, relevant and of the cliff-hanger variety, and your hard work on the rest of the email won’t go to waste.

Wrapping up

We hope our tips above help you create fantastic email marketing campaigns for your healthcare practice, but if you need more advice on how to build healthy relationships with your patients, download our free guide today!