Email marketing is a practical and inexpensive way for hospitals and medical practices to reach their target audience by providing a direct line of communication to both existing patients and potential customers. For an email to be truly effective, however, it is important to make sure that people will actually read what you send.
Follow these tips to make sure that the effort you put into your email marketing campaigns pays off.
1. Segment Your Audience
One of the first rules of email marketing is that the list of recipients matters. It might be easy to send every message to your entire email database, but chances are this will backfire and you will end up with a lot of unsubscribes. A better idea is to create separate lists for each segment of your audience – for example, a list for patients with diabetes, a list for patients with children, etc. This will allow you to craft emails specifically for that audience, resulting in more opens and a higher click through rate.
2. Write Engaging Content
Before getting into the nitty-gritty of formatting, it is important to remember that, above all, good content is what makes a good email. If the content isn’t engaging, the email won’t be effective – no matter how many eye-catching images or infographics you have. Email marketing novices often believe that stuffing an email with images will pay off; however, a good text-to-image balance is key. Emails with too many images may end up in the spam folder.
3. Keep It Simple
[related_content]The more direct and to-the-point the email is the better. Avoid packing it with graphics, lots of colors or gradient fills. This can overwhelm the recipient and draw his or her attention away from what you really want them to see. If there is something you want the reader to click on, like a call to action, put it above the fold where it is easy to find.
4. Pay Attention to Formatting
When formatting your email, remember to include a plain text version. To avoid spam filters, make sure that the width is between 600 and 800 pixels and that the subject line less than 50 characters, all using HTML or inline CSS. Also, be sure to test the email on different web browsers and in multiple email clients.
Above all, remember that emails should only be sent when you have something new, interesting and/or useful to say. If you experiment enough, you will see what works and what doesn’t – and eventually your emails will lead to positive results.
In need of medical marketing services for an effective email marketing campaign? Contact us to learn more.
