Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with patients and show how much they’re valued by your practice. Of course, it might feel daunting to keep up with a consistent email newsletter; how are you supposed to come up with content on a regular basis? Here are 5 types of content your practice should be emailing to build patient relationships, increase open rates, and direct traffic to your clinic’s website.
Every newsletter you send should have an interesting, engaging feature article that’s capable of holding the recipients’ attention. There are many different ways you can choose your feature article: it can be part of a theme you choose for the month; it could address common complaints from current patients; it could fit in with injuries that happen in sports that are played during that particular season; and so on. The feature article shouldn’t just be fluff or entertainment, but rather have valuable information that your patients can keep with them.
Your emails should be engaging every time so patients don’t send them right to the recycling bin. Hints and tips are great ways to draw a reader’s eye and pique their interest. Helpful tips could include a how-to for an easy exercise, ways to use household items for common needs like lumbar support or foot pain relief, or short, general pieces of info on how to maximize the benefits of PT. Useful tips often become a popular feature that readers look forward to learning each month.
To pair with your featured article, consider what short supporting elements you can also include in your newsletter. These pieces should maintain the theme you already established without being redundant; supporting items should always bring something new to the table. You can choose related topics that are slightly tangential to the featured article, news pieces related to the world of physiotherapy, or new studies surrounding injuries and therapeutic techniques.
Emails with personal elements are proven to perform better than general messages, so be sure to have some kind of address directly to your patients. Whether it be a message from the practice manager, a staff spotlight, or an exciting occurrence at the office, it should be clear to the reader who this message is coming from and who it’s directed at. Personal messages help patients feel connected to a practice on a deeper level, and they can turn your email campaign from feeling like a marketing strategy to a caring business just keeping in touch.
Your newsletter’s goal is likely to encourage a patient to do something, so don’t forget to end it with a call to action! Are you hoping readers will visit your website? Book an appointment? Sign up for an event or a special offer? Update their on-file information? Whatever it is, your closing space is an area to remind them of just that. Hook their interest with your content pieces and conclude with a small prompt to complete some task.
These five simple suggestions should help guide you in crafting the perfect newsletter or email campaign. At first, it might be hard to find your voice and establish a consistent style, but the effort will pay off in increased communication with patients and engagement across your platforms.
