Healthcare email marketing is unbelievably powerful, but it’s also wildly underrated. This strategy transforms leads into new patients with just the press of a button.

Unfortunately, many doctors fail to harness the power of healthcare email marketing because they don’t understand the art and science behind it. They choose to rely on social media and other third-party platforms to spread their messages.

But in today’s climate, you can’t place all of your eggs into the social media basket. Popular platforms are censoring and shutting down profiles without warning, which puts your marketing campaign at the mercy of mammoth tech companies. 

Even the most cautious businesses aren’t immune to it! At Health Experts Alliance, we pay a specialized Facebook ad compliance company to review every single ad we post… and we still had our account shut down unexpectedly. This occurred just days before a major virtual event and threatened to undermine everything we had invested into it. 

So we turned to our email list to communicate with our followers, never expecting the results we witnessed. Through email alone, we generated more impact, ticket sales, and revenue than we would have achieved through Facebook. 

It took months for Facebook to review our appeal and determine that an auto-bot made a mistake that caused the shutdown of our account. Our account was eventually restored, but it reminded us of an invaluable lesson: whether you have a large or small email list, you can generate immense influence, impact, income using email marketing.

Biggest Mistakes Providers Make When It Comes to Healthcare Email Marketing

As you dip your toe into the waters of healthcare email marketing, make sure you identify the biggest mistakes that other providers often make. 

First, many doctors struggle to achieve consistency in their email marketing. They send three emails one week, then zero emails the next two weeks. Consistent content is vital to any successful email marketing campaign. 

Other doctors struggle to connect and add value for their audience. They create over-generalized emails that don’t speak to a target niche. Every email should feel personalized and targeted, or else they’ll simply go ignored. 

Why Do Practitioners Need Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the only platform you actually own! Social media platforms, from Facebook and Instagram to Parlor and Gab, maintain the ultimate control of your content, who sees it, and how it’s distributed. 

By comparison, you have complete power over your email list. You, and only you, choose who is contacted, when, and how. Now it’s time to create leverage with that power!

Improve Your Healthcare Email Marketing With These Strategies

A simple yet effective email marketing campaign will allow you to stay in touch with your audience and convert new leads, all without a giant price tag. 

Before we dive into specific tactics, let’s paint the big picture strategy of healthcare email marketing:

1. Capture the email address of each new lead
2. Nurture your audience
3. Convert your viewers into patients

Now we can dig into each step and what it really means for your practice.  

1. Capture Prospective Patients

Hundreds, thousands, or maybe even hundreds of thousands of viewers scroll through your website and social media profiles each day. It’s critical to capture their information so that you can gradually convert them into customers. 

This can be done with something as simple as an email opt-in. Offer a “freebie” such as a recipe guide, shopping list, or cheatsheet in exchange for email address information. Make this exchange quick and easy; you’ll lose potential followers if your opt-in process becomes complicated or lengthy. 

2. Nurture and Build Trust

As you collect new email addresses, it’s vital to build something we call “know, like, trust.” New followers need the opportunity to learn more about your brand so that they can like what you offer and eventually come to trust your expert voice. 

Just remember, the emails you send should always be focused on your readers, not your practice. Educate your followers! Give them exclusive value they can’t find elsewhere! Create a dialogue and encourage them to share their own stories.

More than anything else, use your email marketing campaigns to join the conversations that are already taking place in their minds. There’s nothing more powerful than releasing an email with the messaging of, “I know you’re thinking…” and watching as your tribe reacts, “Yes, you’re in my head, how did you know! This is exactly what I’m dealing with! Tell me how to solve it!”

In order to build this type of trust, you must email frequently and consistently. One to three emails per week is a solid place to Employ these email strategies to make the biggest impact:

• Position yourself as the authority by talking about your story and case studies of people you’ve helped transform
• Demonstrate your knowledge and expertise to create tangible value. 
• Reveal, bit by bit, your “proprietary process” that sets your practice apart from others
• Remain conversational and interesting; don’t drone on like a textbook!

3. Motivate Them to Take Action

Once you’ve established trust and rapport with your readers, you can motivate them to take action. This converts them from leads to customers.

Gently push readers to take action with Call to Action (CTA) buttons and links. For example, if your email discusses how to improve sleep habits, your CTA should direct readers to purchase your one-of-a-kind sleep supplement for improved wellbeing.

I recommend sending two value-added emails for every “take action” or promotional email. But even in the value-added emails, you can always include CTAs to encourage action and generate more conversions and sales. 

Here’s an exclusive tip that comes straight from years of research and data analysis performed by a nine-figure natural health company. I’m one of the top investors in the company and I’ve worked closely with its leaders, so I know how long they spent experimenting with their email campaigns before finding the perfect formula.

Here’s what they learned: The ideal email contains one goal and encourages one action. This allows focus and streamlined results. If you attempt to achieve multiple goals and actions within the same email, you’ll dilute your results.  

The Bottom Line

Don’t expect your practice to develop an award-winning healthcare email marketing campaign overnight. Just start somewhere! Find an hour in your calendar every week to shoot an email out, even if it’s imperfect. 

Get started, build up your following, and start cultivating conversations with the people you want to help the most. Piece by piece, your email marketing will come together into a cohesive campaign that reaches your tribe and generates revenue for your practice.