Email marketing is the marketer’s favourite playground in every industry. It has been booming along with the rise of technology and communication channels and the healthcare industry hasn’t been excluded from the ones who engage in the world of email marketing but often it’s not about marketing at all. It’s all about communications.

Let us first introduce the company behind this article: Founded in 2007, Envoke is a Canadian broadcast email software with an emphasis on compliance and subscription management. One particular feature of interest to our healthcare customers is the ability to send mandatory emails without the possibility to unsubscribe - in addition to subscription based messages of course. This is useful to communicate with staff, partners and patients alike when you're sending must-receive content that should reach contacts who are otherwise unsubscribed from newsletters and other optional messages.

Unlike Mailchimp, Constant Contact and other platforms Envoke’s focus is on subscription management and effective communications instead of commercial revenue generation. Check out this handy comparison chart: Envoke vs. Mailchimp. Also, all data is stored on Canada servers.

“The platform is very user friendly, it has every feature you could possibly need to send a successful email campaign, it’s easy to integrate with your website, and great customer service that is quick at responding!”

Spencer Boddy
Tall Tree Health

If you belong to the healthcare sector you have to apply healthcare email marketing and communication strategies that are fit to your domain.

In this article, we will be your guide to know all about it. Stick around for some of our suggested best tips and practices in the health industry. 

In this article, we will walk you through

• Why you should consider email marketing for healthcare
• 5 ways to keep adding new patients to your email list
• 3 tips to create email marketing campaigns for your hospital 
• 8 Healthcare newsletter ideas to increase patients’ retention (11 examples) 
• How to start email marketing for your hospital

Let’s dig in.

Why You Should Consider Email Marketing for Healthcare?

Email is a powerful marketing channel. It gives you the authority to personalize your message according to your target audience. 

Delivering to your audience the information and the information they need the most, will create a favourable connection. 

You can send personalized emails based on their interests, health status, etc.

Healthcare providers need email marketing to: 

• Maintain communication.
• Deliver important information.
• Automate appointment reminders.
• Engage patients.

The main point is, it keeps the link between you and your patients even when they don’t need your medical assistance at that time. 

But what matters the most is making sure that the relationship is authentic, and particularly since it’s sort of a public sector email marketing it’s important to inform and engage.

Email marketing, in this case, functions in the favour of what Bob Hooey said: “If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.”

Email marketing has proven to be cost-effective. According to MailerLite report, the average email open rate for health-related emails is 23.46%, with a very high click rate of 3.62%. 

Now let’s look at how you can launch and sustain an email marketing campaign for healthcare institutions.

5 Ways to Keep Adding New Patients to your Contact List

A contact list is a collection of email addresses that you gather online or in person. 

It is important because it first helps you establish a relationship with your patients and guides newcomers to become your new patients or clients.

To grow your email list you have to adopt certain ways. When it comes to the healthcare, standard tactics aren’t always effective. It’s a bit trickier to establish a good healthcare email marketing list. 

Here are 5 ways to keep adding new patients to your email list.

1. Get your patients’ email addresses 

This step is quite obvious. To expand your email list, you need to start by adding your customers as an initial step. 

You also need to make sure you get your new patients’ email addresses early on in their journey with your services and products. Your ultimate goal will be to create a lasting bond with your customers. 

How to do this? 

You can start by adding an email request section in the paperwork your client fills out. 

Ideally, you can make the process more practical by having them fill out an online form using their email address as a checkout.

Finally, try to make your clients understand that your emails will have the purpose of keeping them informed. 

2. Make your appointment booking online 

Fast and easy. Online booking is the simplest and most efficient way to allow your customers to book available services, so you never lose a potential customer. 

In addition to the fact that it is accessible 24/7, intuitive and clear, customers will provide you with their contact information with trust and goodwill. 

3. Offer free calls with experts 

Free consultations with experts are eye-catching. It is not popular among the strategies of marketing for healthcare, but that will make you stand out.

Your audience isn’t sure you’re worth the investment, so they base their decision on the usefulness of the free content.

Free consultations with experts helps generate new leads, establish authority and are also a good testing ground for your new medical products and services.

Free medical content can be so effective that people will contact you directly. So you will be organically growing your email list.

4. Launch medical webinars

Some healthcare organizations send webinar invitation emails to their contacts to share knowledge with them. 

Webinar can attract new patients and strengthen the relationship with the existing ones.

In healthcare, webinars are used to address different areas such as sales and patient audits. 

Managers, sales teams, practitioners and patients can also use them to address their needs. 

You can use your authority in this field to provide reliable information to your audience and attract new prospects through medical webinars.

5. Use opt-in forms 

Another way for you to acquire email addresses is to reach people online. If you have a blog or use digital advertising to attract new people to your website, you can create integrated forms, pop-ups or custom landing pages using Envoke email software.

Where is best to integrate a signup form?  

The 5 best places to ask from your audience to sign up are 

• Blog sidebar
• Under each blog post 
• In the “About” or “Contact Us” pages
• Pop-ups on your website

Here is an example of a perfect Michigan dental footer subscriber form. It is well designed, with a clear value proposition of what the subscriber will receive. 

If you’re managing  healthcare email marketing in Canada, make sure to create CASL compliant opt-in forms  and obtain your subscribers’ express consent.

Before thinking about your healthcare email marketing strategy, make sure you know the best practices in the healthcare industry that make email so effective.

3 Tips to Create Email Marketing Campaigns for Your Hospital 

Email’s incredible return on investment comes from its ability to target the right people with the proper message. 

The three most effective practices to achieve this are:

• Automation,
• Segmentation, 
• And personalization.

1. Automate your email campaign

Once you start expanding your email list, it becomes difficult to manually send emails to each subscriber at the right time. 

Email automation solves this problem by allowing you to send emails based on behavioural, temporal, or other triggers.

For example, when subscribing, you can automatically send a welcome email and/or set triggers to send a patient a reminder of an annual appointment.

2. Segment your subscribers

Segmentation using contacts’ data helps you divide your subscribers into smaller groups based on a set of characteristics that will help you send more targeted emails. 

For example, you can set up a group of patients with kids or patients with specific medical needs. 

Instead of sending pediatric information to your entire list, you can simply target that relevant group.

Remember, your patients are different, never treat them the same.

In Envoke, you can add labels and tags to contacts to help segment them. 

You can also automatically segment contacts based on the data they submitted in their opt-in form.

Which leads us to our next point.

3. Personlize your healthcare email marketing newsletters

Even if you are sending messages to hundreds or even thousands of people, you can give the impression that you are talking directly to one person.

Email marketing for healthcare can be extremely personalized. And nearly 96% of organizations believe that personalization improves the performance of email marketing. 

How to do that? 

• Use your contacts’ first names.
• Use your contacts’ date of birth.
• Trigger your contacts’ interests.
• Include your real name and picture.
• Send personalized emails based on the opt-in source.

You’ll need to experiment and then analyze to understand what works best.

Now let’s get you inspired by 8 of the best healthcare newsletter ideas and examples.

8 Healthcare Newsletter Ideas to Increase Patients’ Retention

Now that you got to know how paramount the marketing strategies for medical doctors are. Let’s discover the 8 best healthcare newsletter ideas and examples.

1. Start with a welcome email

A welcome email is your first contact with your subscriber.

When a person registers, you set up an automatic message that will be sent at the exact moment they confirm. This instant response sets the tone for the relationship. 

It lets your registrants know that they are important and that you are ready to meet their needs.

So, the welcome email is an opportunity for you to define your expectations and make a valid first impression.

Below, Mayo Clinic does a nice job of welcoming new subscribers. They outline their value proposition, explain what to expect and offer valuable welcome discounts.

2. Inform your audience

People want access to reliable information, show them that you care and encourage them to be current and proactive with their health.

 You can do that by sharing health-related information and resources.

This healthcare email template showcases reliable information concerning COVID-19.

Letting your audience know that you are there to inform them and guide them will create an authentic relationship.

Sharing tips with your audience showcases how considerate you are. And reminders of how to stay healthy are always welcomed.

The following healthcare email example is very suitable since it’s brief and straightforward. Finally don’t forget to promote your service and products. 

Chances are people will get more interested in buying what you offer if you care enough.

Here is the part that explains why market segmentation is very important. By adding tags and labelling your contacts to send them highly targeted messages. 

For example, you can collect leads that are interested in healthy eating habits, patients who are trying to get fit and lose weight and send them only emails that are relevant to their interest.

Just like in this healthcare email example below. It’s rich in information and resources. 

3. Share tips with your audience

Being the informant for your audience is your primary goal. By sending tip emails, you will be announcing that you care about the health and well-being of your clients. 

Below is an excellent example of how to advise your customers in a very effective and pleasing way. The design of this healthcare email is interesting and the content is very clear and precise. 

Another distinguishable example is the following from Fullscript. This email design is easy to digest and very attractive. It reminds the audience how important vitamin C is for their immunity creatively.

4. Offer promotions 

Promotions keep your audience hooked. They love them!

 So why not share promotion announcements in your newsletter! It proves to your clients that you seek their satisfaction and attention. 

This healthcare promotion email below is an effective way to do so. It’s attractive, simple and full of interesting graphics. 

5. Make your medical products accessible online

Once you have established a certain relationship with your audience, they will be more open to receiving product/service advertisements. 

Remember to match your customers’ needs with what you offer. This will increase the chances of converting your marketing qualified prospects into customers. 

Finally, you would want to add a stylish call to action button.

Here is a trendy product announcement email example from “Hims” of how to promote your products/services.

6. Confirm your clients’ orders

A good order confirmation email captivates the buyer’s enthusiasm, eliminates confusion.

Most importantly, it lays the groundwork for a successful relationship with your customers. This is why it’s highly important to send order confirmation emails to customers.

Below is an effortless order confirmation email. Clarify your client’s order details with a thank you note. 

7. Share testimonials 

Testimonials work perfectly since they are not rigid selling pitches, they are presented in an unbiased voice. Their purpose is to build trust. 

You can showcase your satisfied customers to demonstrate the success of your product or service. 

Ultimately, your testimonials will be there to convert more leads into customers. Here is an example of how you can do so.

8. Send a Happy birthday email

Sending a happy birthday email is a way to personalize your healthcare newsletter.

It shows how considerate you are and it also helps you keep your customer relationship vibrant and ongoing.

Below is a nice birthday wishes email example that can inspire you. 

Time to set up your action plan!

How to Start Email Marketing for Your Hospital?

Healthcare marketing has a lot to do with building a personalized and comfortable patient experience.

This helps your patients:

• Find value in your communication.
• Receive good care and guidance.
• Not missout on important dates and information.
• Feel positive about their experience with your healthcare centre.

As a first step, you need to register for a healthcare email marketing email software.

Register to Envoke to create your healthcare email campaigns. It includes:

• Customizable sign up forms to build your contact list.
• Pre-built responsive email templates to use.
• Automated autoresponder messages, etc.

After you register, create your first sign up form and embed it to your website to grow your contacts list. Here is a preview of the form builder inside Envoke.

You can create a lead magnet campaign to provide an incentive for your website visitors and increase your lead generation performance.

The next step is to send personalized email campaigns to engage your patients and provide them with a positive experience with your institution.

It’s easy and simple to design an email campaign in Envoke without any coding or IT skills required. Use our drag and drop email editor to create responsive and engaging healthcare email campaigns.

Lastly you’ll need to keep an eye on your campaign analytics to learn which campaign is working the best to help you optimize your performance.

Conclusion

A major part of healthcare marketing is about building trust and providing a comfortable experience for your patients.

This relationship usually begins with the first visit, thanks to email marketing you will maintain that connection for long.

Email marketing allows you to establish a personal link with your patients. You stay on top of things and remind everyone of the care and expertise you provide.

Start building a long-term relationship with your patients and watch your practice grow.