5 Top Ways to Unleash Your Email Marketing Strategy
It seems like the “popular buzz” attaches to the big names in social media, with Facebook, Twitter and a couple others at the top of the list. But it turns out that email marketing continues to outdistance social media for customer acquisition by a mile. [Custora E-Commerce report]
Of course both social media and email marketing belong in your healthcare marketing toolbox—with both working hard as part of an intelligently planned mix. Hundreds of billions of emails fly about daily, and that says two things. The upside is that email is a potentially powerful marketing and communications channel, but the downside is that the channel is cluttered and competitive.
Beyond the email basics…
With all the fundamentals (permission-based list, etc.) and email essentials in place, the challenge is to push results to the next level with greater response, higher open and click rates and audience engagement. Here are a few of the top tips and techniques to sharpen your game:
Serve comfort food. By this analogy, know the appetite of your audience and offer-up what they like, need or want. Tailor your subject line and message to what resonates most with them.
Create a short and smashing subject line. It’s really tough to be interesting and engaging in ten characters or less, so work on it…a lot. Short subject lines have about 50 percent higher open-rates. And if the subject line doesn’t demand attention, the message, and the opportunity, is lost.
It’s a mobile world. Your own habits probably prove the point that better than 50 percent of emails are opened on a smartphone or tablet. If your email isn’t optimized for the mobile user experience, you’re singing to an empty room.
Individualize and personalize. Your reader doesn’t know or care about the zillion other people in your database. So compose your message to address the individual, use a personalized greeting when possible, and be clear about “what’s in it for them.”
Provide clear and actionable direction. Be specific about what the reader should do next (preferably, immediately) how to do it, and their reward for acting right now. If they have to guess about the intent or if it’s not obvious how or why to respond, you’ve lost them.
Nearly everyone knows and uses the same fundamental tools, but lifting response rates—and commanding attention and response above the blizzard of email competition—requires practice, patience and creativity. If you need help crafting a serious campaign effort, reach out for our help.
And for further guidance about what works and what doesn’t, visit these articles, or see how we transform doctor marketing by generating exposure and increasing qualified leads:
- 20 Rules to Kick-Start Successful Email Marketing
- Attracting More of the Patients You Want with Email
- Website vs. Social Media vs. Email: Where’s Your Real Marketing Muscle?
