Social media and mobile devices are getting a lot of attention. But don’t forget about the email component of your hospital’s marketing mix – email isn’t dead yet. In fact, according to Forrester Market Research, 88 percent of B2C firms currently use email marketing and only 16 percent say they don’t plan to continue to use it in the next 12 months. It’s still a great tool for hospitals to communicate with existing and new potential patients. Here are a few ways you can use email to benefit your hospital:
- Stay in frequent touch with patients. Keep them up to date on new procedures, events, promotions and other developments in your hospital. Patients who are satisfied with previous services are more inclined to consider other services you offer.
- Promote content that can be shared. By including “like” buttons and sharing capabilities, people on your email list can share your email communication easily with friends and family who may not be on your email list.
- Promote your social media channels. Get more fans and followers on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to tap into their huge viral potential, which can lead to even a bigger audience getting your message.
There are many best practices for email to make sure that viewers actually see it. Keep subject lines short. Don’t use sales words like “free,” “amazing” and “act now” because email client spam filters are trained to stop those type emails from getting into recipient inboxes. You also want to build your own email list by creating offline and online forms in your hospital and on your website. For example, you may have a form in the waiting room that lets the hospital collect email addresses from patients or families in return for a discount in the hospital gift store. Hospitals can feature a form on its website capturing email addresses of customers and potential patients in return for getting the hospital’s e-newsletter.
For help with messaging, and designing and distributing rich email blasts, and to find out more about getting a higher deliverability, call Wax Custom Communications at 305-350-5700 or visit http://wax-prod.local.
