Email Marketing Strategy

Alright, now the fun begins. Let’s create that email marketing strategy. But first, I want you to remember to be consistent. We've talked about this throughout the entire marketing course and we will continue to talk about this throughout the entire marketing course, because it’s that important! No matter which marketing channel you’re creating; your brand awareness for it's important that you show your brand throughout all of it, whether its your website or your email marketing or any branding that you're using within your office. Make sure you're true to your brand colors, your brand style, and your brand's voice. It's very crucial that you do this, so that patients recognize you. Every time, no matter what platform you're using. Okay, let's get started.

Begin by defining your audience. We talked about your target audience already in a previous course. You’ll utilize this information when you begin creating your emails. Think about who you will be sending your emails to.

Then establish your goals. It’s important not to send an email without a goal in mind. Are you trying to stay top of mind or are you promoting something? With each step of the email marketing strategy, keep your goal in mind. This helps ensure your email will reach your goal without just another email sent.

Next, choose your email campaign type. This can be a newsletter, a product announcement or a blog. The goal of your email will help you determine which type of email campaign you should be sending. A newsletter is informational email and will provide you the opportunity to stay in front of your patients. A product, service, or office specific announcement will give you the opportunity to get in front of your audience with exciting news. And a blog will show your audience that you are the expert. You can send all three types of campaigns or you can stick to just one. I know you know, but just be sure that your email is consistent with your branding and your message.

A schedule is important for consistency purposes as well. Create a schedule so your team knows when emails will go out and so you know what content needs to be created for when. If you’re going to send multiple types of email campaigns, create a schedule for each type of campaign so you can remain consistent. This provides your recipients with an understanding of when to expect certain messages from you. Like our OSC newsletter emails that you receive the first Thursday of every month. We do that so you are planning ahead to expect that email on the first Thursday of the month so that you know what new content is out in OSC, so you're prepared to watch them when they come out.

Your email marketing strategy should also include measuring your results. You have already decided on the goals for your email, but you need to measure the results of each email to have a complete understanding of reaching those goals. You should be measuring your open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate. Industry benchmarks for open rates is roughly 22%. Although this isn’t the end all be all. The most important measurement is your conversion rate and actually getting the prospect to become a patient, but the first step is to get your email recipients to open the email. Your click-through rate should average around 5% according to the industry benchmark. Again, your click-through rate comes from those who opened your email and chose to click your call-to-action. Then finally, we have your conversion rate. The industry average is roughly 1%. This may not seem like a lot, but let’s say you’ve successfully sent 1,000 emails and 10 people became a patient, that would be a 1% conversion. Ten new patients from one email is a pretty good return on investment if you ask me.

Once you’ve developed your email marketing strategy, you can begin on working on the components of your email. We’ll talk about those in the next course.