As a dentist, you know it takes more than a free toothbrush and a business card to grow your practice. But have you considered using other advertising methods? As opposed to paid advertising, email marketing costs little to nothing. It’s an underutilized yet easy way to connect with patients. It’s time for you to step up your dental marketing strategy and learn how email dental marketing can help you grow your practice.
Email Marketing Benefits
Email marketing campaigns can be quite effective because they are effortless, surefire ways to keep your practice at the forefront of patients’ minds. For example, you can send simple appointment reminder emails to your patients and still have business growth — because your emails provide value to your patients.
Email marketing allows you to see a high return of benefits, such as increased engagement and personal connections with your patients. For example, attentive emails conveying a personal touch can help build trusting relationships. Or a simple “thank you” message can help a patient’s experience with you to come full circle. Keeping in touch can also help patients come back and see you when they’ve forgotten to make appointments in the past.
But these benefits will materialize only if you do this marketing right. It’s very easy for patients to pass over your emails, consciously or not. So you need to be on top of what will get and keep your patients’ attention. To do that, consider these helpful methods to create a successful email marketing strategy.
Strategies for Dental Marketing Emails
Explore Campaign Goals
When you started your dental practice, you had to determine your business goals within a business plan. Likewise, when you begin an email campaign for dental marketing, you should have a firm list of marketing goals. What is your intention for this type of marketing, and what do you want to avoid? What takeaway do you want your patients to have after receiving your emails? How can your emails fulfill your patients’ needs? Your answers to these questions will facilitate your email marketing goals, leading to a successful campaign.
Discover Patient Values
Deciding on your goals is only half of the first step. The other half is aligning with your patients’ values. What is it that makes your patients return to your practice? What’s important to new patients when shopping for a dental office? True, you can find this out by simply asking during appointments, but that can make patients feel “put on the spot.” Instead, send patient reviews and surveys with optional anonymity. Then you can tailor future emails based on what your patients appreciate.
Build a Segmented Email List
Patient values will vary — and so should your emails. Therefore, avoid sending out one-subject email blasts. Instead, consider creating different patient email lists to stay organized with which values you’re addressing. For example, emails to current patients should not focus on practice selling points. Instead, save those for potential patients searching for a new office, and consider a monthly newsletter with office updates for your current patients.
Design Emails for Desktop and Mobile Use
You may not realize that emails can have different appearances on desktops and mobile devices. For instance, if your practice’s selling-point emails are optimized for desktop view only, then you may not fully engage the recipients who open emails on their phones. You’ll lose these potential patients because they clicked “delete” or “archive” after not being able to fully view your email.
Consider using desktop and mobile device email templates. But before you send out an email blast, try opening a test email on your computer and phone to know how it’ll appear. Doing so increases the likelihood of getting your message across, no matter what device your recipients use.
Track Campaign Results
Once you are satisfied with your email designs and have sent them out, your next step is to track the results. Use analytics tools that provide insight into conversion, open, and click-through rates. This is important information that will tell you what’s working and what isn’t. You can use this data to change the formula of your future email efforts, increasing your chances of hitting your marketing goals.
Acquiring new patients can be challenging and competitive, but that process can be easier for you with help and support. denTEL is a lead generation application built by dentists and can provide email marketing to promote dentists’ practice listing. All of denTEL’s features are designed to help you streamline your marketing strategy. Take this time and seize every opportunity to turn potential patients into returning patients.
