Email Marketing for Patient Education & Engagement
Patients trust their doctors with their lives, so the use of email in healthcare communications remains one of the most effective channels for both ongoing communication and marketing efforts to remain in contact with patients both before and after they visit your Federally Qualified Health Center.
GETTING STARTED
The number of emails sent and received globally is expected to reach 333 BILLION in 2022, so it is important that your emails stand out in your patient’s inbox. One of the main differences between healthcare and other industries sending email is the importance of maintaining your patient’s privacy. Before you start setting up email reminders and newsletters, it is important that you adhere t0 HIPAA guidelines, which require that you obtain written permission to correspond via email, especially when transmitting protected health information (PHI). Capture permission by adding a checkbox on your patient intake forms allowing your patients to opt-in or approve the use of email as a communication method.
DEVELOPING A PLAN
When planning healthcare email marketing, a one-size-fits-all approach is not necessarily appropriate for your patient base. You wouldn’t want to send new mothers an email about maintaining calcium intake for bone density any more than you’d want to send your elderly patients information about milk production. Luckily, segmenting your contact list into groups allows you to easily send targeted emails with a particular focus within your address book. Take advantage of these basic components in order to maintain brand consistency:
WHAT DO I SAY?
ARE MY EMAILS EFFECTIVE?
It is important to monitor the effectiveness of your emails so that you can ensure that your emails are not going unnoticed. From the frequency of emails to the time of day they are sent, there are numerous metrics that can be analyzed. Overall, though, there are four measurable elements that help you to understand the reach and impact of your emails.
KEEP IT GOING
Take advantage of emails to increase your patient education and engagement, but be respectful of your patient’s time. Send frequently enough to remain relevant, but don’t clutter up their inbox with multiple emails just for the sake of showing up in their inbox.
Let Firefly Marketing help you to implement email strategies that will capture the attention of your patients.