You need an email list. An email list is an easy way to stay in touch with your patients and with those who follow your website. These are people who are your “fans.” Email newsletters are an easy way to keep them abreast of news of the practice, medicine and new posts on your blog.
It can help you develop your brand.
Sending email newsletters inform your closest followers news about your practice. Make it easy for your biggest fans to know what’s happening!
Maintaining an email newsletter is easy, completely automated and cheap (free).
Why Do You Need an Email List
Permission based communication. By giving you their email address, you have permission to communicate with them. For many, this is a tighter and more meaningful bond/relationship compared to Twitter and Facebook where many of your patients never visit.
Ownership. You own this list. You’ve collected addresses via an opt-in subscription box or a generated a list during a patient encounter (you should be collecting email addresses as part of your initial intake encounter, that is, when a new patient is visiting for the first time). Unlike social media platforms where changes in policy could cause you to lose access to your followers, you’ll always have this list.
Everyone Uses Email. It’s an easy way to communicate news of the office and to keep your readers current on your blog. They don’t have to visit your site or figure out how RSS works, let alone what it means.
Email doesn’t disappear. Unlike FB or Twitter where your message likely gets missed or buried.
Highly targeted List. This list is composed of patients and readers interested in what you have to say. Let them keep up to date with events of your office and blog as easily as possible.
Email Lists are Fully Automated
Creating an email list is easy. The whole process can be completely automated;
1. Collect Email Address: This is the standard “subscription” box you see on most sites. Your reader has the ability “opt-in” to receive your emails. This is a crucial step to avoiding liability for spamming. The best is a double “opt-in” process.
After completing the subscription box, an email is sent to confirm and verify the reader’s desire to receive future emails from you. This two step process is called a double “opt-in.”
That’s it. You have a new subscriber!
2. Send Email Notification: Each and every time you write a post, you’re entire email list gets notified via email! Best of all, it’s done automatically! Every blog automatically generates an RSS feed every time a new post is published on your site.
NOTE: RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a digital announcement of your new post and contains all the basic information about your new publication. Many people follow websites by subscribing to the RSS feed.
For your purposes, the RSS feed automatically fills in information about your new article on your email newsletter. No extra work!
Next Post: Email Services: Feedburner, aWeber and MailChimp
Randall V. Wong, M.D.
Medical Website Optimization
www.MedicalMarketingEnterprises.com