Your email address list, comprised of your patients’ addresses and those who follow your website, is a list of your biggest fans. Communicate regularly to build trust and your practice. Here’s how.
Email Address List
You should be collecting the email addresses of your patients in the office. Remember that you must specifically ask for permission to use their email address to send a newsletter. This process is called an “opt in” and can be achieved in several ways;
- Integrate to your new patient form
- Ask existing patients at checkout
- Use “opt in” subscription form on website
Email Service Provider
An email service provider receives email addresses directly from your opt in subscription form on your web site. Email addresses collected manually can be easily uploaded to your growing list.
The email service provider (ESP) automates several tasks for you;
- Stores your list
- Sorts your contacts (if you want)
- Receives RSS feed from your website
- Delivers email (containing link to new website post)
Popular email service providers are MailChimp and aWeber. While MailChimp is free (initially), aWeber has a few more bells and whistles for more sophisticated email marketing tactics.
News, News and More
With every new post, an RSS feed, an electronic notification, is sent to the ESP. The RSS contains all the information about your new post and you can choose how much or how little of the article to include in the email.
I recommend including the title of the article and the excerpt. The excerpt is a short summary about the article, written in a way to invite the patient to click and read the entire article, but on your website.
Remember that this address list is comprised of your biggest fans – both patients and web site followers.
Every once in a while, in addition to writing health education articles, email your followers about news of the office, including news of the staff. Your new electronic medical system, new office, big birthdays or employment landmarks of the staff are all worthy of sharing with your list.
In general, patients love their doctors. The more information they have about the office, their doctor and staff, the more likely they are to tell others….and grow your practice.
If you have an email newsletter, what kinds of information do you share?