5 Common Healthcare Email Marketing Mistakes
Avoid these pitfalls to improve ROI for your healthcare email marketing campaign.
By Tina Kelly
In an age of ever-changing social platforms and new communication methods, email remains a reliable, powerful digital marketing channel that continues to connect with all demographics. In fact, a recent study found that for every $1 spent, email has an average of about $32 return on investment.
But launching a new healthcare email marketing campaign — or maintaining your evergreen email communications — takes time and money, and a few mistakes can rob you of your ROI. Here’s how to avoid common errors and improve your results along the way.
1. Emailing Too Frequently — or Not Enough
One of the biggest challenges of email marketing in healthcare is finding the right cadence. If you send too many emails, you risk overwhelming your subscribers, lowering your open and click rates, and increasing unsubscribe requests. If you send too few emails, you risk losing your subscribers’ interest and loyalty, and missing out on potential sales opportunities.
2. Skipping Segmentation
Consumers want to know that you get them, their needs and what’s important to them. It’s one of the things that retail does so well. You can do that by highlighting services that make sense for where they are in life. A woman in her 30s likely has vastly different healthcare needs and interests than a man in his 80s, and your email campaigns should reflect that. Content that is tailored to the patient or caregiver can help you increase your open and click rates, boost your conversions and retention, and build trust and loyalty with your audience.
When emailing patients and their caregivers, it’s best to skip things like internally focused announcements and general healthcare news.
3. Sharing Low-Value Content
When it comes to emailing patients and their caregivers, it’s best to skip things like general healthcare news, internally focused announcements and other non-relevant information. Unless there’s a direct tie to how something will impact patient care or affect the communities you serve, try to stick to more specific, personalized content.
4. Not Tapping into Owned Assets
If your hospital or healthcare system already produces content on a regular basis, it’ll be even easier for you to reach different audiences with the right messaging. Rather than investing in a new suite of costly photography and video, you can take assets you already have — articles, videos, recipes — and compile them into an effective email campaign. From emails to print pieces to direct mail, your existing content can serve as the fuel to power a whole host of segmented campaigns.
5. Ignoring Mobile Optimization
According to HubSpot, 46 percent of all email opens now occur on mobile. This means that if your emails are not optimized for mobile devices (and don’t forget Dark Mode!), you are losing a huge portion of your potential audience and conversions. This is especially true as healthcare organizations continue to shift vital records and forms into the digital ecosphere. A frustrating mobile experience can quickly alienate potential patients.
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Tina brings more than 10 years of experience to C/A, where she partners with companies to develop digital marketing campaigns that leverage content, encouraging audiences to consume, engage, share and convert. Tina’s experience spans industries, having led digital marketing strategy development and execution for several global and national brands, including The Children’s Place, Nationwide Insurance, Delta Faucet and many more.
Tina has presented at a number of industry conferences and events, including SXSW Interactive and Content Marketing World. Outside of work, Tina and her husband can usually be found on a sports field somewhere, cheering on their two kids.