We all get a lot of email. So is it really worth it to cram one more message into your patients’ Inboxes? We’re here to tell you that email marketing continues to be as effective and impactful as other top-performing online marketing tactics, including Google advertising and social media marketing.
Email Metrics
Here are the high-level email marketing metrics for businesses in the Healthcare Services sector, according to Campaign Monitor:
- 23.7% Open Rate
- 3.0% Click Through Rate
- 0.3% Unsubscribe Rate
Think it’s bad that only about a quarter of recipients are opening your email blasts? The open rate across healthcare marketers is actually a bit better than the 21.5% average for all marketing emails.
For our clients, we consistently see open rates in the 25-45% range, beating the average for healthcare overall, sometimes considerably. Click through rates typically range from 2-4% so we are right within the industry average there. The typical client is getting 50-100 clicks per email blast, making the cost per click very similar to what you’d see on Google or Facebook ads.
The key difference with email marketing? You’re staying connected with prior patients, who are much more likely to purchase additional services. And studies have shown that even for folks who don’t open your email or click on one of the links it contains, your brand is still getting a key impression and staying top of mind for when they are ready for another service from you.
How do you move the needle and get even better performance out of your email blasts? Read on!
5 Tips to Improve Your Email Blasts
- Send Regularly – We simply can’t stress this enough. If you’re only sending periodic emails, it’s time to stop. Commit to sending at least quarterly. Every other month or every month is much better – we see open rates shoot up considerably when clients send an email blast every month. Why is that? Because recipients have been conditioned to see and expect the email in their Inboxes.
- Use a Custom Template – You can showcase your brand so much better when you send a nicely formatted email with your logo, brand colors and other brand hallmarks. Templates also ensure that your email formats correctly on almost any device and email program.
- Send on the Right Days – Sending blasts out early in the week pays off. Mondays have the highest open rates, and Tuesdays have the highest click-through. Unsurprisingly, Saturdays and Sundays are the worst days to send email blasts.
- Promote on Social – No one wants to miss out on specials, deals and important news. A great way to build your subscriber list and open rate is to tease the content of your email blasts on social media. A message like “we’re having an amazing sale on fillers next month, exclusively for our email subscribers – sign up today so you don’t miss out” is extremely effective in creating buzz.
- Test Subject Lines – There’s a whole art to short, snappy subject lines that get recipients to click on your blast, but also clear increasingly strict anti-spam protection. No one has a 100% foolproof formula for the perfect subject line, but split testing can reveal some verbiage that works better than others. Also don’t forget to include preheader text – this gives you another chance to catch eyeballs and show why your email is worth a closer look.