Jan 24, 2018
8 Actions Improve Healthcare Email Marketing ROI
… 54% of marketers say building engagement is their top priority with email marketing according to Ascend2 …
While numerous digital communication and promotion options exist, email continues to be one of the most preferred channels to promote brands and generate sales. Despite the demise of email marketing forecast years ago, it continues to be an attractive and effective tool in engaging audiences. Its performance and utility intrigue marketers and at the same time challenges them and their audience based on sheer volume and content relevancy. These are 8 action items to gain critical advantages in your healthcare email marketing and sales initiatives.
Security / Privacy
All email marketing initiatives need to consider security and privacy — especially in healthcare. Be certain security updates in your systems and applications are up-to-date and installed as soon as possible when they become available. Take maximum precautions to ensure your audience and your organization are as protected as possible. Likewise, always be cognizant and fully compliant with any privacy standards which apply. Security and privacy issues are at the forefront of our Internet society and their significance is highly magnified in the healthcare sector.
Key Performance Indicators ( KPIs ) / Sales Goals Attainment
Sales goals and KPIs for healthcare email marketers are the equivalents to weather and crop reports for farmers. These should always be monitored closely and continually reassessed. Even if your lead generation, direct sales or other benchmark goals are being consistently surpassed, be certain they aren’t reaching a point of a “comfortable” plateau — the forerunner to potentially dropping. Always seek alternatives to further uptick performance. While some may consider these options to be “on reserve”, they can also be under-served leads which the competition captures before you do.
… Based on insights from MarketingProfs, 15% of marketers surveyed say their companies still do not regularly review email opens /click-through rates; only 23% say they have a uniformly connected website / email for tracking what happens after a click …
Sharpen Segmentation
Continue to slice and dice your email marketing database to further define targeted healthcare audiences and subcategories within them. The respective customer personas in the subgroups offer prime opportunities to fine-tune targeting, focus content and increase engagement. Reassess how you are segmenting your customer database resources to devise new engagement opportunities.
Deeply defined subgroups enable you to connect with new audience members or those in which you were not successful with through earlier attempts. You could end up sending fewer emails and be rewarded with better sales results and ROI based on efficient persona profile development and optimized database drill-downs; go the extra step to personalize them for greater impact. It is important to be aware of your company and its offerings, the subcategory members and / or the healthcare marketplace may have changed. New developments on either side always warrant updated considerations to revisit audience subcategory email database opportunities to maintain customer connections and generate sales.
Automation
Review what processes and tools you are using to develop and implement your email campaigns. Familiarity with a routine / email marketing tool may lead you to overlook better methods or platform technology to use. You may not be recognizing existing or new features your platform has which can make your life easier and email marketing efforts more effective.
There may be better platform options available to execute email marketing campaigns. New platform technical features enabling you to execute more options could deliver more for less. Carefully evaluate your current processes and setup; changes in procedures, utilization or technical resources can lead to significant operational, sales and ROI improvements.
Benefit From Opt-outs
Don’t abandon opt-outs as “lost causes” and leave it at that to move onto others. Use opt-outs to critique campaigns and deliverable details including targeting, frequency, content, touchpoint features, offerings, and other variables. Your targeted audiences are already receiving emails based on personal / professional communications; email marketing messages pile on top of those — no matter how earnest and legitimate your outreach is, it is still fighting for attention. Healthcare, among other characteristics, is a clinical, financial and technical marketplace; there are many stakeholders which share the same customers your email marketing and sales initiatives are targeting.
… Based on information from Yes Lifestyle Marketing, Click-to-Open rates are declining; average click-to-open rate (CTO) is 8.9 percent, a 13 percent drop YoY resulting in a 22 percent drop over the last two years …
Sizable audience segments are opting out merely to reduce clutter. Opt-outs are a great way to objectively learn to re-focus your campaign strategy. They also cultivate the importance of offering other ways for the audience to stay engaged with your company through social media or website follows and other sign-up opportunities which may start with an email but continue on in other digital venues. Be certain your content features these touchpoint features and channels to provide your organization and the audience with ways to continue to be connected outside of the email realm.
Be Current And Relevant
The healthcare industry is continually changing. Develop and share content specifically relevant to your healthcare audience aligned with current events, new developments and your products / services. Use them to make the connection between the industry, the customer and your company; position your offerings as timely solutions to their needs.
Trending topic examples can be aligned to numerous healthcare industry sectors (health system, PBM, MCO, etc.), medical specialty (anesthesiology, cardiology, obstetrics / gynecology, etc.), condition (acid reflux, asthma, hypertension, etc.), payer (Medicaid, Medicare, DHA/ TRICARE, etc.), professional (health system CFO, CIO, CMO, etc.) or other defined interests. As healthcare assertively evolves; wide and narrow audience segments value timely updates enabling your company to be recognized as a front runner with answers to their challenges triggered by industry change.
Change Up Your Approach
A good healthcare email marketing strategy does not always include an offer, sale or other promotion. Informational content can be shared with your targeted audience and lead to sales without a “pitch”. The content can demonstrate your organization’s leadership / knowledge in a particular area; it is important to establish positive notoriety, professional credibility in the healthcare sector.
Review the last 6–12 months of emails your organization has shared with a particular segment; if they are all “pitch-focused” with diminishing returns, it’s a good indicator you are fatiguing your audience and need to change up content to more effectively engage them. There is always a strong push for more sales and it’s easy to overlook redundant approaches that audiences will eventually associate with spam. Choosing a “non-pitch” approach to change things up is a good consideration. Personalize messaging whenever possible to reinforce audience engagement.
…The top email providers are Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, GMX, Zoho, iCloud, AOL, Elude according to MUO…
Mobile
Mobile-friendly campaigns are part of successful healthcare email marketing strategy formulas which can also enhance non-mobile venue engagement. Content should be easily viewed / scrolled, quickly understood and acted upon through touchpoint features. Fortify your email / digital marketing with trigger email features pivoting on audience interactions is an example. Maximize quality design and content attributes to minimize steps and optimize messaging so processes are convenient for the audience to respond to favorably which increases direct sales, lead generation and other revenue-positive engagement opportunities.
Moving Forward
These 8 actions are only the beginning. Connect them with your present and future healthcare email marketing initiatives to build engagement, sales and ROI. The more effectively your email marketing is executed will not only strengthen your position but also provide more encouragement for your trusted audience to disregard those from competitors.
Thank you for reading this story
Learn more about the healthcare industry; read my articles about its medical and business trends, content marketing and digital strategy, brand and product management, mergers and acquisitions, consumer wellness, managed care and market access strategy.
About me
Hi, my name is John Baresky ( pronounced “ buh — ress — key “) and I have over 25 years of experience in healthcare.
Throughout my career, I have been writing about healthcare while developing and sharing important information with physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other clinicians plus consumers, patients, healthcare business professionals, investors and other stakeholders.
Healthcare is a vast industry. I organize its clinical, business, academic, technical and consumer topics into precise messages and stories that are easily understood and immediately useful. The content I write resonates across audiences with objective accuracy and clarity.
Visit my website and connect with me via LinkedIn and Twitter
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