Whether you manage a busy urban therapy clinic or a small-town naturopathic practice, email marketing can help you create lasting relationships and make sure your patients feel informed and appreciated.
Email marketing is a powerful (and affordable) tool that enables health and wellness clinics to establish more meaningful connections with their patients.
Clinics can use email marketing to offer helpful information, support, a sense of community - and of course, increase bookings! 💸📈
But when it comes to email marketing for your clinic, many practitioners are concerned about HIPAA (in the US) or PHIPA (in Canada) compliance, so we're going to cover that too.
Let's start with the basics - you might be wondering...
What Is Email Marketing And How Can I Use It For My Clinic?
Email marketing involves sending targeted messages to a list of subscribers via, you guessed it, email! The clinics we work with find a lot of success with this marketing tactic because it allows for direct, tailored patient communication.
Email campaigns come in a variety of forms that clinics might use, such as newsletters, promotional emails, or patient reminders and follow-ups. You can include updates about new services or events, health advice, and appointment reminders in these campaigns. This way, your patients stay informed and engaged.
Email marketing provides a measurable way to track the effectiveness of your communication efforts. Metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates can be analyzed to obtain valuable information about patients' preferences and behaviors. Using a data-driven strategy, you can make adjustments and improvements to ensure that your emails are still powerful and relevant to your recipients.
Do Email Marketing Platforms For Your Clinic Need To Be HIPAA/PHIPA Compliant?
*The below regulations are true for both Canadian PHIPA and American HIPAA.
Healthcare organizations and practitioners are required to use a HIPAA-compliant email platform when communicating with clients/patients because the messages often contain electronic protected health information (ePHI). This includes information that is both individually identifiable and relates to someone’s healthcare.
Using email for mass marketing purposes is different than the email platform, CRM, and EMR that your clinic uses for 1:1 communication with your clients, but there are still some rules you need to follow.
When it comes to mass email marketing, it is possible to send general health and wellness email newsletters to a large group of email subscribers that do not fall under HIPAA's definitions with a regular email service.
The email platform itself (for mass marketing purposes) does not have to be HIPAA compliant so long as your content and communication in the emails do not involve electronic protected health information (ePHI) AND so long as you are not gathering personal information from your subscribers beyond their name and email.
How this works: your email list subscribers willingly opt-into your email newsletter if they desire to receive your weekly or monthly clinic emails. To join, the only information they provide is a first name and email address.
These could be patients/clients or maybe not. Perhaps someone chose to be part of your email newsletter after seeing your clinic at an event or maybe they heard good things about your clinic from a friend.
At the bottom of the opt-in form (and also at the bottom of all of your email newsletters) you can state something like:
→ "HIPAA PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION WARNING - this form and email list is not intended to gather or share any personal health information but rather educate our subscribers on niched health and wellness advice and clinic updates".
Benefits of Email Marketing for Clinics
We might be biased 😏 - but we LOVE email marketing and there are honestly so many reasons to add email to your holistic marketing strategy for your clinic.
3 Ways Your Clinic Will Benefit From An Email Marketing Strategy
Cost-Effective Marketing
We love a deal. Email marketing is an incredibly cost-effective way for clinics to communicate with their patients and potential patients. Unlike traditional marketing methods, like print ads or direct mail, email marketing requires a tiny financial investment. You can still reach a large audience while using your resources more wisely! Clinics trying to get the most out of their marketing budget find email marketing to be a very appealing alternative due to its high return on investment (ROI).
Building Stronger Relationships
Having consistent communication through email helps clinics build and maintain strong relationships with their patients. By regularly providing valuable content to your subscribers, like educational blogs, health updates, or clinic news, you can build trust and loyalty. Having an ongoing dialogue ensures that patients feel connected to their healthcare provider, even between appointments. You could even consider sharing success stories or patient testimonials in your emails! This can further strengthen relationships by highlighting the positive impact of your services.
Improving Patient Retention
By keeping patients informed and engaged, you can encourage repeat visits and long-term loyalty. By sending out emails with seasonal or public health advice, wellness guides, family-friendly recipes, and health programs, you can motivate patients to take charge of their health and keep their appointments. You could also send patient satisfaction surveys and feedback surveys via email to gather more information about areas that need work and to make sure you're still meeting the needs of your patients.
Essential Components of a Successful Email Marketing Strategy
Let’s make these emails count - we want to ensure you are getting the benefits listed above! To maximize the impact of your content, we recommend focusing on a few key things that will ensure your campaigns and newsletters are effective and engaging to your subscribers.
Providing valuable, high-quality content is essential. You could strive for a balance of educational information, clinic updates, and very few promotional offers only when necessary. Before you send an email out, make sure the content is relevant, informative, and aligned with your patients' interests and needs.
Every email should include a clear and compelling call-to-action. Whether it’s booking an appointment, reading an article, joining an event, or signing up for a new program, a well-crafted CTA guides patients to taking the next step. This will help you achieve some of your big marketing goals!
Implementing an Email Marketing Strategy for Your Clinic
Now it is time for some thoughtful planning and execution. Here’s how you can start leveraging email to enhance patient relationships and drive engagement and bookings!
Choosing the Right Email Marketing Platform
Selecting the appropriate platform for your clinic is an important first step in managing your email campaigns effectively. Many popular email marketing tools offer features like automation, templates, and analytics. We like Wix the best but Flodesk is a great option as well if you don't have your website designed on Wix. Do a bit of research and choose a platform that is intuitive, fits your budget, and aligns with your clinic’s specific needs.
Building an Email List
The foundation of successful email marketing is a robust email list. So, how do you start one? Emphasize the advantages of subscribing to your emails to both new and current patients, such as access to exclusive health and wellness tips or early notice of new services and clinic updates. Always ensure compliance with data protection regulations (in Canada, you’ll want to be aware of CASL) by obtaining consent to send emails. And as mentioned before, not sharing any personal information to make sure you are HIPAA/PHIPA compliant.
Creating a Content Calendar
Planning ahead really helps. A content calendar helps organize and schedule your email campaigns. You could plan your emails to coincide with relevant health awareness dates, clinic events, or seasonal promotions. A well-planned calendar ensures consistent communication and keeps your content relevant and timely.
Monitoring and Analyzing Performance
To optimize your email marketing, it’s really important to keep an eye on your analytics. You’ll want to look at key performance indicators like open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates. Then, you can use this data to adjust your strategy, refine your content, and better meet the needs of your audience.
We really can’t recommend email marketing enough. It's a super powerful tool for clinics looking to enhance patient communication and engagement. By embracing this tactic, you can build stronger relationships, improve patient retention, and increase your bookings.
Do you need help putting together an email marketing strategy for your clinic?
We would love to support you - schedule a free discovery call with us today. Whether you manage a busy urban therapy clinic or a small-town naturopathic practice, email marketing can help you create lasting relationships, make sure your patients feel informed and appreciated.
Shayah Reed
Virtuwell Balance Director
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