Dental email marketing is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways to communicate with your patients. As people continue to spend much of their time at home, more opportunities have surfaced to grab patients’ attention with fewer distractions. A 2021 report from HubSpot found that 78% of marketers surveyed have seen an exponential increase in their email engagement. It’s safe to say that more people are reading their emails these days!
Whether you are a seasoned practice owner or an office manager working for a newly opened practice, your office will benefit from sending more engaging emails with an effective creative strategy.
Here are five ideas that will not only boost your open rates but increase your patient retention!
Idea #1: Keep dental email marketing short and sweet.
No one has the time to read a long-winded email, especially when the average working professional receives roughly 121 emails per day.
If you send an email to a patient during business hours, try keeping your copy under 125 words, as that’s an industry standard.
Fun fact: 125 words is a reading time of roughly 30 seconds!
Idea #2: Make sure your dental emails are personal and relatable.
Don’t be afraid to use your unique voice and tone! This can help separate your emails from the many others patients receive on a daily basis. Using photos and writing your emails in the first person can also add a personal and relatable touch.
YAPI advocate and practice owner Dr. Tuan Pham recently shared valuable insight into his success with dental email marketing.
“One of the most significant comments that I repeatedly get from my patients is to see pictures of my family. Everyone loves to see babies, pets, and families. That’s why in my emails to my patients, I include pictures of myself and my family. You wouldn’t believe how many patients reply to my emails, telling me they look forward to my following email. I have also had patients of my practice FORWARD my emails to their friends, who have become new patients. Email has been a big win in my practice.”
Quick Tip: Improve Email Click Rates with Patient Videos
True Fact: Attaching a video in an email can lead to an increased click-through rate (CTR) of up to 300%!
Try it for yourself! Download three of our most popular patient education videos – entirely for free. Just complete the form below and we will email you the videos.
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Idea #3: Segment your audience for dental newsletters and other emails.
No two patients are alike, but there are patterns and similarities that you can identify and use to craft great personalized emails.
Instead of emailing all of your patients the same email, consider grouping audiences through filters. This approach will make your email marketing more effective and allow you to focus on one centralized and catered message per patient group.
For example, services such as YAPI allow your team to filter and segment your patients based on several different factors such as last appointment date, balance due, gender, and age range.
You can even go further and personalize each email using merge fields, establishing a personal point of connection for your patients in every email message.
Idea #4: Use an automated service.
It should come as no shock that an automated service is the best way to send eblasts and newsletters to your patients.
Before you consider an enterprise level email marketing service such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact, determine your practice’s primary purpose and needs for dental email marketing.
If the primary purpose is email nurturing and sending monthly eBlasts, newsletters, and appointment and recall reminders, platforms such as YAPI will be all you’ll need to better engage with patients all while pulling information directly from your PMS.
Idea #5: Don’t be afraid of trial and error.
No successful email campaign was ever built overnight. Most successful campaigns surface from a lot of trial and error.
So don’t be afraid to experiment with your patient emails and test the waters with smaller-sized audiences that you segment based on your interest lists. Over time, the more you practice and test, the more successful your email marketing will be!
