How Social Media & Email Marketing Can Get Holiday Specials Noticed
The holiday season is officially upon us, and with traditions of festive food and family time comes the yearly increase in spending. As we work on our wish lists, many brands are ramping up their marketing efforts to advertise goods and services with one purpose: to get our attention. Just as department stores flash their specials, so should your dental or medical practice!
Marketing to prospective patients during the holiday season tends to be an especially rewarding endeavor. Whether people are looking for gifts to give or receive, there’s no doubt they’re more willing to splurge on products or elective treatments they may have hesitated to pursue in the past. For the best chance at reaching your target audience, there are two channels, in particular, where you should direct your practice’s focus: social media and email marketing.
Why Promote Specials Via Social Media & Email?
Promoting your practice’s specials via sponsored social media posts and email blasts can motivate interested readers to learn more about what you have to offer. This is especially true considering the average person checks their email and social media accounts numerous times per day. If you strategically place information about your specials where people are already looking, it’s likely they’ll not only become familiar with the deals you’re promoting, but also click through to decide whether they want to make a purchase. Herein lies the importance of optimizing your social media and email marketing efforts.
Social and Email Marketing Offer Measurable Success
Your advertising is only as good as the number of people it reaches and how relevant your special is to these individuals. For online marketing, the following factors will have a significant impact on your ROI:
- Social Media: targeting the right demographics, creating branded visual/written content that captures attention, establishing a sufficient advertising budget for each platform, and running your campaigns at the opportune time.
- Email Marketing: having a quality email list, enticing recipients to open and read the email, offering useful information for them to learn about the special, and making it easy for users to access and/or pay for specials and gift cards online.
People Are Already Scrolling for Savings
Ever wait until the very end of the year to schedule your annual dental and medical appointments? You’re not alone. As the last couple of months before the New Year, the holiday season is a very busy time for men and women scrambling to attend last-minute appointments and achieve end-of-year goals. This provides healthcare practices with ample opportunity to push deals, discounts, and treatment packages that will certainly pique the interests of consumers looking to save big—especially when these offerings are presented on the very platforms potential patients spend the most time on.
Part of the reason why email and social marketing is so effective has to do with the increasing mobilization of our world. According to a study conducted by Castor, purchases made on mobile devices have jumped significantly from 3.4% to a whopping 36.7% in the last several years. Since most social and email interfaces are specifically designed with a user-friendly mobile experience in mind, it makes perfect sense that these platforms can act as the perfect venue to take advantage of mobile-leaning trends in consumer spending.
Reach a Wider Audience
With social media ads and email marketing, not only can you reach your current patients, but the content can be easily shared, allowing patients to help you spread the word to the rest of your community. You might even want to consider adding a referral component to encourage them to share the post or email. For example, you could offer an additional benefit to your patients if they share the information and a friend or family member books an appointment. Furthermore, you could create a social media contest that encourages viewers to share the specials content and/or tag friends on the post in order to be entered to win a specific prize.
I’ve Optimized My Email and Social Marketing Campaigns. What Now?
In addition to these optimization basics, it can be extremely helpful to send your social media and email blast readers to a well-crafted landing page. Many practices choose to have a general “Specials” page on their website, which they frequently update with their latest deals. For campaigns you plan to put a larger emphasis on, you may want to consider a custom landing page dedicated to a specific special or theme of specials. For example, take a look at the “12 Days of Christmas” page below, designed to introduce readers to this dental practice’s holiday deals.
On this custom landing page, visitors were able to find specific deals they could redeem on various days throughout December. This is just one of the many possibilities that can take your holiday campaigns to the next level.
While it is critical to spend time crafting offers that are desirable to your patients and provide enticing value for their investment, in the end, successful holiday specials come down to how well they are promoted. With the right planning and execution, your social media and email marketing can be the tricks to getting your specials noticed!
Want help with promoting your campaigns this holiday season and into the new year?
Contact us to speak with a representative about how you can make the most of your advertising efforts.
Editor’s note: The original version of this post was published on November 30, 2017.