Table of Contents
- Email Marketing is Here to Stay
-
10 Must-Use Chiropractic Email Marketing Best Practices
- 1) – Write to Stay Out of the Spam Folder
- 2) – Find the Frequency That Fits
- 3) – Segment Your Email Lists
- 4) – Vary Your Email Campaigns
- 5) – Monitor Your Metrics
- 6) – Spend Time on Your Subject Lines
- 7) – Limit the Length of Your Emails
- 8) – Always Include a Call-To-Action
- 9) – Don’t Forget to Proofread!
- 10) – Send Your Emails at Sensible Times Only
- Email Marketing: Effective, Scalable, and ROI Efficient
- A Word About Patient Pilot by The Smart Chiropractor
Email Marketing is Here to Stay
Think email marketing isn’t an effective way to market your practice?
Think again.
The number of people with email accounts in 2021 was 4.1 billion, estimated to be over 4.5 billion by 2025, according to The Radicati Group.
And get this…
Over 95% of people check their email at least once a day.
In fact, 90% check it at least ten times daily!
The Smart Chiropractor's Guide to Converting More New Patients From Your Website
Email is a social channel (yes, social channel) that is definitely here to stay.
The bottom line here is that email usage is still growing rapidly, and the vast majority world is using and will continue to use email.
The inbox is where your practice must be if you intend to build lasting relationships with your patients that will continue to pay dividends for your chiropractic business.
10 Must-Use Chiropractic Email Marketing Best Practices
Every chiropractic marketing strategy should include an optimized email marketing strategy.
To help you get started, we’ve compiled a handy list of our top 10 chiropractic email marketing best practices.
When integrated with your marketing strategy, these chiropractic email marketing tips will help you drive more new patient appointments, better retention, and more reactivations… on autopilot.
Let’s dive in.
"It’s marketing made easy and meets your patients where they are at. It’s all automated."
Dr. Ryan Grenier, DC
Optimal Wellness
1) – Write to Stay Out of the Spam Folder
Did you know about 40% of email is considered spam, according to Statista?
Know This
The challenge here is that your patient emails can still hit the spam filters, even if your patients have opted in to receive them.
Yes, even if they’ve whitelisted your email address!
So, what can you do?
Here are a few tips to ensure that you bypass those spam filters:
Do This
1) – Avoid keywords and phrases that seem spammy in your email copy.
- Spam words and phrases such as “free” shouldn’t be in your emails.
2) – Build your email list locally – DON’T buy a list.
- We repeat, don’t buy a list.
3) – Review your email list annually.
- Reviewing or “scrubbing” your list for bounced, invalid, or otherwise unengaged email addresses at least once a year can help keep those engagement rates high.
2) – Find the Frequency That Fits
Most of your patients prefer to be communicating with your practice via email.
According to Adobe, up to 61% of people prefer to communicate with businesses by email.
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You don’t want to overload inboxes with daily messages, but reaching out infrequently every month or two can also hurt your results.
With Patient Pilot, we’ve found that sending a weekly email newsletter is one of the best ways to drive results without overdoing it.
3) – Segment Your Email Lists
Every email campaign won’t apply to every patient on your list, so it makes sense to use list segmenting to send each campaign to the correct audience.
For example, those patients that are new to your practice will receive your new patient onboarding / welcome emails before they start receiving those emails you send to your already established patients.
Keeping your lists segmented is important for user experience.
But it also helps your KPIs (key performance indicators).
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Segmented lists provide better open rates, click-through, and results because you provide specific content that is relevant for the subscriber.
The core tenant of our email marketing systems is a philosophy of Teaching and Inviting, Consistently.
Keeping patients informed on topics they are most interested in will boost your engagement rates.
You win when you consistently and proactively answer the questions people have about their health, and that’s why we’ve made sure to reserve a spot on our top 10 list of chiropractic email marketing best practices.
4) – Vary Your Email Campaigns
Your chiropractic email marketing can and should have a variety of goals and messages.
An email campaign can provide educational content (i.e., tips to get better results faster), promotional messaging (i.e., highlight products in your online store), seasonal greetings (i.e., Happy Holidays!), or even be in the form of a weekly email newsletter.
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Serving up different types of content will boost your email engagement and help your practice top of mind.
5) – Monitor Your Metrics
According to Constant Contact, healthcare emails average a 29% open rate and a 1% click rate.
Carefully monitoring key performance metrics like your open rate, click rate, and unsubscribe rate will allow you to know what’s working and what isn’t.
With Patient Pilot, we provide each member with a monthly ROI report so that you know precisely how your automated email marketing is impacting your bottom line.
6) – Spend Time on Your Subject Lines
The number of emails sent daily is over 300 billion, according to Statista.
Know This
Your patients’ inboxes are constantly filled with emails, so your subject line needs to stand out if you hope your subscriber will read your email!
Using a short and to-the-point subject line is a great way to get attention and inspire people to open and read your email.
Avoid making your subject line too long, and for an added boost, use a relevant emoji.
7) – Limit the Length of Your Emails
Your patients are busy, so they don’t have time to read an email “manifesto.”
Our Patient Pilot team recommends keeping emails short and sweet.
Short messages are also better for viewing on mobile.
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Optimizing your email messages for mobile is hugely important considering four out of ten emails are opened on mobile phones and tablets.
8) – Always Include a Call-To-Action
Inspiring your patients to take action with your email campaigns can produce big results for your chiropractic business.
Email marketing is the marketing channel with the highest return on investment (ROI), over $36 per $1 spent, according to Litmus.
That means more new patients, better retention, and more reactivations.
(Every email sent with Patient Pilot includes a call-to-action button such as “Book Online” or “Schedule Appointment” to ensure you get maximum ROI.)
9) – Don’t Forget to Proofread!
Many factors go into a successful chiropractic email marketing campaign, but no matter your goal, don’t forget to spellcheck!
Using tools like Grammarly is critical because spelling errors can reflect poorly on your practice.
Copyrighting matters as well, which is one reason we don’t recommend assigning your newest team member to send out your practice emails.
(At Paint Pilot, we have a team of 10 dedicated daily to creating and sending automated email campaigns.)
10) – Send Your Emails at Sensible Times Only
With email marketing, timing is everything.
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You could send the most engaging email in history, but if it arrives at the wrong time, they may not read it or take action.
After sending over 1 million emails per month, we’ve found that the best time to send is on the weekdays between 8am – 2pm, but this can vary!
Try sending emails at these times, and then check your KPIs (key performance indicators), open, and click rates.
Then, experiment with sending your emails at other times on other days and times to see how opens and clicks compare.
Email Marketing: Effective, Scalable, and ROI Efficient
When done right, chiropractic email marketing is the best ROI marketing channel for your practice.
Email is the most widely used communication tool ever.
Following the 10 chiropractic email marketing best practices we outlined above will help you design an email marketing strategy that serves your patients and chiropractic business year after year.
A Word About Patient Pilot by The Smart Chiropractor
Looking for more guidance, tools, retention tips, and chiropractic marketing ideas to help you start attracting new chiropractic patients and help your practice grow?
We’re here to help.
Over the past year, our team of chiropractic marketing geeks at The Smart Chiropractor has worked with over 300 practices and sent over 10 million emails.
(And we’re thrilled that our average doctor has seen an 11X ROI from their email marketing efforts!)
There’s one BIG thing we learned from working with practice after practice after practice that we’ve kept in mind as we crafted this top 10 list of chiropractic email marketing best practices and our email systems…
Too many chiropractors with holes in their schedule form their marketing strategy around the notion that they have a new patient problem.
However, that’s often NOT the case.
Think of it this way…
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When you have holes in your bucket, and the faster you dump new patients (water) in the top of the bucket, the quicker it will pour out the sides (retention) and bottom (reactivations) until you seal the holes.
If you have an email list of over 300 patients – that’s 300 local patients that have walked through your doors and experienced your care – it’s not true.
With a list of that size, what you almost certainly do have is a patient retention and reactivation problem.
That’s where Patient Pilot comes in.
Our automated email campaigns were designed to help provide patients with a fantastic experience that, in turn, can help fill the holes in your practice’s patient bucket and generates excellent ROI.
Click here to schedule a demo and see how Patient Pilot can transform email marketing in your practice.