Email Marketing for Dentists

When you first started your practice, you might have relied on snail mail to reach your patients. The digital age has changed that, though. Now, successful dental practices use email marketing to connect with patients and leads. Email marketing has several benefits that you’ll enjoy, as long as you follow the best practices.

Why is Email Marketing Important for Dentists?

You want to incorporate marketing strategies that provide a high ROI, and email marketing fits that bill. With an average ROI of 3,800 percent, email marketing is a smart choice. That breaks down to $38 in revenue for every $1 you invest in the campaign. Let’s take a closer look at how you can use your campaign to boost your ROI.

Get Patient Reviews

Patient reviews are critical for your practice. If you gather lots of positive reviews, you’re more likely to attract new patients. To generate patient reviews, you must make the process as simple as possible, and email marketing can help. You can send an email thanking a patient for visiting your practice. Include a link to your review site of choice, along with a request for a review. You’ll be surprised by how effective this is. Many people are happy to leave reviews when directly asked, so you can start to build your online reputation with the help of emails.

Reach Out to Lapsed Patients with Email Marketing

Your patients should get dental cleanings once or twice a year, but many don’t follow through. It’s not that they don’t want to take care of their teeth. They simply get busy and forget to come in. You can reach out to the people who have let their appointments lapse with emails. Make sure you personalize the emails, so your lapsed patients are likely to respond by making an appointment. Also, if you have a special incentive, include it in the email to get them to book a spot.

Increase Your Referrals

You are an excellent dentist, and you have lots of happy patients. Many of those people are happy to refer their friends and family to your practice, but they might forget when they’re out and about. You can increase your referrals by utilizing email marketing. You can include a “refer a friend” section in the email. People just need to forward the email to make the referral. This is easy and effective for dental practices.

Boost Website Traffic with Email Marketing

Your website contains a wealth of information about your dental practice. You also might have some online features, such as appointment scheduling. You know that if you get people to your website, you can book appointments, and that’s easy to do with email marketing. Your email messages will contain links to your website. Your campaign manager will track the link clicks to ensure the campaign is working. If not, the manager will tweak the campaign to increase your clicks and your conversions.

Make Announcements with Email Marketing

Have you ever had a patient visit your office, only to say, “I didn’t realize you now offer (X service)?” Or maybe a patient visits and says, “I heard you had a promotion last week. I hate that I missed it.” You don’t have to wait until patients enter your office to inform them about promotions and new services. You can do just that with email marketing. Use messages to make announcements about your practice. People like to be in the loop, and they’ll be happy to get updates.

Build Relationships With Your Subscribers

You might only see your patients once or twice a year, but you can build ongoing relationships with email marketing. Once someone opts into your email list, you can send them regular emails that contain updates and helpful oral care information. This type of relationship-building will remind your patients that you care about them all the time, not just when they are in your office.

What Are Some Email Marketing Best Practices?

Countless dental practices have email marketing campaigns that don’t go anywhere because they don’t follow the best practices. Let’s go over some tips to ensure your campaign is successful.

Build a Large Subscriber List

To send people emails, you must build a strong subscriber list. Some practices have trouble with this because they aren’t sure how to collect emails. You should gather email addresses both online and offline to get the best results. Include an opt-in form on your website where people can opt into your list and collect email addresses on your patient forms. You’ll need to import those addresses into your database to send messages.

Make Sure Your Emails Reach the Inbox

Email programs have spam filters to prevent spam messages from hitting inboxes. Avoid spam filters by following best practices, such as avoiding all capital letters and keyword stuffing. Also, you can avoid spam filters by keeping an eye on your bounced emails. If an email comes back to you, it means that the address is no longer valid. Remove it from your list to prevent spam filters from catching on. Finally, you should remove addresses from people who never open your emails. Send them one final email telling them that they will be removed if they don’t take some sort of action. If they don’t respond, remove them from the list, so you don’t end up with low open rates that make you look like a spammer.

Segment Your Lists

When you engage in email marketing, you can segment your lists and send targeted messages to your subscribers. Each segment will receive specific messages. You can create segments based on open rates, services accessed, and so much more. You can even create a segment for those who have opted in to your email list but have yet to make an appointment. Once you segment your list, you can create emails for each group of people. These emails are highly targeted and allow you to speak directly to people.

Get People Excited With Your Welcome Email

Your welcome email sets the tone for your entire campaign. If people don’t like your welcome email, they aren’t likely to open additional messages. Set the tone by providing lots of great information in the welcome email. Use visuals that draw interest and let people know what to expect with your emails.

Stay Compliant

As a dentist, you need to ensure your email marketing campaign is HIPAA-compliant. Never include protected health information in your emails and never use personal identifiers without the patient’s consent. Your marketing company will ensure that your campaign is complete.

Get Started With A Professional Email Marketing Campaign Today!

As a dedicated dental marketing company, Accelerate Dental Marketing understands your industry and needs. We have created countless email marketing campaigns for small to medium-sized dental practices that are in direct competition with corporate practices. We understand what you are up against, and with our help, you can go toe-to-toe with large practices. You can also monitor your campaign at any time when you use us. Just log into the client portal any time, day or night, to track your results. Contact us today for a free quote for our email marketing services. Then we can create your campaign and reach out to your patients. With our help, you can grow your practice.

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