The Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing for Your Aesthetic Dermatology Practice
Guide to emailing your patients & clients
Email marketing is a direct connection with the patient when they’re not in the exam room.
It’s cost-effective
Works around the clock
Reaches a large group at one time
Returns a significant ROI (on average 38:1)
It also helps soften the communication from what might feel like a sales pitch in the office to a suggestion, reminder, or delightful notification in an email.
You can start right away at minimal cost with the current list of aesthetic clients you already have.
There’s a large amount of flexibility, in that, you can separate your lists of emails by interests, patient type, level of engagement, etc. This segmentation enables you to deliver more tailored content in your emails.
If you sell products online all over the country, you can also segment out your direct sale clientele vs your patients. Email is quite flexible.
Email marketing results are measurable
Through email, your aesthetic dermatology practice stays top of mind with your patients —keeping you in touch during the times they aren’t coming in to see you throughout the year. When you stay in contact with your patients, providing value, and acting as a resource, rather than just being a business that accepts their hard-earned money, you solidify a reciprocal patient-provider relationship through brand loyalty.
If you make clients aware of the services you provide then there’s no reason to seek out or be distracted by another practice that does the same. You’ve got the connection and it’s up to you to nurture it.
Before you do, let’s discuss the DO’s and Don’ts
Email Marketing Do’s and Don’ts for your dermatology practice
Do…
Reach out to your patients weekly (preferred), bi-weekly, or monthly
Consistency builds confidence and reliance. You set the stage for what your patient can expect by popping in their inbox —same time every week. Your emails become familiar and they get comfortable seeing them regardless of whether they open every single one or not.
When you skip too much time between emails people forget they signed up, don’t recognize the sender, and are more likely to ignore or unsubscribe.
Do…
Provide value
The idea behind email marketing is that you become a resource for some ‘thing’. Since you're not a commodity product and provide treatments and services instead —often times as cash payment and on an as-needed basis, you have to strengthen the bond in some other way when they’re not booking appointments with you. Providing value through email does this.
Do…
Make it about them
People want to know about themselves. How can something help them? If it doesn’t pertain to them, they won’t really care, or at least not for long. Stay positive in your emails and always make it about them. Highlight conditions and treatments that impact their lives, and then you can state how you help.
Do…
Have a call to action of some sort in your email
Give your reader something they can do next. If they spent the time to open and read through your email, give them a ‘next step’ so it completes the transaction. Things like “follow us on social”, “shop now”, “click here to read more”, all those put the control in the reader’s hands and make it an easy passage to take the next step should they choose. A great pitch with a dead-end won’t close the sale (most of the time).
Do…
Include a promotion here and there
People want to save. Sometimes, that discount becomes the deciding factor in making a decision. They’ve been thinking about it for a while and boom, that $12/unit botox is sounding real good about now. The promo or discount is enough for them to keep their eye out for more good freebies, info, or deals.
Do…
Make a template of an email so you can plug and play every time
When people know what to expect, they feel comfortable, their brain learns how to skim fast and know what to look for. When it’s always different and off-brand, it takes that much extra time for the brain to adjust and file the information away accordingly.
Now here’s what-not-to-do.
Don’t…
Have a boring subject line
When you have an inbox full of emails, there are two things that make a sender stand out prompting someone to open it, or not. The ‘from’ line and the ‘subject’ line.
When I open my emails if I don’t see my kids’ school, a bank, or credit monitoring then I skim right through everything else deleting as I go. But if it has a good subject line or a sale I’ve been waiting for, you bet I come back to open it. Your patients do the same. The subject line will get it opened if the from line does not.
Don’t…
Make it about you
Addressing your patient's needs first then showcasing your offerings, builds the strongest connections. If you’re not solving a problem or concern for them, someone else will.
Don’t…
Sell every time
If you’re selling something every time, people only see you as someone who wants something versus a give and take. Brand loyalty begins when there is mutual trust and respect. The adage applies, “people buy from people they like and trust”.
When a company sends you emails every day with some kind of deal and no other value, yeah you might use that company sometimes but there's nothing that marries you to them. But, when a company acts as a partner or a resource for you, their interactions make a deeper impact than just the transaction, that’s the sweet spot. Think of brands you are loyal to. What sets them apart?
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