Believe it or not, the 2017 holidays are already upon us! What does it mean for you? It means the time has come to create holiday email marketing campaigns for your practice. Just as with any other industry, healthcare companies can benefit from holiday email marketing in many ways, including customer retention, increased brand awareness, and, of course, lead generation. That’s why, in preparation for this holiday season, we want to share these top 5 holiday email marketing tips that will totally rock your practice!
1. Start planning your holiday email marketing campaign like…yesterday.
While Christmas and New Year email marketing campaigns can wait for a week or two, your Thanksgiving email marketing campaign must be created ASAP, yesterday if to be precise. Planning takes a lot of time, and starting at least 3-4 weeks ahead will ensure you have enough resources to properly execute your holiday email marketing “wants and needs”. In terms of careful planning, it’s always beneficial to work with a competent healthcare marketing agency in advance, so they start planning for your holiday marketing campaigns at least a couple months prior, which gives you more than enough time to roll out a perfectly executed campaign that’s engaging and effective.
2. Segment your email list for precise customer targeting.
Why should you care about segmentation in your holiday email marketing campaigns? Because if you don’t then your messaging simply won’t align with your audience. Just imagine, you send out this holiday email that contains content and messaging targeted towards millennials like goofy graphics, clever taglines, and hashtags, but you send it to a 55-year old radiology patient, who probably doesn’t even know what a hashtag is. Will he understand and, most importantly, remember your message? Absolutely not.
That’s why you need to segment your email list based on the most important patient characteristics you want to tailor to. Remember, the better you use your patients' demographics, needs, and interests, the more attention you'll attract. That’s why make sure to collect important patient information all year round to make your holiday email marketing truly impactful.
3. When you create your holiday emails, don’t focus on sales, instead, try to felicitate.
The bottom line of most email marketing campaigns is to generate sales, but you don’t have to make it so obvious. Your patients already know you are trying to promote your practice or healthcare services when sending them any type of email, including holiday ones.
To make a significant impact, show your genuine appreciation to each and every patient not because they bring your organization profit, but because they contribute to an altruistic goal you follow. Let them see the bigger picture behind sales, some social responsibility deeds you are able to achieve with their help.
4. Build responsive and interactive design.
When thinking about a holiday email marketing campaign for your practice, don’t forget about utilizing a responsive and interactive design that will appeal to your patients. Based on your audience segments, play around with themed colors, visuals, and email structure to attract patient’s interest and generate excitement for the holiday.
For example, during last holiday season, “the snowman emoji in the subject line became an instant hit because it greatly increased open rates for numerous holiday email campaigns”. On top of that, gamification design rapidly gains its popularity among marketers, because it allows engaging even the most resistant customers.
5. Personalize your holiday emails to evoke positive emotional triggers and associations your patients will appreciate.
Personalization is a deeper level of targeting, one that helps to tailor the holiday email to a specific patient. Beyond first and last name personalization, include some personal data on the healthcare services they’ve used and positive results they’ve achieved. Additionally, include some holiday-related achievement badges your patients unlocked by simply using your healthcare practice services. For example, if they referred any friends to your practice or imaging center, grant them a “Charitable Pro” badge, that will celebrate the fact of referral.
How to Create A Holiday Email Marketing Campaign That Will Actually Work?
Now, fully equipped with a bundle of valuable tips, you’re all ready to create your holiday email marketing campaign for your practice. All that remains is to write your ad copy, identify personalization triggers relevant to your healthcare business and customers, build a design tailored to each customer segment, and optimize for desired KPIs. Sounds a little overwhelming, right?
Make it easy on yourself and delegate all your holiday email marketing responsibilities to a talented healthcare marketing agency that will take care of all your marketing needs. Our healthcare marketing gurus will protect your precious holiday time by handling any marketing requests, including but not limited to social media, content and email marketing, so you don’t have to worry about any aspects of your healthcare marketing!
