User-generated content (UGC), or user-created content, is shared by an external source to online platforms such as websites or social media sites. This content creation is authentic and reliable, which is why it’s so effective — not to mention free.
It’s no surprise that YouTube is one of the best places to be these days when it comes to marketing your practice.
As a health-care professional, your time is extremely valuable. The people who need you and your care will always supersede the time and energy you have available to serve. So how are you going to be able to help every ideal patient who walks through your doors if you don’t have enough hours in the day, or if they can’t afford your care?
Repurposing your content is one of the biggest timesaving hacks you can use when it comes to creating content. The goal is to take the talking point you’re discussing and break it up into multiple forms of content for each platform. This way you’re not having to think of several different ideas to discuss every week, and you’re able to be in multiple places at once.
Maintaining strong connections between you and your patients in today's world is important for ongoing business growth and success.
Your passion for helping people lead healthier lives means meeting them where they are and employing strategic business solutions that keep patients engaged and committed to their health — and so cue in email marketing.
We talked with Nathan Brammeier, DFH Functional Medicine Consultant and email marketing pro, as he explains why email marketing is important and how it can empower practitioners to build business success.
Continue reading to learn more about Nathan's step-by-step strategies to expand your email marketing capabilities and why it's important to further the growth of your practice.
You can only see so many patients in a day. As a practitioner, you're an influential person in your community — but your patients spend most of their time outside your office.
Staying connected with your patients through email is a great way to build consistency and trust. Email is not for initiating and building relationships but for maintaining and growing relationships once you establish rapport.
People often prolong the initial step of email marketing because they're afraid it won't be good enough — but "done" is better than perfect.
The solution: Be honest with yourself about your schedule. Can you create an email once a week? If you can't, can you write one per month? Commit to a plan, and do what works for you.
Some people will unsubscribe — don't take it personally. They probably weren't going to buy from you anyway. When people unsubscribe, it increases your open rates and cleans up your list.
The short answer is, that's not the goal. The first step is deciding who your audience is and marketing to one specific niche. Most practitioners want to help everybody, and rightfully so – but you market to nobody when you market to everybody.
For example, you can't sell the same way to a 25-year-old male as a 65-year-old woman. Get focused and clear on what audience you're targeting.
What does your target market want to know? Content is king, but how it's delivered is essential.
If you have a lot of content, split it up into multiple emails, or risk inundating your reader. It's better to send one short email every week than one long monthly email.
People don't open every email. It's ok to send multiple emails about the same topic (up to three times). Remember, facts tell, and stories sell — ultimately, patients care about how a treatment or a supplement will help them feel better.
Keep your emails concise and readable. Writing 1-3 sentence paragraphs is all you need. If you have a lot of information to share, write a blog and train your customer to click it using a little teaser. Don't inundate them with tons of information – that's email marketing death. It offers too many choices.
Make your language personal — people do business with people; they don't do business with companies. When you share a little about yourself, it resonates with people. Write the email the way you talk and make it look like your email comes from a friend. Never say, "Hey everybody," keep everything singular tense.
The first 2 to 3 lines of your email are essential, so start with a bit about yourself, your family, or something new in your world. It builds rapport and trust and leaves the reader feeling like you wrote this just for them to read.
Every email must have a call to action (CTA) and one subject per email. The desire to get all your great content out there is understandable, but emails are not an information delivery system. They are simply the stepping stone to get the patient to take the next step.
Marketing is all about training people to take action. You can't expect them to buy the first time; marketing is a process. Get your patient used to clicking your emails, and see results. And, P.S. — The postscript is the second most crucial spot after the subject line and your opportunity to repeat your call to action.
Take five minutes and double-check your links. If you send something out and links don't work, it can send subconscious messages to your patients that you don't care about your business, so how much will you care about their health. Your emails don't have to be perfect, and everyone can relate to fallibility, so be vulnerable but be meticulous with links.
Let your patients know that this is something new and you are excited to share more information. You want to help them be their healthiest and be there to give them more support.
Be transparent and direct with a simple five or six-sentence email. (Be sure to use the singular tense "you" when writing.) At the end of the email, let them know they can unsubscribe if they don't want to receive these emails.
The best way to approach email marketing is to develop a monthly schedule. Choose 12 topics for the year (for example, Immune Health, Sleep, Weight Management - that's already three topics/months right there!)
As practitioners, you can support your practice by utilizing these best practices in email marketing, where you become a consistent, trusted source of education outside the office on your patients' time.
It’s very important to occasionally revisit your current marketing efforts to be as effective as possible. There are many avenues that offer opportunities for marketing and growth for your practice, whether it’s on social media, email campaigns, blog posts, or even in your own office. Let’s look at some of the areas where there may be gaps in your marketing efforts and see how you can start filling them!
One of our deepest cravings as humans is to be appreciated. As a health-care provider, making sure your patients feel valued always needs to be high on your list of priorities. Going out of your way to demonstrate acts of kindness on a regular basis is a characteristic that may come more naturally to some, but it’s these little things that should be at the forefront of your mind when thinking about your practice.
No matter the industry, if you were to recall a positive customer or patient experience, I bet that positive recollection comes down to how someone made you feel. To do this for your own patients doesn't mean you need to spend hours figuring out how to make each individual feel appreciated. In fact, it’s the small gestures and acts of kindness that will take your practice’s patient experience the extra mile and make a big difference.
Think for a moment what differentiates your experience at a 5-star hotel vs a 3-star hotel. It comes down to the small, simple things that a 5-star hotel knows you need before you ask. These may include finding a chocolate on your pillow, a welcome basket, or an info package for your next steps on how to navigate the time spent in the area.
When we spend some time looking at the user experience in our business, we start to see opportunities to make small adjustments that can exponentially add to the success of our practice, whether chocolate is included or not!
You may be an expert at what you do, but are you comfortable articulating it in a confident and engaging manner to an audience?
Building interpersonal trust with your patients can be hard work. The way patients see you affect their trust in you and your healthcare practice.
Whether experiencing a health crisis or seeking wellness support, your patients are craving a caring and compassionate healthcare experience. By connecting regularly and consistently with your patients, you will set your practice apart from the competition and make your patients feel at ease.
