Email marketing is still a viable way to attract new patients to your clinic, as well as staying in touch with current patients.   Yes, I know that because of spam, people are very hesitant to give out their email these days, and the plethora of solicitation emails, even from reputable vendors like Target, Amazon and eBay don’t help matters either.

But before you throw out the baby with the bathwater, I want to tell you that despite the negativity of commercial email, it can still be of great use to you.  All you have to do is to stick by these fundamental rules:

1.  You have to ask your patients/ prospective patients for their email address, and tell them how you will use their email.  Taking their email from the new patient intake form (if you have this field) is not enough.  The patient must “opt in” to your email list, on their own (after you tell them the benefits of doing so, of course).

2.  You have to provide useful, pertinent content; not a bunch of fluff.  Think about the level of content that YOU would want to receive.  Since we’re chiropractors, examples would include instructions on how to stretch properly, the proper way to set up your workstation to minimize strain, and how to apply ice and heat to a new injury.  Go the extra step and include video in your emails.  Now that’s great content.

3.  You need to make unsubscribing easy.  If the patient wishes to no longer receive your emails for one reason or another, you need to have an unsubscribe link at the bottom of each email message.

And in order to make it all work, you’ll need an email marketing software that will handle all the email subscriptions, email delivery, and unsubscribes.  There are several to choose from; the one I use is GetResponse.  GetResponse is web based, and is a monthly subscription of about $15.00 a month.  You can set up multiple campaigns.  So far, I am really excited about its easy to navigate, user-friendly interface.  The learning curve is quite short.  Check it out!

Dan