When you’re driving to a new destination, you likely put the address in your GPS and let it guide you using the most efficient and direct route. Yet when it comes to your physician marketing efforts, if you aren’t using email to communicate, you’re not taking the best route to drive your messages home.
Many health systems overlook the value email provides to converse with their healthcare providers. Without this important vehicle, your messages may be getting stalled on the information highway.
Many health systems overlook the value email provides to converse with their healthcare providers
I’ll be sharing six industry secrets learned from nearly 50,000 email campaigns at the upcoming Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD) Connects 2018 annual conference. These insights will help you recognize the power of email marketing and show you why you should put it to work in the most effective way for your health system.
Exploring Physician Email
But you don’t have to wait for the session to begin exploring the benefits and logistics of email marketing to physicians. Consider these compelling facts:
Many physicians prefer email communication. More than half of physicians today are age 55 or younger, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges and as such, many of them rely on email as their communication method of choice. Physicians are more likely to open your messages and engage with them (such as clicking on a link to read an article on your website or signing up for a CEU course) if you send them in the mode most familiar to them.
Access to physician details can strengthen the relationship. Quality email databases include a wealth of insights about your physicians. This can include their preferred email address (such as work or home), when they open and read emails (time of day and day of week), specialty areas, and location. These details can guide you on when to email your providers, and what types of information to provide them (such as targeted newsletters) to strengthen your relationships.
A bigger list may not necessarily be better
Targeted emails allows you to reach specific physicians with different messages. A quality email provider can also deliver comprehensive data about your physicians, including hospital affiliation, specialty, and geographic location. By understanding the needs and interests of physicians, you can segment your mailing list in a targeted way which is critical to building trust, and ultimately, long-term relationships. The more precise you can be in your outreach efforts, the more likely you are to get a response. In addition, using email can provide concrete metrics that can improve future communication.
Not all physician email lists are created equal. Some email database companies provide inferior lists with bad addresses or addresses of people who have not agreed to receive your communications. Remember, a bigger list may not necessarily be better. They may just be invalidated, meaning many of the emails will bounce back undelivered. To avoid such complications, always shop for a physician email database provider who offers a list that is first-party sourced, 100 percent opted in, cross-referenced against multiple datasets for authenticity purposes, third-party certified, and updated daily.
Sharing our Unique Insights
To learn more about how email fits into your larger health system’s strategy, be sure to attend our SHSMD session, “6 Secrets From 47,381 Email Campaigns to Physicians” on Wednesday, Oct. 10 from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. The lessons we’ll share, based on our years of experience, can help you effectively steer your targeted physician email campaigns to success.
