Web Guy Designs | Web Design - Development - Hosting

The challenge with Email is that it needs to do two things perfectly to be effective. It must to be sent to the exact right people that have an interest or need for your services and must also provide value for them. If either of these objectives are not properly met, the Email will be seen as an annoyance and will be deleted by most people. This type of nuisance Email can actually hurt your practice and drive prospective patients away. Keeping the Emails you send out tightly targeted to your existing patients and any prospective patients is essential in using this internet tool effectively. Assembling this list is easy for your existing patients since you probably already have the Emails for most of them. Once you have them organized you might want to create several distribution lists based on their specific treatments. Even though you can still send them more general Emails from time to time to keep them updated on seasonal office closings or a specific doctor’s vacation schedule, most of your Emails should be more focused and offer information on their specific condition and treatment. You might also want to sort the patient’s names based on the time since their last appointment in case you want to send a reminder Email to suggest they schedule a checkup with your office.

Once you have this list organized, you need to add the names of prospective patients to it as well. These Emails are harder to acquire and are usually added from these visitor’s interaction with your website.  A great way to gather up names for your prospective patients is by simply asking for it when they first visit your website. You can do this in a number of ways, but it’s important that you make it clear you want to be able to send along Emails about a particular treatment option or information about your practice in general. You need to be sure the visitor understands this before adding their name to your list. This way you can avoid being seen as SPAM when you start sending Emails along. You should also always include a link in all your Emails to allow the recipient to elect to be removed from your list. Even though most users won’t do this, it shows them you are being responsible with their Email address. You need to be very clear with your intentions regarding their Email address, especially if you have any intentions of sharing it with other doctors. Sometimes this sharing may make sense if it is a related practice, but more often than not you should limit this type of sharing so that you don’t overwhelm your patients. Once you have these basics covered, you’re all set to start sending along periodic Emails to help your patients deal with their medical concerns and enable them improve their interaction with your office.