Your patients receive e-mails every day from many businesses. Shouldn’t an e-mail, at least once in a while, be from your practice? This is how my practice ensures e-blasts to patients have an impact–even when they aren’t opened.
Set Realistic Goals
You’re not going to have 100 percent of your recipients open the e-mail you send. Typically, open rates for e-blasts fall in the 25 percent to 35 percent range. Consider yourself lucky if you have close to half of the recipients opening the e-mail.
Get Your Name Out,
Offer a Health Tip
Even if patients don’t answer the e-mail, they pay attention to who sent it, and what the subject line says. Be sure it’s easy to see that the e-mail comes from your practice, and choose a subject line that will communicate a valuable message on its own. For instance, you could cite an interesting eye health fact in the subject line to remind patients that you are the eye health expert.
Include Video & Photos,
Encourage Follows
After the patient opens the e-mail, they should see not just the information, or message, you want to impart, but photos, videos and links to click to follow the practice on social media like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
This video article first ran in Review of Optometric Business earlier this month. Agustin Gonzalez, OD, FAAO, ABCMO, is the owner of Eye & Vision in Richardson, Texas. To contact him: gonzalez.agu@gmail.com