Email Marketing Secrets to Grow Your Dental Practice

Many dentists think that by casting their nets wide, they can attract more patients to their practice.  

So, they go on and make a generic email, send it to their list of patients and prospects, and hope that one of them will read it.  

The results? Poor customer engagement, low click-through rate, and an empty waiting room.  

Are you making the same mistake too?

In case you didn’t know, email marketing for dentists is one of the most effective channels you can use to attract leads, grow your number of loyal patients, and increase your revenue.  

You can earn an ROI of $42 for every dollar you spend on running an email marketing campaign, according to Campaign Monitor.

Can you imagine all the latest dental equipment you can buy and the number of branches you can afford to build to expand and grow your dental practice with that ROI?

If your current email marketing efforts aren’t getting you leads, let alone these numbers, then it’s time to change strategies!

We’re here to help you every step of the way. Let’s go!

How to Create a Successful Email Marketing Campaign to Grow Your Dental Practice

There are a lot of things you can do to improve your current email marketing campaign and get the most benefits out of it. Below are some of our best-kept email marketing campaign secrets that you can apply for your dental practice:

Secret 1: Have a Concrete Plan

This one isn’t really a secret, but it’s something that many small business owners take for granted.

They feel like they don’t need it, when in fact, it’s an essential tool for running a successful email marketing for dentists campaign.

Having a concrete plan allows you to do the following:

• Set SMART goals
• Match it with the right tactics
• Determine metrics or Key Performance Indicators
• Better allocate your time and resources

During the planning stage, it’s important to ask yourself the following questions:

What is your purpose for sending emails?

Is it to upsell dental services to your existing patients? Attract leads and convert them? Or, is it to get reviews and feedback?  

Knowing the reason why you want to send emails can help you set the right goals for your email marketing campaign.  

Who are you sending these emails to?

Is it for new patients? Prospects? Or to your dental implant patients?

This question can help you segment your patients or prospects into smaller groups for a more effective email campaign.

What types of emails should you send?

Here are some of the most common email types you should consider:

• Newsletter emails
• Birthday emails
• Survey emails
• Promotional emails
• Welcome emails

Sending the right type of email to the right patients can trigger the right kind of response you wish to get from your recipients.

How frequently should you be sending them?

Once a month? Once a week?

Don’t send more emails than you should. If people sign up for your newsletter because you told them that you’ll be sending updates twice a month, then make sure you don’t send them more or less than you promised!

Secret 2: Personalize Your Emails

Another secret to making a successful email marketing campaign for your dental practice is personalization.  

Email personalization is the process of producing more targeted emails by using the personal information of your subscribers, like their birthdays or interests.  

Personalization allows you to provide individual treatment to your patients and create a more enjoyable experience with your practice.  

Here are some data that prove the importance of personalization:

• Personalized emails generate an average ROI of 122%. (eMarketer)
• 72% of consumers say they only engage with personalized messaging. (SmarterHQ)
• Birthday emails produce 342% higher revenue per email compared to promotional emails. (Experian)
• 67% of people who unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails said that they received irrelevant emails too frequently. (Convince and Convert)

To create a more personalized email marketing campaign, be sure to follow these steps:

Segment your email lists to create more targeted email content appropriate for each group. You can classify your list according to:

• The dental service your patients recently availed in or are interested in
• Their professional background
• Their familiarity with your dental practice

Use their first name to grab their attention and compel them to open your email.

Use behavioral emails to better understand each of your patient’s needs in the different stages of the customer journey. Behavioral emails are automated and triggered depending on the actions of your site visitors or subscribers.  

Here are two examples:

• A potential patient signs up in your newsletter, so you send them a free dental cleaning coupon they can use when they visit your practice.  

• A patient of yours hasn’t used your services for a while, so you send them an email asking them how they’ve been, along with a discount code they can use to urge them to come back to your dental clinic.  

Send unexpected emails to keep you on top of their minds. This can be anything from anniversary greetings to exclusive birthday discounts, and even a care package for your most loyal patients.  

Send emails at the right time to increase your open rates. According to CoSchedule, the best time to send emails is between 9-11 a.m.

Provide tips, hacks, and any valuable information they can use regarding the recent dental service they availed in your dental clinic.  

Suggest a service that they might be interested in availing in the future.  

Secret 3: Use User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-generated content, like online reviews, can be so powerful in convincing others to engage with your emails and book an appointment with your dental practice. It helps build trust, establishes your credibility, and it adds a sense of genuineness to your emails.

Below are some of the different ways you can use UGC in your email campaigns:

• Send emails featuring a couple of reviews from satisfied patients and encourage them to leave a review too.
• Send emails featuring a “before and after” picture of a patient or an inspiring patient testimony about how your practice changed their life. Such emails can convince your recipients to avail of your services, cross-sell, or upsell.  
• Send emails featuring your services through patient photos and encourage them to follow you on social media.

How can you generate more UGC for your dental practice?

• Check out existing UGC in social media.
• Promote the use of hashtags to encourage your patients to post more about their dental experience with you on social media.
• Run a social media contest.  

Secret 4: Make Your Emails Shareable on Social Media

Did you know that you can use social media to boost the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns?

By integrating them, you can expand the reach of your email campaigns and get more subscribers on your list! Plus, this will help increase patient engagement and boost your brand exposure!

You can integrate social media into your email marketing strategy by:

• Following your subscribers on social media
• Urging your social media followers to subscribe to your email list  
• Adding social sharing buttons to your email
• Embedding an email sign-up form on your dental practice's Facebook page
• Including live social media feed in your emails

Secret 5: Monitor Your Emails

The last and final secret to creating a successful email marketing campaign for your dental practice is by tracking your analytics. You want to monitor your email campaigns and KPIs to see the performance of your email marketing efforts.

Keeping an eye on the performance of your email marketing campaigns allows you to identify what works and what doesn’t work for your audience.  

Here are some email marketing KPI’s you want to track:

• Open rate
• Click-through rate
• Conversion rate
• Number of unsubscribers
• Bounce rate
• Spam complaints
• List growth rate
• Email sharing rate

If you see an improvement in your KPIs, continue doing what works for your subscribers. If there’s little to no progress, however, change any method that doesn’t work, and try to experiment on your email content, calls-to-action, visuals, and whatnot to see what works best for your audience.  

The Secret to a Successful Email Marketing Campaign for Dentists is Out!

Now that you know our best-kept email marketing campaign secrets, don’t hesitate to try them out yourself and see if they work.

Remember, successful email marketing campaigns can help you achieve many business goals you can use to grow your dental practice!

Do you feel like you need professional help with creating a successful email marketing campaign for dentists? Don’t hesitate to ask for our assistance. Contact us today!

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