If you’ve ever done anything online you’ve probably ended up on a mailing list. (Hopefully your on our awesome newsletter) If you’ve ever carefully crafted emails for your practice you know there a 3 major components:
Email Subject
Email Body
Call To Action
All three can be elusive, daunting and probably isn’t top on the list of “things you love about your job.”
How do you get patients to open the email?
What do you say to convince people to click or schedule?
What is the perfect combination of things to say get results?
Fortunately for you, we can help.
We’re going to review how to write emails using one of 5 email templates we’ve created for you.
Plus, you can download all 5 templates, so you can just plug them into your next newsletter or promotion customize them a bit and hit “Send.”
But first…
5 important tips for writing emails
Tip #1 Always remember – What’s in it for Me? (WIIFM)
It’s easy to get caught in the trap of why we are so great and all the new things we have… like the cool new waterfall you just had installed or your awesome new TV’s.
Why should they care?
What will it do for them?
How does it fulfill them and their desires?
(Do people actually ask themselves these questions? No. But it is what everyone asks, on a subconscious level.)
How do you do this?
Tip #2 Speak in benefits
Every practice is advertising “better health” or “white smiles”.
Try talking about what benefits or outcomes that can bring.
Come in for a healthy smile and a boost of confidence!
Get your check-up and put your mind at ease.
The immediate benefit is what affects them as soon as they take action.
That’s how using benefits-driven language answers the WIIFM question.
Tip #3 Use Attention Grabbers
There are some standard words and phrases in marketing that will always grab patient’s attention:
New
Free
Instantly
Exclusive
Now
You
Tip #4 Make it relevant to them
Segment your lists based on who your patients are or your patients want.
This could range from interests, demographics, gender or age. Send younger audiences information health risks for younger generations and send small child/infant information to parents…
However you can also use behavioral information to segment your audience.
When was the last time they came for an appointment? Did they need to come back? Did they miss an appointment?
Think of how you are using promotions or offers. Why send an offer to patients that come consistently. Reengage dormant or lapsed patients with an offer or promotion.
Tip #5: Make it about them…
This goes back to WIIFM, but it’s so important and we can’t stress this enough. Try not to make it about you. Make it about them!
Our email templates
We put these templates together because many of you told us that this is “very important” but “it’s hard” or “takes too much time”
For every email you need the following:
Email Subject
Email Body
Call To Action
We are going to talk about each of these sections separately, so you know exactly what to do. You can download all of the templates here:
In our first template we are greeting a new patient and prompting them to fill out out new patient information online.
The Subject
Subject lines can make or break your email. They need to open the thing or nothing else matters…
Ask yourself if your subject…
Attract their attention
Intrigue them just enough
Spur them to click
Here’s an example from our first template:
Important: Your Appointment, Just 1 More Step
Using “Important” in your subject line is a bit old school, but it works. It’s an emotionally compelling word and patients aren’t going to breeze past it.
Be careful how you use words in your subject line. Words that appear to “Spammy” will get you flagged.
There are several email subject check tools you can use to predict what’s going to “hit.” Be warned, none of these are perfect so don’t obsess over every detail or grade.
The Body
Ok so, they opened the darn thing. Now what?
The most important part to keep in mind is that the body should be moving the patient towards one singular action. Don’t go too far off the rails here.
Use emotional triggers to persuade the patient to take action. See the example from our first template:
Welcome to the {Company} Dentistry family! Keeping you happy, healthy and smiling confidently will be our mission.
In order to keep you smiling we need ONE MORE THING from you.
Tell us more about yourself and your medical history before your appointment.
Completing your NEW PATIENT INFORMATION before your appointment. This way we can properly prepare for your visit.
–> Complete here <–
As you read the first 2 sentences you definitely feel welcome with terms like “family” and the patient can see benefits or desired outcomes with terms like “smile proudly.”
Since there isn’t much stock language or general jargon about our “superior quality of care”, the patient is now invested in continuing to read.
We have their attention, what do we do with it?
The Call to Action (CTA)
Here’s what separates the fluff emails from the pro’s.
Unless this is a newsletter, the biggest key is to decide on one action you want the reader to take and double down.
Try not to have multiple CTA’s: Like us on facebook, take advantage of this offer, oh and also come to our event.
Using our Template #1 example you notice the reader is only being asked them to do one thing. Complete their new patient information online.
Tell us more about yourself and your medical history before your appointment.
Completing your NEW PATIENT INFORMATION before your appointment. This way we can properly prepare for your visit.
–> Complete here <–
We like this example for two big reasons. First, it never uses boring terms like “paperwork” so it doesn’t seem like we are asking them to do work. Also, it seems important! Emotional terms like “properly” and “tell us about you” are used.
This concept also uses “skin in the game” method. We’ll cover this in another post, but by having the patient complete this step before their appointment it makes them more likely to show up and show up on time.
Next. Say it again… but different.
Notice how in our example we asked more than once for the reader to send new patient information. But it was done it a way that reads well.
This reinforces the action we want them to take. It also makes it hard to skim past the CTA since we have it more than once.
BONUS: The Reminder
For this type of email we highly recommend a reminder. If the patient hasn’t taken the desired action (fill out new patient forms in this case) try sending 24 or 48 hours from their appointment.
The Rest of The Email Templates
There are 4 more ad copy templates available to you when you click on the button below.
As you’re going through these templates, make sure you review the copy carefully and change it, so it fits your practice’s voice and tone. These are meant to be a starting point, not necessarily your final product.Don’t just copy and paste these templates and fill in the blanks. Make them your own. They’ll be more effective, you’ll get better results and happier patients. (Look, benefits-driven language.)