7 Steps to Building an Amazing Patient-Nurturing Workflow
Just as a marketing strategy is essential for any entrepreneur, it is equally vital for healthcare providers such as doctors, dentists or orthodontists. The power of building a robust patient-nurturing workflow serves to increase engagement, improve care, save staff time and increase your client base.
With just a few simple steps, you can take advantage of powerful tools to be more efficient with your email marketing, getting the right messages to the right people at the right time.
The Seven Steps
1. Set goals
Determine your objectives for your email campaign. Is it to inform patients about new services? To provide appointment reminders to improve attendance? Is it to inform and enhance compliance with treatment recommendations? Is it to improve outreach and bring in new patients? As you identify multiple objectives dependent on the patient type, then you can move to the next step where you will narrow your focus for each group.
2. Target your audience
For each goal, there is an intended target audience. Creating a list of criteria for inclusion into the group helps determine placement. Some patients will belong to the group who receive personalized appointment reminders, while another group gets a newsletter about ongoing care and specials on cosmetic procedures. Sometimes these lists will overlap, and other times they will be separate. This is all part of getting the right information to the right people. Laying the groundwork is a critical piece predicting the future success of your workflow.
3. Map your content
Determine what content you will deliver, what you intend to accomplish with this piece and when you will provide it. Thinking about the examples above, the patient who gets appointment reminders might need them when they set the appointment, a week ahead of time and again the day before the meeting. For the patient receiving your newsletter offering a special on cosmetic procedures, perhaps you want to send the first notice three months before the winter holidays and then again monthly as a reminder before party season begins.
4. Compose emails
Be intentional with the message you send and consider that when you compose the email. For each type of patient, you will focus the content of the message and end with a specific call to action. Perhaps that call to action is for the patient to confirm, cancel or reschedule an appointment. Or, it is a link to learn more about a procedure and an invitation schedule a consultation. Decide here what the message will say, how many times to distribute it and what the desired outcome is.
5. Set workflow rules
You don't want to inundate patients with emails, so carefully setting up rules will prevent this. Workflow rules can specify who receives an email batch and when they receive it, but can also exclude patient groups or certain days or times. If your office is closed on Friday afternoons, you don't want to send an email with a call to action that prompts a patient to schedule via phone and no one is there to respond. Likewise, the patient who has weekly orthodontist visits might lose an important appointment reminder if they are also receiving the email about a cosmetic procedure that they do not qualify for at this time.
6. Go live
After the pre-work is completed, turn the workflow and start collecting data!
7. Analyze and improve
Analyze the data and make changes where needed. Are you meeting the goals? What is your click-through rate? What is your conversion rate? Do you see an improvement in adherence? Watch how the workflow performs and prepare to make changes. Change the subject line, the offer, the frequency or the call to action and analyze the impact.
It’s the 9-1-1 for Marketing 4-1-1
At HARNESS, email workflow is just one of the services we offer to improve your marketing campaigns, expand your business and increase your exposure. Contact us to learn more about creating a patient-nurturing workflow that will help your practice.
Use Inbound Marketing to Turn Leads into Customers
Inbound marketing has revolutionized the industry of marketing through the ease of turning leads into customers. Partnering with outbound marketing, customers and clients are more receptive to the information that pertains specifically to their interests.
Customer Relationship Management
Hubspot offers a free CRM software which tracks contact and company information in detail and with ease. If kayaking is your business, then utilizing the inbound technology to send outbound information will have your prospects paddling their way to your company because of your marketing efforts.
Email Marketing
Once the CRM is in effect, emailing those who inquired about your outdoor products or services is one of the most useful tools used in obtaining leads. According to Hubspot, "A good email is valuable, relevant, expected and integrated." Customize your email to express your business' unique personality and design while appealing to your customer's specific desires.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is a fantastic tool that helps to differentiate contacts that are mildly curious from contacts that want your products or services today. It takes the responses and ranks the potential of which connections to follow-up with first.
Automation
Marketing automation is a mass of information to reach out to potential prospects. When used with the other inbound marketing tools, it can boost the efforts of encouraging candidates to inquire more about the product or service offered. Utilizing the tools of inbound marketing in conjunction with some outbound is a more effective method of turning leads into customers. Prospects won't feel as invaded and welcome the information that is pertinent to them. Market your company with the proper tools toward its highest potential. Contact Harness today for obtaining more information toward your success.
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Hubspot (2016). Free CRM Software for Small Business. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/products/crm
Hubspot (2016). What makes good email marketing. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-resources/email-marketing
Hubspot (2016). Lead Scoring 101: How to Use Data to Calculate a Basic Lead Score. Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/lead-scoring-instructions#sm.000018pfw5o23zelspsh7jp8mi1lq
Hubspot (2016). What is Marketing Automation? Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-automation-information
What is Video Email Marketing?
When you incorporate video into email marketing, you have two mediums that exist in beautiful harmony to help you achieve marketing and sales goals and improve the user experience. Emails help video gain exposure, and video improves click-through rates on your emails and increases audience engagement.
4 Advantages of Using Video in Email Marketing
As you market a product, you want to show the target audience the benefits of your products and services. Before you begin transforming your email marketing, you want to understand the benefits of incorporating video.
- Improved Click-Through Rate. Regardless of the email type--newsletter, follow-up with prospects, automated alert--an email that mentions a video gets 3-4 times more click-throughs than ones that don't.
- Increased engagement. Getting people to your site is nice. Getting them to stay and engage in your content is better. Those who click through to a video spend substantially more time on your site than regular web traffic.
- Finding the right message. Tracking which videos your audience watches and which part they watch will help you deliver better content. If for example, the data shows your target audience prefers how-to videos instead of videos showing the benefits of your products and services, you know what types of videos to do to increase engagement.
- Better insight. The more data you collect, the more effective marketer you will become. Video allows you to collect better data. For example, if the only information you receive is who clicks through, then everyone who clicks through is equal. If, however, the data you receive identifies who clicks through, who clicks through and watches a video, and who clicks through and watches a video multiple times, then you have insight into who in your audience should be given the most attention.
Building an Audience through Email and Video
Before beginning or altering any marketing campaign or method, it is important to have specific, measurable goals, so you know whether the campaign wins or loses. Regardless of specific goals, all marketing campaigns carry the mandate to grow and build engagement with the target audience.
Here are five simple steps using video and email that will grow your audience.
- Compose an email that includes an attractive link to a video on your website
- Send the email to your email subscriber list
- Your audience shares the video or forwards the email
- New viewers discover your engaging content
- Your audience grows
These steps are, of course, contingent on a couple of very important factors. The most important consists of creating engaging, valuable content. If the content is not relevant and engaging to your target audience, then it will not matter how many people you send it to. The second important factor consists of having at least a small engaged email list to send it to, a list that has been created by offering valuable, engaging content to your target audience.
Identifying the Goal of Your Email
What exactly are you trying to do with the email? The most common purpose is to get people to visit your site, consume content, and share content with their sphere of influencers.
If your goal is expanding your audience and encouraging conversions, certain email and video tactics work better than others.
- Tell recipients there's a video. You can mention the video in the email subject line, in the text of the email, or with a video thumbnail that includes a play button. The easier it is for the recipient to see there's a video, the more likely they will engage and click through.
- Choose an enticing thumbnail from the video to show in the email. Friendly faces entice clicks.
- Link the thumbnail to a page on your website. You should have a play button on your thumbnail. The play button will get viewers to click. Clicking on the thumbnail should not play the video. Instead, it should link to a page on your website that contains the video. Unlike a video playing within an email (which can encounter all sorts of technical issues), a video playing on a company website is surrounded by complementary elements that strengthen the company's brand.
- Keep the number of calls-to-action limited. You have a high-quality, engaging video. Your goal is to get people to click on it and watch. Stay focused.
HARNESS is a team of digital marketing innovators with a unique focus on inbound marketing combined with video marketing. Whether as a complement to your content marketing team or as your entire marketing department, HARNESS consistently generates leads and drives sales through engaging marketing content.
Is Email Marketing Still Relevant?
The rapid growth of technology, especially in the digital world, might make it seem like email is on its way out. So, let’s make sure one thing is clear: email is still an essential part of marketing. First, let's address some of the misconceptions people have about email marketing. Many people believe that Email marketing means SPAM. True! The majority of all emails sent are marked as spam, with some sent from marketers like you and me. This happens because some marketers purchases lists and send endless email blasts to people who don't want to hear from them.
People also believe that email marketing is old school. Well, email has been around forever, and people have started to wonder if an email marketing campaign is still effective. Is email like banner ads? Haven’t people learned to tune email out? Let's address the first concern that comes to mind: Is email still effective? Yes! Here are 6 reasons why:
- More than 4.3 billion email accounts are active today. That’s a significant number of people using email on a daily basis, and no other marketing channel has been adopted as universally as email did.
- An overwhelming 95% of online consumers use email. 91% of them report that they check their email at least once a day; Which indicates that email is still a viable channel. Since emails stay in your inbox unless you delete them, it has a longer lifespan than other marketing channels like social media.
- Email is a channel that you OWN. Google and Facebook often change the way they index search results and display content, but you’ll always have a 1:1 relationship with the people that open your emails.
- 77% of consumers prefer email for marketing communications. Contact people where they want to be reached.
- Email is personalized. You can create a highly targeted, contextual message that’s unique to the individual who receives it.
We will still use email because it has an ROI of 4300%. For every $1 you spend, you get $43 of returns. It doesn't better than that! According to the Direct Marketing Association, 76% of marketers say they use email more than they did three years ago. SO how can email marketing help you grow your business? The best part about email is its flexibility. When considering the inbound methodology, email is primarily used to close leads into clients; it can also be used to delight your customers as well and continue the post-purchase customer service. The primary purpose of email marketing is to nurture your leads into clients. Nurturing is all about sending the right content to the right audience at the right time and using the right channel. Send your leads content that will help them do their job better, and they’ll be more willing to speaking to your sales team down the road.
Providing your leads with helpful, relevant content helps you build a relationship. It allows you to position yourself as an expert, ready to help them with their challenges. Inbound is all about the mixture of context and content. If you do it well, your leads will be more likely to interact with you.
TIP: Businesses that implement an inbound strategy recognize that the point of purchase is only the beginning of their relationship with a customer. They use emails to delight people who have already bought their product or service on an ongoing basis. It can be as simple as the occasional check in, or perhaps sending helpful resources and special customer-only content. Attention and care are keys to delight because a happy customer will be your biggest advocate!
Email marketing is also a cost-effective way to nurture the relationship with your customers or prospects. You can strengthen the relationships by upselling new products, or send relevant information ( for example: how to care for your new tool). Customers are less likely to stop using your goods or services if you disappear from their minds.
Why Inbound Marketing
This blog will walk you through you to the culture of inbound, and provide you with a big picture view of everything you need for a successful inbound strategy. So what of the first question that you may be asking yourself is why INBOUND?
To put things into perspective let’s look at traditional marketing and what it offers for a business:
In traditional marketing, companies focus on finding customers: Generally, they use techniques that are interruptive. These techniques could be anything from cold-calling, print advertising, TV commercials, and junk mail.
Technology is making these techniques less effective, impossible to track conversion, and more expensive. Caller ID blocks cold calls, DVR makes TV advertising less effective, and spam filters block mass emails. It's still possible to get a message out using these channels, but it costs a lot more. So, Traditional marketing is interruptive and marketer-centric. The traditional way of doing things is convenient for the marketer because they can push content in people’s faces whenever they want, and even when those potential customers don’t want it. But it’s not an ideal experience for the user – the potential customer. Inbound marketing is the mirror version that. How? Keep on reading.
Inbound is a fundamental shift in the way we do marketing. An inbound methodology is not an interruption- based message where the marketer or salesperson had all the control, instead it’s about EMPOWERING potential customers.
The way it works:
- Instead of interrupting people day with television ads, they might create videos that potential customers want to see. Remember that one time you were looking for a quick solution to a problem like how to remove a stain from a brand new silk shirt? Or how to replace the battery in your mac yourself? Well, the inbound strategy will help you get placed on top search based on those queries.
- Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they could create a business blog that people would look forward to reading.
- instead of cold calling, they create useful content so that prospects can contact them when they want more information.
Inbound marketing focuses on placing you as the expert in your field, where the customer can find you when they need advice or information. It’s like having an expert by your side and you call them when you need them.
Email Marketing Refined
Despite all of the junk mail we receive and delete on a daily basis, email marketing still carries significant ROI. According to an Econsultancy study, two-thirds of marketers rate the ROI from email marketing as ‘excellent’ or ‘good”. Harvard Business Review did an analysis with one retailer and discovered that the dollars earned per email sent was around $15.79 for sales generated both in-store and online. It is somewhat difficult to believe that email works with all of the SPAM out there, but the numbers do not lie. So in order to gain the most benefit from this low-cost medium, we have created a few tips to refine your email marketing:
Send emails to the right users - (and customer/prospect segments) at just the right time in the purchase cycle. It’s a sophisticated way to scale personal attention. The key to successful marketing automation is technology. Rely on tools and data (rather than a spreadsheet) to reach your email list successfully. The biggest players in the space include MailChimp, InfusionSoft, Marketo, and Hubspot.
Understand Customer Needs - Customers have more tools than ever to filter out unwanted messaging with priority inboxes. Implement an opt-in process — a series of steps that subscribers can take to ensure that they’re receiving your emails. Perhaps include a freebie, piece of content, or promotion/deal that they’ll receive in exchange.
Using a 2-step opt-in means that you will get less bargain hunters merely looking for the freebie and more qualified leads that are interested enough to go through the steps to receive your content.
Complete the Customer Experience - Always create a plan or outline for your email marketing campaigns — make sure that your messages follow a strategic approach. You need to specify a clear conversion goal from your email marketing automation. You also need to ensure that your landing pages are fully optimized for the actions you want users to take.
Here are some tips to help you:
- Don’t use misleading subject lines - make sure they are short, sweet, and a little enchanting
- Avoid overusing capital letters within your email and in the subject lines
- Be smart about symbols - if you use too many, your emails will look totally spammy
- Use clear, concise messaging with a single call-to-action
- Include unsubscribe links - this, as well as a physical address is mandatory per regulations
Metrics
Total Open Rate
This is calculated by taking the total number of email opens and dividing them by the number of delivered emails.
Total Clicks
These measure clicks generated from each campaign. Following up on these within 48 hours is critical for top-of-mind conversions
Total Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Divide the total number of clicks by the number of delivered emails
Conversions, Conversion Rates, and Revenue
These are metrics that you should be tracking across your marketing channels - these can be measured by using a tracking pixel and UTM links in your campaigns
Email, like any marketing medium, must be used as a tool in part of a larger campaign in order to achieve real results. At HARNESS, we create the strategy and implement an omnichannel integrated campaign with full marketing automation to schedule, track, and deliver qualified leads from first engagement to after-sale service.
