Rehab Therapy Patient Emails: 6 Tips for Improving Open and Click Rates

Whether they take the form of newsletters, event announcements, or clinic updates, marketing emails are created as a strategic combination of text and images. The most effective ones are concise, well-designed, clearly written, and function (in both appearance and functionality) on all types of devices.

Such emails help rehab therapy practices engage with their communities in an effort to remain top of mind with past and potential clients. Marketing newsletters do this by providing readers with updates, information and news related to clinic changes, programming, staffing, events, new products or services, and general health information.

Learn more about Patient Engagement Marketing

But, there’s a discernible difference between having a regular email campaign and ensuring your campaign is most effective. Your email is battling for space on your consumer’s proverbial inbox “shelf,” so it needs to stand out.

Below are a few simple tips for cleaning up your existing email design or, if you are not currently sending email updates, beginning a new campaign:

1. Spend Time on the Subject Line

Writing a quality subject line for your email newsletter should never be an afterthought. Spend time crafting unique subject lines for each newsletter that grab your readers’ attention by establishing relevance and/or creating some level of urgency.

Keep in mind that the email’s subject line will be the first impression recipients have of your email, so don’t cash it in. Give readers a sense of why they should open the email in the first place.

2. Be Known for Quality and Brevity

This will keep readers opening the emails you send. If they know they won’t have to slog through a 2,000-word essay in order to get the gist of your message(s), readers will be more receptive to your emails. It’s human nature.

Knowing this, pique the readers’ interests in your email, then send them to your website for the full story. Getting more web traffic is really the point, anyway.

With this in mind, if you are pushing out news that readers can find elsewhere, try posting a fresh spin about the topic on your blog, then point readers to that.

3. Add More Links

There is a fine balance between too few and too many links. Too few is zero to one link. Too many depends on the length of your email. You don’t want it looking like a Wikipedia article, but you want several links to your website or social media accounts sprinkled throughout the email.

Think of each link you include in your email as its own call to action. As such, be sure that when you include a link, it’s there to accomplish a specific and meaningful goal. This may include generating web traffic, taking readers to specific info or social media pages, or guiding them to a landing page form.

4. Don’t Just Rely on Image Links

Email apps (like Gmail and Outlook) may block images – something to keep in mind when utilizing images as links. If the goal of your email is to send readers to your website, don’t leave it to chance by making an image your only link in that direction.

I know “Click Here” buttons are attention-grabbers, but can also be blocked, leaving your reader with a blank spot that would have taken them to buy something or join an event. See my next tip for a better strategy.

5. Link Everything In Your Email

Leave no image unlinked. Why? The images take up space, so make the most of them!

A good portion of your readers will be moving their mouse or finger around their screens, looking for links of interest to click, so it’s good practice to accommodate them.

6. Test for Best Practices

And finally, if you’re up for it, try an A/B Split Test. This option allows you to send two nearly identical versions of your email so you can compare how each performs.

Version A would be your original email, and Version B would have either a wording change (probably the subject) or an image change. A/B Testing is a great way to see statistics on what approaches work best for your audience, allowing you to make small adjustments over time.

Patient Engagement Marketing

Regardless of the style and frequency of your email marketing, kudos for taking advantage of one of our most valuable tools for staying top of mind with future, current and past patients!

Whether you realize it or not, such patient engagement efforts not only help bring people to your clinic’s door, but they can also be utilized for reducing no-shows and cancellations while helping ensure more patients complete their plans of care (POCs).

But, email is only one of many tools we can be using to attract patients, secure total POC buy-in, improve patient outcomes, and optimize online reputation.

To learn more about Patient Engagement Marketing at Net Health, contact us today and we’d be happy to schedule a demo with you.