INTRODUCTION
An e-newsletter is a regularly scheduled publication sent to a hospital’s stakeholders, such as patients, donors, community leaders and volunteers. As a result, an e-newsletter is a tool for customer retention, not customer acquisition.
Healthcare newsletters are an effective way to stay top-of-mind with recipients. They also can demonstrate how your hospital is a fixture of the community.
HOW TO SET UP A HEALTHCARE NEWSLETTER
You should use MailChimp over other email marketing platforms such as Constant Contact and Vertical Response for its ease-of-use, lower cost and integration with other programs, including CRMs.
After you’ve imported your contacts—remember, because email marketing is a form of permission-based marketing, these contacts must provide consent to be added to your list—you should segregate them, for example, by their relationship to your hospital. That way you can tailor your messages to each subscriber subset.
For your e-newsletter design, you can either modify existing templates, or you can upload your own custom HTML design. Set up blocks for 3-4 short articles and at least 1-2 graphics.
HOW TO CREATE RELEVANT NEWSLETTER CONTENT
First, you need to give your audiences a reason to subscribe to your newsletter. Make the promise of relevant, timely information, and be up front on the frequency of your emails (e.g. weekly or monthly).
Here are some topic ideas:
- Humanize your hospital (e.g. write bios of physicians and staff).
- Promote events (e.g. flu shots).
- Share case studies and good deeds.
- Educate on national health concerns (e.g. Zika virus).
- Be transparent (e.g. report on the operations of the hospital).