1 Feb 2016
Jeanne Pelletier
Job Title
Helping you reach out to both current and potential customers on a regular basis, e-newsletters are a great way of keeping your practice fresh in their minds.
You can use them to educate owners about pet health care, promote your practice and bring traffic to your website and social media. Done well they offer many benefits, and this article outlines nine golden rules you should bear in mind to ensure they achieve the outcome you intended:
The primary reason to send out e-newsletters is to build trust and connection with current and potential clients. Sending emails to people with no pets, clients who may have stopped using your services years ago, or a pre-purchased list is not only a waste of time, it actively undermines those goals.
What is your first response when you get an unsolicited or irrelevant email from someone you don’t know? You delete it or send it to junk mail. Many countries, including Australia, have antispam laws preventing the sending of unsolicited commercial email, so it is important to make sure your policies comply fully with the law.
Opting in can be as simple as checking a box on an intake form or a sign-up form on your website. You need to be sure you’re focusing on people who are receptive to your message.
Many first-time newsletter writers are tempted to simply send e-newsletters out through their practice management software, or a free mailing list program built into their website. The problem with these approaches are they do not usually accommodate features needed to make sure your email gets through to the intended recipients.
Bulk email is a great way to reach people who want to hear your message, but is also the province of spammers, so it is essential you adhere to email marketing standards to avoid having your message filtered or blocked altogether.
All e-newsletters must be comprise three essential components:
There are a number of excellent online newsletter platforms to choose from, including Constant Contact and MailChimp, which are two of the better-known platforms. These services also have several other advantages, allowing you to create visually appealing emails easily, and tracking opens and clicks.
Who are you trying to reach and what do you want to accomplish? Are you trying to reach new pet owners in your area? Referring veterinarians? Current clients? Each of these audiences has a different focus and needs a different slant to the message. Even if you use the same basic content, you’ll want to adapt it for your audience. Commercial e-newsletter platforms allow you to have multiple lists or split your mailing list by sector, so sending target-appropriate messages can be done easily. This is a case where one size does not fit all.
Your subject line may be the most important words you write in your e-newsletter, since it often makes the difference between it being read or sent to the trash. Keep it short, but indicative of the content. Avoid teasers such as “You won’t believe THIS!” or spammy, promotional subjects.
Most people don’t read long emails, so the 900-word article you’ve sent about puppy care will probably warrant no more than a cursory glance. Keep your newsletter to around 300 to 500 words, include plenty of white space, and use images and graphics to enhance your message.
Your goal is to encourage the reader to perform an action: go to your website, make an appointment, come to an event or read a blog post.
Short and simple is even more important when you consider approximately 53% of emails are now read on a mobile device. For younger or more tech-savvy audiences, the percentage could be considerably higher. Readers on smartphones are unlikely to read long, dense articles.
Be brief, and link back to your blog or website for longer articles.
What do you want your readers to do? Make an appointment? Check their dogs for ticks? Refer a client to your emergency services? Every e-newsletter should lead the reader to do something. Being clear about what that is allows you to structure your newsletter to encourage those actions.
For example, If you want potential clients to bring a pet in for a dental cleaning, you’ll do much better with an arresting photograph, short text and a prominent clickable button that takes them to a page where they can make an appointment (and maybe even claim an introductory offer) than with a long article about dental care for dogs. Your reader should be able to understand your message within a few seconds, and understand the next steps to learn more.
Too many links and items dilute your message, especially if they are on completely different subjects. If you find yourself with several primary messages at once, consider paring it to one message at a time, and sending your newsletter a little more often. It’s fine to have a couple of links to other information, so long as there is only one main focus.
People don’t want unsolicited advertising in their already overloaded inbox. Your focus should be 90% educational and 10% promotional. E-newsletters that inform readers about relevant news and events provide added value.
The best way to know whether your message is effective is to measure it. You should be able to see how many people opened your email, how many clicked a link for more information, how many emails were returned or refused because of errors or other issues, and how many people unsubscribed.
During September 2015, according to Constant Contact, in the animal services sector 22.7% of emails sent were actually opened, so it follows approximately one in five people on your mailing list will read any given message. On average, 7.28% will actually click on a link for more information. Make sure you read your statistics every time and use them to guide your future efforts.
E-newsletters take effort and planning, but if you follow these simple rules, they can be an effective addition to your digital marketing arsenal. The connections you build with customers can keep them with you for years to come.
