Amazon’s Dirty Little Secret - WebStores LtdEmail Secrets for Medical Practitioners Considerations...

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email SECRETSfor Medical Practitioners

Email Secrets for Medical Practitioners

Considerations for Care Givers

Email Challenges

Best Practices

Email Solutions

Permission Based Marketing

Reasons to use email

Increasingly mobile patient population

Everyone is busy

Easy access to computer devices

Changing expectations

Legal Issues

Was the email received?

Was it read?

Was it sent to the right person?

Did anyone else have access to the email?

Was there a response?

Have you placed a copy in the patient’s file?

Remember, you are leaving a time stamp!

Imagine if…

You send a confidential email to the

wrong patient

Patient receives email from you which

you did not send

Email you sent is intercepted and

distributed

Consent

Agreement from patient that it can be

used

Must be included in patient record

Guidelines for Use

Develop an email policy

Get the patient’s consent

What is appropriate

Booking of non-urgent appointments

Send emails with good health tips

Quality / awareness information

Offer for free check-ups

Professional communications

Email between colleagues – referral

letters, consultation requests, digital

images?

The use of Text messages (Short

Messaging Service)

Receiving updates, alerts and news

bulletins on your phone

Email can be very useful in a

medical practice, however:

Requires thoughtful planning

Solid office practices

Secure email for communication of

sensitive patient information

Today’s Email marketing challenges

Challenge #1: New Communication Channels

YouTube

LinkedIn

Facebook / Facebook messaging

Twitter

Texting

Challenge #2: Portable Inboxes

Challenge #3: Inbox Overload

Challenge #4: Overcoming Spam

Approximately 5 million spam-sending botnets worldwide.

On average, a single botnet sends 77 emails per minute.

88% of all spam is sent from botnets.

70 spam emails received by the average web user each

day (McAfee)

Challenge #5: Spam filters

One-third of permission e-mails that consumers want to

receive from trusted sources are being blocked by e-mail

filters and corporate firewalls

Challenge #6: Image blocking

Challenge #7: HTML emails

HTML doesn’t render consistently

Challenge #8: Declining Click-thru Rates

Does that mean email is dead?

Does that mean email is dead?

Does that mean email is dead?

Does that mean email is dead?

“58% of people start their online day by reading emails”- ExactTarget’s Email X-Factor Study, 2010

“the dominance of email activity on mobile devices increased from 37.4% to 41.6% of US mobile Internet time”- the Nielsen company

1 in 4 shoppers visit sites because of promotional emails.

Email will evolve

Email continues to be a very strong commercial channel

Marketers are still not very good at email marketing

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

Target your subscribers

Automate

Integrate email with social

TEST

Encourage click-throughs

Keep list current

Optimize for mobile

Personalize your emails

Consider how often and when to send

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

Spray & Pray is dead

Get to know your subscribers

Build subscriber personas

Targeting customers based on their past purchases is

one of the simplest and most effective ways to

increase your sales.

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

Best Practices for 2012 & beyond

Automate as much as you can

Send out a “thank you” after they subscribe

Weekly tips

Multi-part newsletter series

Birthday messages

Event management

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

Integrate email with social

Target social media users with exclusive content and

ask them to share it.

Office Max Elf Yourself

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

TEST, TEST, TEST!

Subject Lines

Layouts

Calls-to-Action

Landing Pages

Rendering

Subject Lines

The BEST Email Subject Lines contain one or more of these elements:

Short Subject Lines

Controversial Headlines

A Keyword Phrase

Numbers and Counts

Actionable Subject Lines

Timely or Urgent

The “Classics”

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

Encourage click-throughs(Would you like to sample one of our products?)

Include a P.S.

Create a sense of urgency.

Best Practices for 2012 & beyond

Examples of great emails

Best Practices for 2012 & beyond

Examples of great emails

Best Practices for 2012 & beyond

Examples of great emails

Best Practices for 2012 & beyond

Best Practices for 2012 & beyond

Examples of great emails

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

Keep your list current

25% of your house email list will expire every year as

readers switch jobs, email providers, or unsubscribe from

email

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

Simple text versus HTML emails

(mobile / preview panel)

70 million US consumers

access email through their

mobile device and check it

an average of 4x/day.

HTML Emails

A recent report from eROI, revealed that more than 1/3 or about 38% of marketers don’t test their how their email campaigns appear across different email clients and browsers.

There is nothing worse than creating a well constructed HTML email message that rendered perfectly in your web browser only to find it mangled when viewed by customers with a Gmail, AOL or Hotmail account.

Design Tips for HTML email 1. Use tables for layout. Tables are more consistently supported than div

tags. Use simple layouts – not nested tables. Set tables to a maximum width of 600px.

2. Don’t use images for important content like calls to action, headlines and links to your web site. Outlook, Gmail and others turn images off until allowed by the user. If your entire email is graphical, all your recipients are going to see is a lot of broken images.

3. Do not use external or embedded style sheets. You can use in-line style tags.

4. Do not use javascript.

5. Do not use embedded video. Most popular web-based email clients –Yahoo!, Gmail and Hotmail are choosing to disable HTML video from playing. So play it safe and link to a web based player.

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

Personalize the subject

Sign your emails

Emails should come from a real person (NOT info@)Dear Dianne,

Paradiso and Rasamayi’s collaborative debut 3rd Eye

Rising, was voted in the top 5 of 2011’s meditation and

relaxation CDs by industry professionals. Paradiso is a

master didjeridoo artist who has been billed along side

metaphysical and musical luminaries including … (click to

read rest of article)

Regards,

Greg Jameson

Best Practices for 2014 & beyond

Dear Dianne,

Paradiso and Rasamayi’s collaborative debut 3rd Eye

Rising, was voted in the top 5 of 2011’s meditation and

relaxation CDs by industry professionals. Paradiso is a

master didjeridoo artist who has been billed along side

metaphysical and musical luminaries including … (click to

read rest of article)

Regards,

Greg Jameson

Send text messages to cell phones via email

AT&T – cellnumber@txt.att.net

Verizon – cellnumber@vtext.com

T-Mobile – cellnumber@tmomail.net

Sprint PCS - cellnumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com

Virgin Mobile – cellnumber@vmobl.com

US Cellular – cellnumber@email.uscc.net

Nextel - cellnumber@messaging.nextel.com

Boost - cellnumber@myboostmobile.com

Alltel – cellnumber@message.alltel.com

Alternatively, use a mass texting platform like

www.eztexting.com

Frequency of Emails

The more emails you send, the lower your CTR gets. But

the difference percentage is relatively low.

Click Through Rates

Best Day to Send

Best Day to Send

Best Day to Send

Types of email solutions

Built in / Plug-ins

Usually limited functionality, ISP restrictions, free

3rd party ESP’s (Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, Top Right)

Monthly charge, restrictive

Stand-alone software (Atomic Mail Sender, SendBlaster)

One time charge, unlimited emails, hands-on control

3rd Party Email Service Providers

Constant Contact

iContact

Mail Chimp

aWeber

Vertical Response

Campaigner

Stream Send

Top Right (Yahoo Stores / integrates with sales and customer

data)

Email Marketing Software

Atomic Mail Sender (79.95)

SendBlaster (129.95)

Email Marketing Director

GroupMail

Handymailer

e-Campaign

WorldCast

MultiEmail

Contact Management Features

Import Mailing List

Remove Unsubscribed Contacts

Group Email Contacts

Custom Demographic Fields

Automatically Detect Duplicate Emails

Require Opt-in

Contact Management Features

Email Creation FeaturesAdd Images

Add Hyperlinks

Basic Formatting

Create Plain-Text Messages

Create HTML Messages

Create Messages from Template

View HTML Source Code

Add Email Footer

Create Web Forms

Create Auto Response

Email Setup Wizard

Image Hosting

Stand-alone Email Marketing Software

Additional Email Creation Features:

Attachments

Embedded images

Direct Send mode

Email Sending Features

– Email Job Scheduling

– SPAM Test

– Test Email

– Email Aliases Creation

Email Reporting Features

– Opened Emails

– Forwarded Emails

– Bounced Emails

– View Unsubscribed Contacts

– Export/Download Reports

– Click-Through Tracking

– Delivered/Undeliverable

– Compare Message Reports

Email Reporting Features

Autoresponder

An autoresponder fires off an email to a subscriber automatically.

A single autoresponder is most common - this typically just replies to a subscriber when they sign up.

A sequential autoresponder is a little more advanced and allows you to schedule a series of predefined emails to be sent out on a specified schedule.

A/B Testing (Split Testing)

An Internet marketing technique that lets you test and see

which elements of your email newsletter: text, graphics,

design or layout, can be improved to increase your

newsletter's success rate.

Trigger-based messaging

Lets you send messages based on your subscriber's actions.

They offer a more personalized interaction with your subscribers.

Examples of trigger-based messages include a welcome email, a "happy birthday" message, a reminder to renew a subscription, a note that a new version of a product is available, a "we miss you " note to a subscriber that hasn't opened a newsletter in a while, etc.

Trigger-based messaging

List Segmentation

Send messages to subsets of your subscriber base to help establish a stronger connection via more relevant newsletters.

You have the option of resending messages to subscribers who didn't open or respond the first time.

Finally, you can target subsets of your subscriber base and mail out promotions and offers based on demographics, purchasing history, geographic location, and more.

AttachmentsMost ESP's do not allow attachments for a simple

reason - they increase the probability of a given message being viewed as spam (as a result, the ESP (and your) delivery rates may be affected.

You're better of using inline links in your newsletter email, which you can then link to a hosted file.

When the user clicks the link, they are given the option to download the file. Not as streamlined as an email attachment, but close.

Spam Score/Checking

Finding out whether your subscribers actually got your

email is important. If they didn't, why not? Some ESP's offer

spam score utilities that help you determine the likelihood

of your newsletter ending up in a spam box before you hit

send.

Newsletter Archiving

The ability to save, or archive, your old newsletters. ESP's differ in the way they handle this feature.

Some offer you to back up a certain quantity or volume of newsletters on their servers.

Others offer export options that convert your newsletters into PDF or HTML files so you can download them and/or store them on your website.

There is an SEO advantage to archiving your own newsletters (DIY).

Permission-based marketing

Where do you get emails?

Site registration (opt-in/double opt-in)

In-store acquisition

Online purchases

Joint Ventures (email on your behalf)

List purchase / rental

WebinarsThirty two percent of

marketers never track the

performance of their email

names by source.

CANSPAM Act

Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and

Marketing

Passed in 2003

What you can’t do!

Deceptive email headers

Deceptive subject lines

Not give opt-out

Not provide your physical mailing address

Make multiple accounts to send email

Send fraudulent, obscene, or child porn

What you can do!

Email people without permission (as long as not

dictionary style list)

Send multiple emails until someone opts out

Send commercial email

However, some email service providers may still blacklist

you for sending unsolicited emails.

Recap

Use simple text only emails If using images, make sure they are not critical to the

message Encourage click-throughs Personalize your emails Test multiple versions of the email such as subject line

and length Send emails mid-day on Wednesdays Segment your subscribers Use auto-responders Keep list current, regardless of how you capture emails

Conclusion

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