Chris Kammer, DDS
Editor of The Advertising Dentist newsletter

The Future of Advertising: E-mail Marketing
Start your practice's e-mail marketing campaign today!

With the expected explosion of e-mail marketing, now is the time to get started on your practice's e-mail marketing campaign. In today's market, e-mail is a great tool to communicate with your patients on a regular basis as well as strengthen your existing relationships. When utilized correctly, e-mail marketing can keep your name, office events, upcoming special offers and even important dental information in front of your patients.

E-mail marketing can definitely enhance patient communication with your dental office. The first step in creating this type of program is to start collecting the e-mail addresses of all your patients and consultants. To make this process easier, make room on your patient info form for an e-mail address field, and give all your new patients an opportunity to simply check a box that states, "check here to receive more information", which will give you permission to send them e-mails.

The e-mail message you send to your patient base can be as simple as a few lines of text or as intricate and detailed as an e-newsletter. You can even feature other specialties like plastic surgeons or health spas in your local area. They may even be willing to write short articles for your e-newsletter in order to get their name and information in front of your patients. Plus, there is an even greater benefit if these same experts give you their client's e-mail addresses so your e-mail message can be sent to them as well.

Remember, always include your practice's promotional message because most likely, these specialists will want to send their feature e-newsletter articles to their clients. And to your benefit, now your health and beauty e-newsletter appears to be endorsed by other businesses.

After you begin this process, you will probably have collected thousands of e-mail addresses. And at this point, you will have done far better than what a professional company would supply you with in regards to the compilation of a list of prospects' addresses in your area who are interested in health and beauty. But you also have written permission from your desired audience to e-mail them again and again.

In any e-newsletter you send, always make sure to include a clickable link that will send people directly to your Web site so they can learn more about your practice. A note of caution: always give your e-mail recipients a chance to unsubscribe to your e-newsletter so you can avoid potential issues that may arise from unwanted e-mails.

In order to get people excited about upcoming e-newsletter issues, make sure each one contains an unbelievably great offer (usually from a featured specialist). If these offers are extremely valuable, not only will you have people looking forward to your e-newsletters, but they will also be more likely to pass it along to their friends.

For example, imagine how appreciative your patients would be if you sent out a promotion announcing an unplanned opening in the following day's hygiene schedule and that you were allowing them to snatch a 15% "quick call" discount? (Be sure to comply with any regulation or requirement of your State Board of Dentistry about giving complete information about the fee when offering a discount.) Or, how about announcing upcoming, fun activities such as a carnival for kids held in the parking lot of your dental practice? You know the kids won't want to miss that. Or maybe you can send out an e-mail invitation asking your patients to come to public events or ceremonies you plan on attending. Recently, we invited patients to join us at the county's "Small Business Awards Ceremony," which turned out to be a great way to let them know we had won the award.

Putting together an entire e-newsletter can be time consuming, but that shouldn't stop you from at least collecting e-mail addresses. Doing patient appointment reminders via e-mail or sending patients electronic birthday cards can be especially timely and thoughtful, not to mention cost-effective. Compiling a list of your patients' e-mail addresses is just one extra step you can take towards opening up the lines of communication between you and your patients.

The age of electronic of communication in dentistry is upon us. If you're not currently sending out e-newsletters to your patients, you are missing out on an inexpensive method that can definitely aid in building relationships with your existing and new patients. Start your e-mail marketing campaigns immediately—your window of opportunity is open now!