I’ve been saying it for years, like here, here and here, but never has it been more obvious than now. It’s critical that you grow your email database for future email marketing. And in these pandemic times when patient activity may be down, you need a way to communicate with current and future patients and drive new business.
Grow your email database
Sure, you can pay for advertising during this potential economic slowdown to let the public know you’re still open for business. But patients may be more reluctant to come in for a non-surgical or surgical procedure. Which means you’ll need to advertise more aggressively to capture the folks that are interested. But is that really what you want to do now? Increase your expenses with costly advertising? I mean, you potentially have fewer patients coming in, less revenue, belt tightening…so you’re gonna increase your spending during a time of less cash flow? No, of course not.
That’s why, moving forward, you need to grow your email database during the good times. Remember the Ant and the Grasshopper? In one of Aesop’s classic fables, the grasshopper sings the summer away and the ant stores up for the winter. And what happens when winter comes? The grasshopper is SOL and the ant is well prepared. In this analogy, the business that has built their email database over time will be able to market to their email database at a much lower cost than traditional advertising, especially when funds are tight. Have you seen how cheap email marketing is lately?! You just need a robust email database to utilize its power.
Building a robust email database
Be well prepared for the next crisis or economic slowdown, recession or whatever they call it at the time. To do that, ensure that all marketing efforts are focused on generating leads, Regardless of where they are in the sales funnel. By collecting names, email addresses and phone numbers, you’ll build your email database for future email marketing. So how can you do a better job capturing leads? Give the patient something they want.
Instead of offering a patient an ebook in exchange for their contact info, or the opportunity to sign up for your lame email newsletter, give them pricing! That’s right, allow them to check pricing on a service or procedure they’re considering, but only after they enter their contact information! Just like this doctor, this doctor and this doctor do it with a Price Estimator.
By providing the consumer with a really tantalizing call to action button, like Get A Quote Now, you’ll capture more of the traffic on your website or social media page. And you get a better return on your marketing dollars. And when that next black swan event occurs, you’ll be prepared! So what are you waiting for, go grow your email database!
