What is the best small business email marketing service?

A very good question - and one that we get all the time. 


An active email list is a great communication and marketing tool for small business. Not only can you email appointment reminders but you can send additional emails throughout the year to stay in contact with your patients or customers (and keep your business on the top of their mind.) Email marketing has been a popular and important marketing tool for the last 10 years and is a great way for your company to interact with customers and get your message heard. Most email marketing services will provide you with analytics so you can see what types of emails your customers like the most. You could try sending surveys, electronic birthday cards, an e- newsletter, Tips and Tricks, product reviews, or interesting news stories relevant to your industry. 

Ok, I get it, email marketing is great... but what is the best small business email marketing service? 

Constant Contact seems to be the leader in small business email marketing and is easy to use and relatively inexpensive. Your usage fees will vary with the size of your email list. With the service, Constant Contact helps your manage the email list and offers reports on open rates, click throughs, links, and social sharing stats so you can see how your content is shared on Facebook, Twitter, etc. 

Mail Chimp is another great email marketing service and you can send 6,000 emails a month (to a 1,000 person mailing list) for free! Mail Chimp also offers a list manager, open rate and click through analytics, as well as seasonal templates to give your emails a warm, festive touch.

Mail Chimp holiday email templates 

Need help getting started with an email marketing campaign?  Got a favorite email marketing service? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

-Sarah

Marketing Revolution Contest

What you will win:

An hour long Marketing Revolution session with me, Sarah Nelson. In this session I’ll help breakdown your biggest marketing challenge and determine 5 leverage points for you. After we decide those things, I will put them into a customized marketing strategy just for you. 

How to Win:

Write one paragraph about your biggest marketing challenge and post it on your blog, or facebook with a link back to http://practicemarketingrevolution.blogspot.com 

Then email mrktngrevolution@gmail.com with your entry, OR just email your entry to mrktngrevolution@gmail.com

Contest Rules:

Three winners will be chosen at random on 12/9/10. You’ll be contacted by me to schedule your session right away.

Email me with any questions! I look forward to hearing from you!

- Sarah 

Awkward Facebook Situations

With more users than the population on the US (550 million users) Facebook is an amazing tool, but its ease of information sharing can cause some really awkward situations for its users. This morning, I woke up to a gentle reminder of Facebook’s power over my relationships.

My boyfriend and I have decided to spend Christmas together, apart from our families, and are planning a holiday trip to Panama. We’ll be meeting up with several friends and today, my mom found out about the trip through a friend’s Facebook post. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal except I hadn’t had the chance to tell her about the trip. Now, I feel terribly guilty that I didn’t get to tell my mom properly that I’d be missing a family event. 

If you have a personal or brand Facebook page, make sure you stay engaged with it. Monitor your connections and remember that they are tighter than ever.  Anything you, or anyone else posts about you or your brand on Facebook is in the public domain. 

Have you had any awkward situations thanks to Facebook? Share your stories in the comments; I’d love to hear from you.

-Sarah

Looking for a great digital marketing strategy? The Practice Marketing Revolution can help! Email sarah@npressnewsletter.com today. 

Why I love Listorious

I’ve recently started using an awesome Twitter tool called Listorious. I love it so much that I want to share it with you. 

Twitter Lists

If you aren’t using Twitter lists yet, I highly recommend that you take some time to explore them. Twitter Lists are a feature of Twitter that allow you to organize the people you’re following on Twitter, or find new people. They offer a way for you to bunch together users (or patients, friends, etc) on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they’re up to. When you create a list, you see a stream of the latest tweets from a specified set of users. For example, you might consider making a list of your patients, local businesses you like, or people in your community. By viewing or following this list, you easily see what all of patients or people in your community are tweeting about. 

Now... onto Listorious 

Listorious is a third-party site that has a categorized directory of Twitter lists. Basically, its taken all the great lists that Twitter users have created and made them available to you in one place! You can search or browse through lists by category or find the most popular lists. 

Below is a sample of a search for dentists in the Listorious directory: 

I use Listorious as a targeted search tool to find health care organizations who are using Twitter. I also look at the list streams to see what popular topics are, who the key influencers are, and to find people who might fit my audience. 

Listorious has lists for almost every topic, region, or profession so you can use it to find prospective patients, who are people talking to, what they are talking about about or what are they retweeting.

Start by asking yourself: Who do you want to reach on Twitter? Be specific and enjoy the search! 

Got Twitter questions? Need help creating a Twitter List? Email me 

-Sarah Nelson

How FarmVille Teaches You To Be A Better Marketer

If you have a Facebook page, you’ve probably had a friend’s FarmVille update streamed across your newsfeed or maybe you play FarmVille yourself. This popular online game boasts 85 million active accounts and has been advertising in real life (IRL) through a partnership with 7-11.

Today, I just "hid” a friend on my Facebook newsfeed. I like the guy and all but he was sending FarmVille updates 20 times a day - super annoying.  I really don’t care how many virtual lettuce patches you just harvested or how many pigs you have. 

However, it did make me think about how many social media posts/tweets are enough to reach our target patients ... or when does it feel like too much? You certainly don’t want your practice to be “that annoying Farmville guy.”

You have to know where your audience is, and where you need to reach them in the locations they like to be reached. If you are able to engage regularly with patients on Facebook, that is a great place to be. If you feel all alone in the Twitterverse, you may want to ask your patients what social networks they like, and meet them (and others like them) there. 

As to how often you should reach your patients, that’s totally dependent on them – If I start to see people unfollowing, or not replying, I know to back off. The thing that makes social media different from all types of media before is the INTERACTION. Social media is not a platform for broadcast but of genuine interaction with others.  Treat your social networks like you would a cocktail party. If you only talk about yourself, eventually, you will be talking TO yourself. If people stop conversing with you or "hide" your posts and updates, they will miss all the good stuff you have to say.  I believe that in social media, you always want to UNDER-push than OVER-push.

How often do you interact with your patients? Let me know in the comments! 

- Sarah 

5 Easy Ways to Use the i-pad for Health Care Marketing

The i-pad has been on my mind a lot lately. Not just because I was just in the store playing with one, or in the first month they sold over 1 million units, but because I think they could be an excellent tool in health care marketing.  

Let’s take a look at five ways you can spark interaction with your patient that increases engagement by using an i-pad.

1. Load it with before and after pictures, articles, and testimonials.
2. Make your social media pages available so patients can "check in" at your practice on social location sites (Gowalla, Foursquare, etc). 
3. Create a referral program so patients can email an invitation from your practice to their friends while they are still in your office.
4. Show educational videos to your patients when explaining treatment or while they wait. 
5. Present treatment using the i-pad to show mock ups, design, or function. 

What am I missing? How would you use an i-pad in your practice? 

Does your practice's online reputation matter?

Absolutely!  It’s one of the first steps to earning trust and building a relationship with new patients. For most new patients, a google search of your practice is their first impression. In fact, a recent Pew Research Center Project study showed that 44% of online adults say they have searched online for information about someone whose care or services they seek in a professional provider, like a doctor, dentist, or chiropractor. 

If you haven’t recently done a search for your practice, yourself, or the names of your key staff or care givers, now might be a good time to do it.

Here's what to do:

* Start your search with Google, Bing, and Yahoo, yelp.com, and Angie's List.

* Document sentiment, practice brand mentions, and patient concerns

* Share feed back with your team 

* Decide follow up strategy as needed 

You can also use some of these free tools to search for your practice and find real time results in social networks, blogs, and forums. 

Remember, its often the patients who never give you feedback that can be the most vocal online. Take some to see what your current reputation is and identify areas for improvement.  

- Sarah 

Defining Your Practice Brand Through Social Media Profiles

I sat down with an awesome dentist last week for a coffee and a chat about marketing. He’s getting started with a social media strategy and like most of us, has a lot of questions on how to balance his personal life and practice brand. We talked about the importance of great, friendly looking headshots and the ongoing WOW experience that we try to create for patients within the practice.

We also talked about creating our social media profiles and I want to share a few of those ideas with you here today.

Like a first impression at your front desk, your username and profile can speak volumes about your practice. Many people, (myself included at one time), view creating an online profile as something to check off the “to do” list without stopping to think of the impact it will have on their business and brand.

Your profile or bios provide windows that let people know how you want to be viewed and insight to your core values and the values of your practice. Your profile should let people get to know you before they step foot in your office or call to book an appointment. Your profile helps you build rapport with existing patients, and can attract people to you who are looking for the services and care you offer.

Before you get started with social media, take some time to think about your personal brand and the brand of your practice. Be yourself, be helpful, and if need be, make multiple accounts for your practice and yourself.

Need some help choosing the best profile photo for you? Let the world choose your photo!

Twenty-somethings Prefer Texting to Calling

“I’m not trying to cause a big sensation, I’m just talkin’ bout my generation.” – The Who

Cell-phone texting has become the preferred channel of basic communication between twenty-somethings and their friends. A recent Npress survey of 300 Americans in their twenties showed that 94% say they sent and received text messages daily in April 2010.

Among those texters today:

• 17% send 100+ text messages a day, or more than 3,000 messages a month.
• 14% send 50+ text messages a day, or more than 1,500 a month. 

Most people in their 20s send 11-20 text messages per day.

Among twenty somethings, texting is used for multitude reasons, including communicating with friends and family (88%), managing work projects (59%), and coordinating meetings and plans (85%).

Calling is still a central function of the cell phone for people in their twenties, but they typically make and receive five- seven calls a day—far fewer than text messages.

Beyond text messaging and voice calling, twenty somethings who have multipurpose phones say they use many of the extra features. Among the most popular are email use (83%) and taking pictures (54%).

Bottom Line: Generation Y is 76 million strong and flooding the workforce. If you want to fill your practice with these young professionals and earn their trust and loyalty, you have to reach them where they are.

Have ideas on how to connect with your Gen Y patients? Share them here!

 

-Sarah

Looking for a great digital marketing strategy? The Practice Marketing Revolution can help! Email sarah@npressnewsletter.com today!

11 Tools to Discover What Your Patients Really Want

Listening to your patients and learning to meet their needs are keys to growing your practice and creating an effective marketing plan. In fact, not doing so handicaps the overall reach and effectiveness of your marketing, communications, and service strategies.

Luckily, there are a variety of interactive media tools that provide platforms for listening to an ever growing sample of patients. These monitoring tools offer doctors opportunities to identify critical conversations and for strategic engagement.

 Here are some of my favorite and FREE social media "listening"tools:

Google Alerts - Email updates of relevant search results
Monitter - Search for keywords in real time on Twitter
Social Mention - Real time keyword search across the web
Twitrratr - Sentiment ratings for Twitter
Backtype - Monitor blogs, blog comments, and conversations
Blogsearch - Find key words in the blogosphere
Evri - Aggregates user generated content
CoTweet - Conversation threading and trend monitoring for Twitter
Collecta - Monitor update streams of news sites, blogs, and social media sites
Klout - Find influencers based on topic
TweetDeck - Organize Twitter seaches by hashtag, brand, etc.

Since these tools are free, I advise searching for your practice or specialty on multiple sites so you don't miss potentially valuable information or feeds. Your practice's needs will be unique so select the tools and services that best fit your processes.

Do you have favorite tools for monitoring your practice or brand? Share them here in the comments :)

Medical Spas and Plastic Surgeons who use social media

Here's a list of plastic surgery centers and medial spas currently using interactive media to educate and engage their patients.
Loftus Plastic Surgery Center
Dr. Ramona Bates
Dr. Tony Youn
Dr. William Adams
Dr. Tenley Lawton
The Seattle Facelift Center
San Diego Institute of Plastic Surgery
Sorensen Cosmetic Surgey Center of Idaho
St. Louis Cosmetic Surgery Center
Dr. Jeffery D. Hoefflin
Dr. Samuel N. Pearl
North Mecklenburg Plastic Surgery
EOS Dermatology and Medical Spa
Emerge Medical Spa
Forever Young Medical Spa
Ideal Medical Spa
Revage Medical Spa
Pure Med Spa
Shizuka New York
USHR Med Spa
Acqua Blu Medical Spa
Kai
Emerge Medical Day Spa
Dr. Barry Eppley Pearlman Aesthetic

Chiropractors who use Social Network tools

Here's our list of Chiropractors currently using social media.

As of May 3rd, 2010 there are: 22 Blogs, 15 active Twitter accounts, and 14 active Facebook pages. 

Know someone we are missing? Please let us know via email or the comments below.

Back to Action Chiropractic
Barton Chiropractic
Carla Cuido
Charlottesville Family Chiropractic
Dr. Eben Davis
Dr. Eric Murphy
Dr. Harris Meyer
Dr. Joel Fugleberg
Dr. Kevin Harrington
Dr. Kip Rod
Dr. Lynn Kerew
Dr. Matt Finke
Dr. RobertBoydston
Dr. Todd Narson
Dr. Tyler Johnson
Dr. Weisgerber
Elledge Chiropractic
Fink Chiropractic
French City Chiropractic
Linn City Chiropractic
Nick Campos
North Dallas Chiropractic
Pitts Family and Sport
Portland Chiropractic Neurology
Queen Anne Chiropractic
Roseville Family Chiropractic
Russell Brokstein
Silverman Chiropractic
Simi Valley Chiropractor
Steven Coniglio
West Coast Chiropractor

Dentists Who Blog

A blog are a great tool for creating a bridge between your practice's story and your patients.

Here's our current list of U.S Dentists who blog:

Brookside Dental

Castle Rock Dental

Cottonwood Dental Group

Dr. Mark Sweeney

Dr. Franklyn Alexander

Dr. Hugh Flax

Dr. Leonard Tau

Dr. Mark Levy

Dr. Robert Nelson

Dr. Tom Farley

Dr. Nguyen

Gentle Dental

Maple Grove Dental Clinics

McKinneyDentist.com

P. Vernon Erwin

United Dental Care

Last Updated April 28th, 2010

Who have we missed? Leave a comment here or email sarah@npressnewsletter.com

How to make good use of your social media time

As interactive media and online communities are getting an increasing amount of use in doctor – patient relationships, many doctors wonder when the best time to connect is. In a recent survey of 474 social media users, conducted by Npress, 54% of users said they are engaged in social media throughout the day.

Twenty one percent of the survey participants reported using social tools during the evening and weekends, 14% on their lunch breaks, and 8% in the morning or before work. All users in the study reported using interactive media tools at least 5 hours per week. 

 

Social Media Usage Trends by Time of Day 

 Users 

 

This means, if you are using interactive media in your practice, you should make time during your day to build relationships with your patients online. Properly communicating with and listening to patients online can take time to do it right, and you'll see your efforts will go much further if you meet your patients where they are. Pre blocked scheduling can help ensure that you have time for conversation and you can let your patients know ahead of time when they can expect to reach you. 

 

I've seen doctors helping 4-10 patients a day through interactive networks. Imagine what it could mean for your patients' experience, their online health literacy, and prevention knowledge if you took a 1/2 hour each day to converse with patients online. (Not to mention what it could do for your marketing and practice growth!)  

About the data: This Npress study is based on telephone interviews, interactive media surveys, and live questioning with a nationally representative sample of 474 social media users who use interactive tools at least 5 hours per week.

How 4 Quick Fixes Can Make Your Event a Success

Hosting an informational seminar or event is a great way to introduce your community to your practice.

Here are our four of our favorite suggestions to help "punch up" your event and make the most of your effort:

1) Choose an event theme that corresponds to an upcoming holiday For example, if you want to offer an oral cancer screening, choose cancer awareness month.

2) Host giveaways. Give away free screenings or elective services – it’s a low risk way for people to experience your care and a great way to generate lots of interest.

3) List your event on as many online event calendars as you can find. Not only are you likely to create more buzz, but local publications will often republish your events.

4) Invite relevant bloggers or media contacts to attend an event for free. Check out your local news sources to find influential writers or those that cover health care topics. Make sure you have future events already scheduled so they can promote them or provide links in their write-ups.

If you’ve got any killer tips to add, we’d love to hear from you!

Email Marketing

WOW! Talk about a good return! According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing generated an ROI of $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2008!

Email marketing can involve new patient acquisition, lead nurturing, patient reactivation and retention, and of course increased treatment acceptance, which means that there are a lot of processes and services are potentially involved.


Many practices choose to have their administrative staff handle their email marketing in house. If you do, here are some considerations to help get the most out of your communication with your patients:

• Strategy & Research
• Promotional Planning (do you have a calendar of events?)
• Copy Writing & Content Development (content provides value so don’t let it be an after thought)
• List Growth & Community Building (are you sure that all new patients are added to your list?)
• List Segmentation (how can you segment your list to better target your messages?)
• Cross-channel Integration (do your emails connect to your website and blog?)

If the list above encompasses more than you’re doing, this may be a strong indicator that you’re under-utilizing this lucrative channel. It may be time to reevaluate your process or get some additional training so you can get your systems running in top form. 


If you are interested in a recommendation for an email marketing training course, email me at sarah@npressnewsletter.com and I can help you find a program that suits your needs.


- Sarah Nelson 
sarah@npressnewsletter.com 

Thoughts about Social Media and Healthcare from SXSW

The Npress and Practice Marketing Revolution team had the pleasure of attending South by Southwest in Austin, TX. We participated in a variety of great workshops and presentations on social media and health care with speakers like Livestrong’s CEO Doug Ulman, MD Anderson, Humana, and the University of Maryland’s Hospital.

We’d like to share some social media FAQs that we discussed with our colleagues in hopes of helping you with your practices' strategy.

Why is connecting with patients online important for shaping the way our practices work?

We need to be closer to patients to understand their experience and their needs. An online experience allows patients to open up and share in a more personal and frank way. The whole point is to demonstrate that you care and you respond. Your response tells story about your practice’s character.

Our patients want to get to the computer and Google immediately when given a diagnosis. How can doctors stay relevant as health information providers?

Instead of letting patients hit the web blindly and read every site they can find about their condition, doctors and practices need to be a part of the conversation. An easy thing to do is to send patients to recommended resources. It’s like a prescription for information and can help their patients to find credible sources and understand health literacy online.

How can we set the stage for using social media in our practice?

Here is a step by step breakdown:

* Create business case (why important for the practice)
* Gain senior leadership support (need but in from doctors)
* Define processes
* Listen online (what are other companies doing and what are your patients saying about you?)
* Connect with other initiatives (what else are you doing for patient service and marketing?)
* Establish a personality
* Interact – don’t broadcast

We'll be discussing these and other ideas in subsequent posts. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to send an email to sarah@npressnewsletter.com. If you have something you'd like to add, please leave a comment!

Npress introduces a new social media program

Npress is pleased to introduce our new Practice Marketing Revolution program. Over the years, many Npress newsletter clients and fans have asked us for help with social media, and we’re very grateful for that. With our new Practice Marketing Revolution Program, we now have the ability to meet your social media content strategy and execution needs.

Here’s How It Works:

1. Join our program and get a customized social media marketing strategy for your practice by sending an email to sarah@npressnewsletter.com

2. We’ll meet with you to determine your goals and needs and begin structuring your social media presence.

3. Build a content strategy. We’ll work with you to discover the best type of content for engaging your patients.

4. Get connected. Once we’ve figured out what you want to accomplish with social media, we will help you build a network to serve your existing patients and attract new ones.

But wait, there’s more!

To kick off this exciting program and say thanks to our clients, we’re holding a contest. Join the Practice Marketing Revolution before March 31, 2010 and you’ll automatically be entered into a drawing to win a $100 Amazon gift card. The winner will be announced in April.

We look forward to welcoming you as a Practice Marketing Revolution superstar!

Visit the Practice Marketing Revolution

What kind of status message does your practice create?

Whether your practice is proactively engaged in social media or just loosely experimenting, you have to consider the impact social media can have on your practice and "brand".

Increased social media access via Mobile devices is helping to drive the use and access of social media wherever we go. Facebook recently indicated that 25 percent of its users (or roughly 100 million) primarily access Facebook via mobile methods. That means, when patients are in your practice, they are likely logging on to one or more of their social networks.

Ask yourself:

Are you delivering an experience worth "posting a status message" about?
How can you create an experience that your patients want to share with their friends through social media?
Are you meeting where they are and engaging in social media too?

Your Patient's Pet Peeves

Last month, we conducted a survey of patients in medical practices to find out what they would like out of their relationships with their providers and what really irked them. Here are our findings:

Appointment wait time is still the number one cause for complaint for patients in health care practices. The study, conducted by Npress, aimed to discover current trends in patient satisfaction. Participants were asked to name their number one pet peeve when seeking the care of a health care provider. They were also asked to specify which types of practices they frequent.

The survey found that excessive wait time at an office prior to an appointment was the primary criticism of 72 percent of the 500- person sample.  Respondents suggested numerous remedies including: “an advanced courtesy call if the wait can be anticipated”, “check in to let me know what is going on,” or “offer me a drink after I’ve been waiting fifteen minutes.”

Additional findings from the survey:

• Frustration with the lack of upfront information about the full cost of care was expressed by 41% of patients with insurance.
• 19% of respondents who frequent specialty practices mentioned that they would like to feel remembered by the staff. As one respondent put it, “how does the receptionist not know my name with more than 10 visits in a 6-month period?”
• More than a quarter of survey respondents would like to be able to reach their doctor after hours or have a reliable message service available.
• What would be nice? Several respondents mentioned they would like to receive a printout of the day’s visit with stats like blood pressure, weight, etc, as well as what was discussed, and suggested actions.

One overarching conclusion from the survey is that if doctors want to differentiate themselves and provide an exceptional patient experience, they should provide outward signs that they are doing something patient complaints, specifically regarding appointment wait times.

Develop Your Annual Practice Marketing Plan

Your annual marketing plan will assist you in growing your practice and figuring out what it is that you need to do, how to do it, and when to do it. We have a new 6 day marketing course we will revisit your marketing goals and determine what it is that you hope to achieve in the upcoming year with your marketing efforts.

How it works:

Over the next six days I will walk you through the steps of creating a solid marketing plan for your health care practice. At the end of our course you will have completed the following:

• Preparation of your mission statement and vision for the next few months.
• Discover and define your target patients.
• Develop and plan your marketing strategy.
• Develop your marketing mix.
• Create a marketing calendar that serves as your schedule of marketing activities and events for the upcoming year.

When you have finished the course you will have a strong marketing plan in your hand. This will become a tool that will help you market your practice while attending to patients and your other responsibilities.

Sound good? Ok, now it is time to get started… 

Send an email to sarah@npressnewsletter.com with “Marketing Plan” in the subject line. Each day you will receive a new lesson and assignment to complete. I will be available to coach you through the 6 days and by the time you have completed the 6th day you will have created your annual marketing plan.

NEW Product! 10 Secrets to More Referrals E-Book

Ask professional practice owners from Boston to Seattle to name their number one goal, and they’ll tell you they’d like to increase sales and get more referred business. Referrals are often the best kind of new patients as they come primed to like you and ready to do accept treatment.

The Practice Marketing Revolution is a professional practice owner’s guide to marketing success on a budget. The products and coaching program focus on a host of new tactics plus the latest updates on tried-and-true low cost marketing methods that are essential for any growing practice.

After using our tools you’ll be ready to seamlessly implement a year round marketing program for your professional practice that will keep your practice filled with happy patients.

Start getting more referrals today with our FREE e-book. Simply email me, sarah@npressnewsletter.com with 'Referrals' in the subject line.

Change

Change is inevitable. Your practice grows, you bring in new products, you offer new services. If you want to develop changes that your patients will like, you need to keep gathering information about them. I probably sound like a broken record but you have to create systems to measure your marketing. Your practice marketing systems need to include quantification. As soon as you can, make sure your systems capture the following information:

• Demographic information for every new patient. Make it automatic. Every patient. Every time. Do it at your new patient intake call.  Where are they coming from? If you know this, you can use more of your marketing resources to connect with them. With the capabilities of computer systems these days, there is no excuse for not collecting this information.

• Dollars spent on marketing and lead generation activities.

• Number of new patient phone calls each week/ each month.

• Number of new patient phone calls converted into new patient visits.

• Total dollars generated from new patients.

The more information you get from it will help you make better management decisions about where to direct your marketing dollars.

- Sarah Nelson

Sarah is the Founder of Npress and has been helping doctors and dentists get new patients and keep them since 2007. Success has seen Sarah and Npress profiled in such publications as The Portland Press Herald, The Maine Switch, Advance for Healthy Aging, the Coast 93.1, and The Forecaster. She has recently been named one of the “20 Most Outstanding Women in Portland that you should know!”