So you have a newsletter or are planning to start one. You’ve heard this can be a hugely valuable marketing tool for medical practices if you use it correctly, but you’re not completely sure. After all, producing a newsletter is a lot of work and can feel a bit like an outdated technique. You’re not totally sold on the idea that this can be as beneficial of an investment for your practice as some (like Top Practices) say it can be. Well, there are some sure-fire ways to ensure that your newsletter fails completely, turning it into a self-fulfilling prophesy that confirms your doubts.
Making your newsletter fail is actually quite easy. Here are the top ways doctors make sure their own newsletters go bust:
1. Don’t send it regularly – Once a month helps your patients remember you and what you can do for them. To make your newsletter fail, send yours every other month, or even less often.
2. Only use e-mail – E-mails easily get lost in full inboxes and may get overlooked. They’re easier to ignore than print versions, so an electronic-only newsletter is more likely to bust.
3. Don’t worry about it looking nice – Formatting and designing takes too much time. Ugly, cluttered newsletters are a turn-off, anyway, so if you’re looking to fail, don’t worry about appearances.
4. Keep it strictly medical – Strictly medical articles are fairly dull for the average person. A creative newsletter with articles about your office and additional topics makes for an interesting read, so be sure to stay away from that if you don’t want people to enjoy it.
5. Use lots of medical terms and clinical language – This ties to the “dull” factor. Lots of large, medical words and a super dry tone can frustrate your average reader, ensuring a marketing bust.
6. Forget the call to action – If you don’t want an effective newsletter, it shouldn’t direct people back to your office. Leave out the “contact us” directions that might send patients your way.
Here’s the truth: regular, interesting, beautiful, effective newsletters engage that list of people you have who already know you, like you, trust you, and would return to you. An effective newsletter keeps you at the forefront of their minds, so they remember you next the time they have a problem, or when they hear about their uncle’s hammertoe or their grandmother’s bunion pain.
It can be challenging to put together a successful newsletter, yes, but it is definitely worth the effort. Even if you’re not sure you can pull it off, Top Practices members have resources to turn to. The Top Practices Podiatry Practice Newsletter program has been helping foot and ankle experts all over the US produce the newsletters they need for effective marketing. E-mail [email protected] or call (717) 725-2679 for more information.