Email marketing represents a crucial component to any business, especially PT clinics looking to build their list of new, loyal patients.

The benefits of email marketing are well-documented and represent a win-win form for both businesses and customers alike:

• Emails are incredibly inexpensive to send versus direct mail
• Anyone who opts in to your email list wants to hear from you voluntarily; therefore, any leads gathered via email are warm leads
• After some initial work, much of your email marketing can be automated: rather than constantly scrambling for leads, your emails can keep them engaged

Perhaps the most practical use of email marketing comes in the form of autoresponders, which represent a series of messages send out to customers once they’ve opted-in to your list. Such messages can be incredibly powerful in both building new business and retaining leads, allowing you to essentially run your email marketing on autopilot.

Keep in mind that some autoresponders only consist of a couple of emails, while others may consist of over a dozen messages.

But what does a successful autoresponder series look like? How much work goes into such emails and what are the crucial points our messages can’t afford to miss?

Outlined below are three incredibly important autoresponder series that any PT practice can craft. Although there is no one-size-fits-all approach to email marketing, you can use the following templates to fit the message and marketing of your brand.

Engaging Fresh Opt-Ins

When anyone opts into our email list, we want to make sure to give them a warm welcome as soon as possible. Engaging our opt-ins is crucial, whether they’ve signed up for a newsletter, desire updates on content or are attempting to claim a free product or promotion.

Although your autoresponders may be slightly different based on the intents of your visitors, a series to a new opt-in may look something like this:

1. A welcome email introducing your practice, thanking the visitor for signing up and providing them with expectations of what they’ll receive from you in the future
2. A follow-up message with a killer piece of content or case study that would be incredibly useful to future patients (such as a guide to pain management hacks): this could be stretched out into multiple messages based on the scope of your site’s content
3. A final follow-up containing a promotion that ultimately leads them back to your website or encourages them to call your practice firsthand to “claim” the deal

In short, don’t immediately shove deals in the faces of your fresh leads. Instead, warm them with a personalized welcome email and demonstrate your practice’s value before giving them any sort of offer.

Warming Up Cold Leads

Building potential business out of a cold list can be challenging, but it’s far from impossible if you craft your messages carefully.

Since cold leads don’t necessarily know who you are, you need to do everything in your power to establish trust and demonstrate value, all within the confines of a short but sweet message. In the case of a cold list, your series of messages may look something like this:

1. An introductory email which explains who you are, why you’re reaching out and how you can help them (think: worthwhile content and good deals)
2. A short series of follow-ups which pose questions to your readers with the intent of encouraging responses: for example, “What’s holding you back from seeing a doctor?” or “What’s your biggest pain management problem?”
3. Based on responses, you can send out a “last ditch” email with a steep deal to grab the attention of traffic that perhaps hasn’t responded, including a discount that leads them to your site

Cold lists often have lower response rates versus warm ones; however, since such leads are less likely to convert, you can use cold emails as an opportunity to experiment with new deals, copy and calls-to-action.

Re-Engaging Past Customers

Connecting with past PT customers is a great way to get them back into your practice: don’t think of such autoresponders as annoyance, but rather friendly check-ins. Autoresponders for past customers don’t necessarily need to be a series, but rather a straightforward email that reminds recipients who you are and encourages returning business.

For example, you could send a “we miss you” message to customers who haven’t touched base in the past few months. Likewise, you could also send a check-up email asking recipients if they’re satisfied with their service or if they have any questions or concerns since they haven’t been by in a while.

Email marketing is a fantastic way to re-engage old customers and drive new patients into your practice. As with any aspect of marketing your business online, there are a lot of moving pieces involved. If you want to turn traffic to your site into real-life business, consider letting PatientSites help.

Get started with a Free Evergreen Marketing Blueprint to learn how you can create long-term assets that will attract new patients for years to come.