Ask Alex

“What should I put in my clinic newsletter?”

Sending a regular newsletter is an essential part of clinic marketing, even in 2023. When I talk about email marketing with aesthetic practitioners, the biggest excuse for not sending out emails regularly is “There’s no news for me to talk about”. To that, I say “There are plenty of updates you can share.”

The goal here is to nurture the long-term relationship you have with your patients between appointments. All great emails deliver value, which means that they are useful in some way (educational, informative, or promote an offer) to your patient database. They don’t have to push sales super hard but make sure to always include a clear call to action to prompt desired actions. These could be buying a product online, booking a consultation, signing up for alerts for a previewed treatment, following your clinic on social media, visiting your blog or booking in for an event.

Here at Web Marketing Clinic, we often work with clients on email newsletters with some or all of the following content:

• Latest clinic news: share updates on new treatments, events, or initiatives

• Products in focus: highlight specific skincare products or treatments

• Skincare tips: share expert advice to educate and engage your audience

• Blogs: repurpose compelling blog content for your email subscribers, while linking to your website

• Behind-the-scenes insights: offer a glimpse into the inner workings of your clinic

• Offers: provide exclusive promotions or discounts to encourage bookings (not all clinics ‘do’ offers, so don’t feel compelled to, because you want to use email marketing)

• Expert Q&A: answer common questions and provide expert advice on skin health

• Staff spotlights: introduce team members to create a personal connection with patients

• Community involvement and philanthropy: showcase your clinic’s charitable efforts and community partnerships
•Testimonials and success stories: share patient testimonials and before-and-after photos to showcase positive results.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Some of you will benefit by thinking of emails as an extension of your social media, for patients who don’t use it. By doing this, you can summarise your top-performing posts of the month, providing the key insights from two to three posts.

There are so many more parts that can optimise your email marketing, like the headline, design, call to action, audience segmentation, and automation, which I can go into in future columns. For most clinics, however, just getting into the habit of sending something out regularly and monitoring the impact on sales is enough. You can then focus on optimisation or hire an expert for help.

Now, go and send that summer newsletter.

ALEX BUGG

Alex Bugg works for Web Marketing Clinic, a family run digital agency, which specialises in medical aesthetics. The business builds websites and delivers marketing campaigns for doctors, nurses, dentists, distributors and brands.

Email: alex@webmarketingclinic.co.uk Instagram: @webmarketingclinic