Better Living With Email Marketing

[Jeffvision]

Hi Everyone-

Just wanted to share a marketing observation that I've found to be extremely effective and motivating - especially in the midst of these uncertain times.

I've found that sending a regular email broadcast to my patient database containing useful and interesting information is a very powerful marketing tool.

For example, you might consider sending out an email 3 times per month about eye emergencies or computer vision...

Not only are you educating patients with your unique voice and style, but you get immediate feedback about your efforts, enabling you to learn and test what works with your group and according to your goals.

I actually cover this in my free guide, '7 Mistakes Doctors Make When Getting Their Website Done', (see link below), but most people have not read it yet.

Best regards,

Jeff Lewis, OD

Best Eye Care Marketing
http://www.besteyecaremarketing.com

[rbaker]

In the mid eighties I wrote my first application for the eye care practitioner in dBase II. It was intended to do patient recalls and target marketing. It was very successful in increasing chair times and in particular target marketing new product to the appropriate user. In some cases the successful practices had to hold back some of the mailings as the appointment book was too full.

Of course this was before the common usage of the web which has introduced a whole new level of marketing to the eye care provider. Maintaining a database of patients and their insurers has to be a critical tool in today's winning marketing plans.

[QDO1]

I would be happy to discuss this issue and more with anyone wanting to implement such an issue. it is more than having a database, there is also intellegently dealing with mails that bounce, and encouraging loyalty

[cityconnection]

I have been thinking of doing this and I think I am ready to computerize our operation. I want to make a database for sending out emails. Does anyone know of any good softwares for this? (while I sort through the "search" function on this forum?)

[eganrem]

I've used both Constantcontact.com and Verticalresponse.com for email marketing campaigns.

For email lists of 2000 names or less with a frequency of 1 to 2 email blasts per month, I would suggest Verticalresponse.

If your list is over 2000 names and you send email blasts 3 or more times per month, I recommend ConstantContact.com for better bulk pricing.

Each of these providers give you pre-made templates for creating email campaigns, and they also provide statistical reports after they are sent.

I hope this helps.

[DragonLensmanWV]

Of course, I guess you realize most of those will end up in spam folders, unless you have opt-in lists.

[eganrem]

Yes. Even with opt-in and double-opt-in lists, many emails still land in spam folders and even bounce. It depends on which keywords and URLs are detected by someone's spam filtering program.

The response rates of email lists are typically lower than mailing lists, which is the reason why it's best to have large numbers of qualified emails.

[dataformarketers]

Proper email marketing has brought new names and companies up over night. It's effectiveness is well known. However, to do proper email marketing and run a legit campaign, you MUST use REAL optin data.

Optin data is data that has been collected from someone who has agreed to do something like sign up for a newsletter or recieve a service or product. This data is NOT just an email address...

There are a lot of scammers out there selling "optin email lists", when they are nothing more than harvested old crap email addresses that will give no response to your advertising campaign.

What you need to do is buy REAL optin data from discount sources like data4marketers com, and check out their data page for samples of each and every list they have. It's a very easy site to navigate, and the company sells data for very good prices that everyone can afford. Basically, they are cheaper than you would ever believe.

Enjoy-

Happy marketing to all!
Thanks,
-J / James / Data4marketers com
data4marketers com
sales AT data4marketers com
AIM: Data4marketers
YIM: Coreg4marketers

[dataformarketers]

Very good points brought up people... I think whoever stated that Email Marketing is good for the short-term gain, and SEO is good for the long-term pretty much hit it on the head!

For example, when people run email marketing campaigns with a good fresh database: for example 5-8Million records gained from a month worth of coreg data, and also perhaps a hundred thousand extreme high-quality double optin, phone verified survey leads, the marketer can expect 1-2% click through rate, depending on how good your ad copy (email message) and also how appealing your product is to customers. Marketing with email is still alive and well to people that are in "the know" of how to send to email users, and even though spam filters may have gotten a little tougher, it's not an issue to be concerned with depending on the data you use...

For example, it would be impossible to send a mailing of 5-10 million plain emails that are harvested for instance... It would be a little tough to get around some filters with 5-10 million coreg records, but not too much, and it would be simple to mail to 100K or so double optin, phone verified survey leads.

So, I guess in the question of marketing feasability, or how hard it would be to email market, it still comes right back to what kind of data/emails you are using in the first place... which is why emailing to harvested emails is a NO-NO, and these harvested lists are just filled (intentionally by webmasters/site owners) with SPAM traps.

Also, I think it comes back to what kind of product or service you are offerring... If it's penis pills, etc... don't expect repeat customers (because it doesn't work)... so sending a good email marketing campaign would be the thing to do. However, if you offer a product that comes in on a regular basis, like optin/coreg data feeds, you would want that good placement in search engines.

Often, a lot of people ask: "How are you able to offer high-quality, or in a lot of cases the same databases that other sites offer for so cheap? I have to tell them that we have a low advertising budget, don't spend money on PPC/Google ad-words, and we are able to pass these savings along to our clients.

SEO + Email marketing is a recipe to success though!

Happy marketing to all!
Thanks,
-J / James / Data4marketers.com
www.data4marketers.com
sales@data4marketers.com
AIM: Data4marketers
YIM: Coreg4marketers

[johnhardings]

This is one of the most effective uses of emails, since if they are used positively to build up your firm's reputation for service and attentiveness; you will see sales and customer retention go up.

[DragonLensmanWV]

Thank heaven for spam filters. At worst, I only have to see this spam once, then forever no more. As if I would actually use the services of someone who spams me.:hammer: