We've always spent a lot of time writing articles to help your eyecare practice create a strong marketing strategy to help boost patient growth. And this year specifically, we've spent a lot of time talking about the importance of email marketing and how you can get started with it in your practice. So now that you know what email marketing is and how you can get started with it, we want to talk about strategy.

There are several different ways you can use email to promote your optometric practice and engage with your patients. Today, we'll share 5 different types of emails you can send to your email list to keep your practice top of mind.

5 Emails Every Optometric Practice Should Send to Patients

A Welcome Email

When a new patient joins your practice a welcome email is a great way to get them familiar with all the details of your office. Important information that might be worth sharing right off the bat could be a brief bio of the ODs and staff in your office, accepted insurance, best ways to schedule appointments, frame brands you carry, services offered, or hours of operation. You can also use this email to promote a special discount for new patients to make sure they follow through and purchase products from your practice.

A Survey Email

Surveys are an affordable and pain-free way to collect valuable feedback on your practice. If you aren't actively asking patients what they liked and disliked about their appointment you won't know what you need to change in order to make their experience better. If you're not asking these questions in a survey you might end up hearing about an experience through a bad online review instead. Surveys give your patients a voice and make them feel like a valued part of your eyecare practice.

Special Promotion Announcement

Offering specials in your dispensary won't do you any good if your patients don't know about them. Email is an easy way to let your customers know about any specials you're running on products in your practice. Promoting specials doesn't have to just be about product discounts either. You can promote things like back to school events or year-end benefits too.

A Newsletter

This might be your most time-consuming email to create, but once you've got a template laid out keeping up with a quarterly newsletter should be pretty easy. Newsletters are a great way to pack a lot of information into one email. Here you can combine information like practice specials, new staff introductions, new frame lines, patient referral programs, or community events that your practice supports. Just about anything can be added to a newsletter, so make it custom to your practice and the image you want to portray. 

An Educational Email

A big part of providing healthcare services is being looked at as someone your patients trust and believe in to give them the best care and information possible. Your patients look to you for reliable information about their conditions and the best course of action for treatment. If you take the time to groom and segment your email database, you can send educational material to the same types of patients that could be specifically important to their condition. 

Bonus: Recall Emails

Patient recalls are emails that every eyecare practice should be sending. If you're going to start somewhere, start here. Recalls help reach out to those patients who haven't been active in your practice over a period of time to bring them back in to make an appointment. In many practices this is done over the phone, but automated emails help take this burden off your staff while getting the same message across. 

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