Last week, my Year of Email Marketing Templates for Acupuncturists was on sale and as a result, I got LOTS of questions.

Not just about the sale but about email marketing in general.

So today I want to talk about a few things that hold us back from email marketing, and all of the reasons why we really should lean into email marketing as acupuncturists, as small business owners in general.

I always recommend sending two emails a month.

I know the idea of two emails a month can be a little intimidating, not just writing that much content, but also the fear that you’ll be annoying your audience by sending two emails a month.

So I want to talk about this a little bit – why I recommend two emails a month, and why this is NOT too many emails.

Email marketing is a very effective, low-cost and low-pressure marketing avenue. But so few acupuncturists are doing consistently, and that’s shame.

Today I share my philosophy on email marketing as well as my top three tips for making your email marketing more effective.

I hope this episode eliminates all the reasons you might be procrastinating your email newsletter – Let’s dive in!

🎙️ Episode #33: Three Tips to Make Your Email Marketing More Effective

Show Notes:

• A Year of Email Templates for Acupuncturists

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Transcript:

Hello there. Welcome back.

Today I want to talk about three tips for making your email marketing more effective.

Last week, my Year of Email Marketing Templates for Acupuncturists went on sale and as a result, I got lots of questions. Not just about the sale but about email marketing in general.

So today I want to talk about a few things that hold us back from email marketing, and all of the reasons why we really should lean into email marketing as acupuncturists and as small business owners in general.

I’ll link to the email templates in the show notes if you’d like to see them. This is a collection of 26 pre-written emails that I actually send to my patients.

I always recommend sending two emails a month, so this is more than enough to take care of a year of email marketing for you.

I know the idea of two emails a month can be a little intimidating, not just writing that much content, but also the fear that you’ll be annoying your audience by sending two emails a month.

So I want to talk about this a little bit – why I recommend two emails a month, and why this is not too much.

Think about your favorite clothing store. When they’re having a sale, they’ll email you three, four times a day, right? We are not doing that. We’re talking about sending two emails a month, which in comparison to the volume of other emails your subscribers are getting, is almost nothing.

I find that the traditional monthly newsletter really is not enough for people to remember their good intention to make an appointment with you.

Ideally, what happens when your email lands in the inbox of your target market?

They open it and read through it, understand how acupuncture can help them and they respond to your call to action to click the link to make an appointment or call you to make an appointment.

But what often happens in reality, and we know this is true, because we all do this with the emails that we receive, or I know I do, on a regular basis.

We say, yes, I want this, I’m going to make an appointment or buy this thing, but then we get distracted by the 30 million other things going on on the internet and we end up watching videos of golden retrievers on YouTube for 20 minutes. And we totally forget our intention to make that appointment or do whatever it was.

And then what happens for a lot of acupuncturists is, you don’t email them again for a month. Or maybe even 3 or 4 months. That’s a long time. In one month, that’s plenty of time to forget that you meant to do something. Especially without any reminders.

We know that people are getting lots of emails. If you’re only sending one email a month or even less often than that, there’s a good chance your email will simply be drowned out in the noise.

So I find that sending two emails a month is a nice sweet spot, for us as practitioners with content creation and actually being regular with our email newsletter, and for our subscribers.

Two emails a month is a very polite number of emails to send, compared to the barrage of emails that they’re getting from other companies. But if you’re consistent, it’s also just often enough to remind them, “Oh, shoot, I did want to make an appointment,” and then actually do it.

And I understand if your next question is, “But what am I supposed to write about twice a month?” or “When am I supposed to have time for writing that much content.“

And these are two reasons that most people aren’t consistent with their email marketing. But that consistency is so essential to stay top of mind, and we’re going to talk about that more in-depth in just a bit.

But I get it, I genuinely do. That’s why I decided to share my email templates with you, to remove both of those pretty common barriers to email marketing. And today is not meant to be a sales pitch for those templates, so I’ll finish up talking about them quickly and then move on to how to make your email marketing more effective whether or not you’re interested in them.

But the way the templates work is very simple. You just copy and paste the email’s text into a new email inside your email provider, like Constant Contact, and then you tweak them to match your clinic, and you send them to your patients. Removing that barrier of having to write them yourself from scratch. You can hit “Send” immediately or you can auto-schedule them to publish in the future, for the whole year.

I’ll put the link to those in the show notes if you want to take a look.

Okay, so let’s talk about these three tips for making your email marketing easier and more effective.

How can you get efficient at it and do less work for a better outcome?

And why should you bother? Let’s talk about that very quickly. Email marketing is crazy effective and cost-effective. Research shows that for every $1 that you spend on email marketing, the average return on your investment is $38. That is a 3,800% return on your investment.

Let’s compare this to social media. For every $1 you spend on social media, research shows the return is an average of $1.28. That’s not bad, that’s a positive return, it’s 128% return on your investments.

But clearly, email marketing is more cost-effective. It’s a phenomenal way to get in front of your audience. It’s a great way to get in marketing touch points that is also low-pressure for us, as marketers. I don’t know about you, but most of my marketing students and 1:1 clients feel stressed and pressured about the idea of doing video, for example, on Instagram. But they love writing. So writing emails to your patients is a wonderful way to remind them you exist that isn’t as stressful or high pressure as showing on video, and we can really lean into this.

So let’s dive into these three things:

Three tips that I want to share with you today to make your email marketing more effective are:

1. Keep your emails super simple
2. Send simple emails regularly
3. Repurpose content to make writing emails less work

Let’s start with keeping your emails simple. The big message here is that you only need one message to share in order to send your email newsletter.

A lot of us, when we talk about email newsletters, we think about the kind of newsletter that is a collection of three or four related articles. I’m sure you’re familiar with this style of email newsletter. Each section introduces a new blog post or a new article. There’s often a theme that unites all the articles, although there doesn’t have to be.

And there’s nothing wrong with this format. It works just fine. It’s just that it’s a lot of work, and I know that many acupuncturists feel intimidated by having to regularly write up a complex, multi-part email newsletter like this. And it actually prevents them from sending any emails, because they feel like, I just don’t know if I can be consistent with my newsletter if I have to keep writing something so long, that takes so much time and effort every month. And so they send nothing. This is super common.

And I agree. I also feel this way, which I stopped writing this kind of newsletter a long time ago. Like most of us, I just couldn’t keep up.

And luckily, the truth is that, while there’s nothing wrong with this format, it’s also just not necessary. It makes things complicated or labor-intensive.

You only need one message or one piece of information to share with your audience to have a reason to send the email.

And the big thing here is, if you take nothing else away from this episode, I just want to remove the blocks that are keeping you from sending your emails. I just want you to send the emails. They don’t have to be fancy, we don’t have to overthink it.

At the start of my practice, almost 12 years ago, I had a marketing mentor, Deb. I’ve talked about her before. We did a trade for her marketing expertise and cosmetic acupuncture, and we did that consistently for three years. There was one time where I was really dragging my feet on sending my email newsletter, and she gave me a little kick in the pants by reminding me that email only works if you send it.

It’s better to hit send on a short, sweet, simple email that is imperfect than to never send anything.

So what do I mean by just one message or one piece of information to share with your subscribers?

Here are some examples that could be the entire content of your emails:

Share a recent research article you found on acupuncture for a specific condition. Introduce it, summarize it in laymen’s terms in just a few sentences. Take a moment to describe the symptoms the patient is feeling, and how this is impacting or limiting their life. And then include a call to action telling them to make an appointment.

Answer a FAQ, such as, how many treatments do I need for xyz? And include your call to action.

Share a blog post that you wrote, whether it was recently or a long time. Summarize the blog post briefly in your email and include a link so people can read more in-depth. Connect the content of the blog post to acupuncture and how you can help them, and then include your call to action to make an appointment.

Introduce a new staff member, or announce a sale or event, etc.

You can see that each email is pretty short, introducing just one topic, making a connection between the topic, the patient’s experience, how acupuncture can help them, and then a call to action.

This is totally sufficient.

In fact, I would argue that the benefit of only including one topic per email is that usually means you only have one major call to action. For example, “If you’re ready to try acupuncture for your chronic knee pain, click here to schedule.” That way, the patient doesn’t get distracted by multiple articles each with its own call to action – Click here to read this, click here to learn more, click here to make an appointment.

In digital marketing, it’s often better to stick with one call to action because as we talked about earlier, we know how easy it is for people to get distracted online.

The next tip is to send those simple emails regularly, and we already talked about this, that my recommendation is at least twice a month. Every email is a touch point. A reminder. You need to email your subscribers often enough to stay top of mind – so they don’t forget about you.

And the most common question that comes up when we talk about this, after, what do I write twice a month, is, “I’m worried I’m annoying my subscribers every time I send an email.” And feeling anxious about sending emails more often.

Think of it this way. First of all, people signed up for your email list for a reason. It’s because they are interested in what you have to teach them and they want to hear from you. And people are already bombarded by so many emails every day. In comparison to the clothing brand that emails you 9 times a week, two emails a month is polite. It’s gentle. It’s non-invasive.

Remember that you’re just popping into their inbox to remind them that A) acupuncture can help them and B) your practice exists in their community.

But for maximum effectiveness, you’ve got to KEEP popping into their inbox regularly. You’ve GOT to send your emails with some kind of regularity so you stay top of mind. Don’t give up. You are not annoying people. It’s the kind of thing that, like a lot of marketing, picks up speed and effectiveness the longer you do it. The more people get used to seeing you in their inbox and learning from you, getting to know you by the way you write, the way you teach, and share information, it’s very trust building. It’s only going to become more effective with consistency.

Something else I have to add is that every time you send an email, you’re going to have people unsubscribe. This is a totally normal part of email marketing. So expect it in advance, and don’t take it personally. Every professional digital marketer out there knows that every time you send an email, some people are going to choose to leave the list. And this isn’t a bad thing, because that probably means they weren’t going to become your patients anyway. If they don’t stick around, they’re not your people. And you don’t want to pay extra money for a huge subscriber list filled with people who are not really interested in making an appointment or buying something from you. Unsubscribing is a form of self-selecting OUT of something, if that makes sense. You send emails that help people realize if acupuncture is a good fit for them, and if you’re a good fit to be their acupuncturist. If they decide that’s not the case, or they simply aren’t ready yet, then they unsubscribe. Let ‘em go. It’s totally normal and okay. Who knows, they may come back when they’re ready. You’d be surprised. But please don’t let unsubscribers deter you from sending emails.

And maybe you’re not worried about annoying people by sending more emails, but you’re concerned with what to talk about in your emails twice a month. Like where do you come up with that content?

Let’s talk about repurposing content to make your email marketing MUCH easier and less work.

Repurposing content is when you take a piece of content that you wrote or created for one platform, and you copy and paste it, and make some minor tweaks so that it makes sense for a different platform.

For example, let’s say you wrote an Instagram post about how many treatments you need for fertility and why. You would copy the caption from your Instagram post into your email provider and make a few tweaks so that it makes sense as an email.

So in this case, you would change your call to action and get rid of your hashtags. Instead of saying, “Click the link in my bio,” which is a really common call to action on Instagram, you would say, “Click here” or “Click the button below to schedule now” for your email.

Repurposing is also great because we know repetition is important in marketing to make it effective. That it’s okay for the same people to see the same message across multiple platforms. It’s reinforcing. It’s trust building because your message is consistent.

You’re saying the same thing everywhere that you’re visible online because it is true. And it is information that people need in order to make a decision about their health care.

Now, you can repurpose content in any direction. What I mean by this is, you can write emails, and then repurpose them as blog posts or social media posts. Or you can take a look at the blog posts and social media posts that you’ve already written, and repurpose them as emails. If you’re asking yourself, what the heck am I supposed to write in two emails per month, this is where I recommend starting. Go through anything you’ve already written, blog posts, Instagram or FB posts, even copy on your website where you’re answering frequently asked questions. And just copy, paste and edit that as emails. I bet you’ll have at least a year’s worth of email content right there.

Another important way you can repurpose email content is to simply resend emails that you sent in the past. Especially emails that are what we might consider your “core content” or your “content pillars.” This is content that you find yourself teaching over and over again. Sometimes it’s FAQs. But it’s the essential info that you share with people that helps them understand acupuncture is a good fit for them and leads them to make an appointment. Core content is probably the main focus of your website. If you have a specialty, your core content would be focused on explaining all the things people need to know about acupuncture for that condition that helps build trust for making an appointment. Okay, in a nutshell, that’s what core content is.

I hope this episode has been really helpful and encourages you to get serious about email marketing because I think it will definitely be worth your effort. Keep these three things at the forefront of your mind: Keep your emails simple, send them consistently, and repurpose content to make it as easy as possible.

If you’re interested in my Year of Email Templates, I’ll include a link in the show notes. Definitely, if you’re worried about having time and mental space to write two emails per month, consider taking a look at the templates and see if they’re a good fit for you and your practice. They take about 90% of the work out of email marketing. These emails are focused on pain, digestion, and anxiety, with a few other topics sprinkled in there. So if you enjoy treating those patients, they’re probably a good fit.

Of course, if you have questions about email marketing or the templates, feel free to send me an email. I’m happy to chat with you: Michelle@MichelleGrasek.com.

And I want to throw in here that I have not forgotten about reviewing the results from my Instagram marketing strategy from last November and December. I’m taking a little extra time to evaluate the results because marketing that you did a couple of months ago is still having an effect on your practice right now, trust me. So I’m gathering data and putting my thoughts together for you, about what worked, what didn’t, what I would do again, and what I wouldn’t. That will be coming out very soon, in March. So keep your eyes peeled for that. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you feel motivated to get visible with your practice this week, hopefully via email but really in whatever way works best for you.