Even in our digital age, one form of marketing steadily gives — and has even increased — strong response rates over the past few years. While the volume of mail has decreased steadily year over year, the response rates for direct mail marketing are climbing. It makes sense — less mail in your consumer’s mailbox means there’s more opportunity for your message to stand out.
When it comes to healthcare marketing, providing something of value in your direct mail such as check-up reminders or coupons is a great incentive to keep around your piece of mail. Read on to learn more tips for direct mail marketing in the healthcare industry.
Why Include Direct Mail in Your Healthcare Marketing?
A 2018 study found house lists have a 9% response rate and prospect lists 5% on average. This is far better than digital marketing returns through channels like email and social media, whose response rates hover around 1%, and display ads that only give 0.3%. Even better, direct mail response rates are growing — house lists saw growth of 173% and prospect lists grew 194% between 2006 and 2017.
These results can also be applied to the healthcare industry. For instance, Deft Research’s “Medicare Shopping and Switching” study showed that direct mail was a top shopping prompt for Medicare beneficiaries.
How To Make the Most of Your Healthcare Direct Mail
Now that we know direct mail is better at driving new and returning customers through your clinic doors, let’s look at a few tips for creating an effective healthcare direct mail marketing strategy.
Personalize, Personalize, Personalize
One of the benefits of direct mail marketing is that you can tailor your message to match specific customers and their needs. This is especially helpful in healthcare marketing, as you might want to tailor your marketing to match your practice. For example, a gynecologist might want to target only households with women occupants, and a pediatrician may want to focus on families with children. Or, you might want to send mail to current patients when their healthcare policy is about to renew, to remind them to visit your clinic before their deductibles reset. Direct mail offers you that customization.
You can even personalize the mail down to the name of the recipient. A 2017 study found that simply adding the customer’s name to the piece of mail can increase their response rate by 135%. Making sure your direct mail is personalized is a great first step towards effective healthcare marketing.
Combat Ad Desensitization and Provide Value to Consumers
Think about your average day in front of electronics. How many ads do you think you see in a day? How many are you registering? People see hundreds or even thousands of ads a day and subconsciously filter most of them out. When you send direct mail, you’re already at an advantage because you’re using a marketing avenue that isn’t as overwhelmingly oversaturated.
Additionally, eight in 10 consumers state that they trust print mail (82%) the most when it comes to making a purchase. As healthcare is naturally a field where patients need to have a high level of trust to achieve the best health outcomes, direct mail can help start you off on the right foot.
Consumers may also choose to keep your mail around for a while if it provides them with some value. For example, you can include the number to your urgent care facility on a refrigerator magnet or a how-to guide for breast cancer self-exams for your screening services. Give your potential patients a reason to keep your mail around so your marketing message has the opportunity to make a larger impact.
Make It Highly Localized and Geographically Targeted
Consider the following scenarios:
- You’ve opened up a new location in your town.
- You’ve changed practice names, consolidated with a sister practice or joined a local healthcare system.
- You’ve recently moved locations to a more populous area.
- Your location can be difficult to find.
In each of these situations, you need to get the word out about your physical location to the community. Direct mail allows you to target the exact ZIP codes with patients who need to know about your new clinic. Even better, variable data printing (VDP) can print a custom map showing the exact route from the recipient’s house to your facility. Not only does that make it highly customized to the customer, but it also adds value and encourages them to keep your mailer around.
United Mail Is Your Partner in Direct Marketing
We know that your marketing strategy needs to be as strong as your practice, which is why you need a partner who is an expert in the nuances of healthcare direct mail.
United Mail has been helping companies deliver their marketing messages to customers since 1980. For healthcare providers, United Mail can run data analysis to find potential patients in your area that match your target demographic, design memorable campaigns, and take care of every step in the direct mail distribution process.
To find out more about how we can create an effective healthcare marketing strategy for you, contact us today.
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