Marketing Agency Email Templates to Enhance Your Communications

In healthcare, your relationship with your patient is paramount. From notifying them of their next appointment to educating them on the importance of a yearly check-up, your relationship is a vulnerable and sensitive exchange. With patient interaction limited, email marketing emerges as a strategy for fostering client relationships beyond their appointment.

With a higher-than-average open rate of 41.23% and an average click-through rate of 3.0%, it’s clear that patients appreciate email communications care about what their providers have to share. However, healthcare providers struggle to balance personalized, engaging communication and adhering to industry regulations. In this guide, we’ll explore the strategies and best practices healthcare professionals to help you tackle this balance with ease.

Unique considerations for healthcare email marketing

While the benefits of email marketing in healthcare are expansive, there are unique considerations the industry faces due to the nature of their work. As you develop your email marketing program, keep the following in mind: ‍

HIPAA compliance & other legal regulations

Aligning with legal requirements is a critical aspect of healthcare email marketing that shouldn’t be overlooked. Healthcare businesses are legally bound by a range of laws, regulations, and guidelines to ensure patient privacy, data security, and ethical marketing practices. 

HIPAA:

Any emails containing protected health information should be encrypted, secure, and only shown to authorized personnel. Avoid including medical history, treatment, or any personal identifiers in any of your email marketing material.

Additionally, use a HIPAA-compliant email service provider so any unauthorized users can’t access your patients’ email addresses. Also, your email vendor must sign a HIPAA business associate agreement (BAA).

GDPR:

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires businesses to obtain explicit consent before sending any marketing emails. To ensure adherence, your sign-up form should include the option to opt-out of email communications and all emails should always contain the option to “unsubscribe.”

CAN-SPAM:

This Act requires that all marketing emails include accurate sender information, clear subject lines, opt-out mechanisms, and that all email senders comply with unsubscribe requests. 

Before starting your email marketing program, ensure all team members understand legal compliance, data security protocols, and best practices for email marketing to mitigate risks and ensure adherence to regulations.

Increased importance of accessible email design 

In healthcare email marketing, another crucial consideration is ensuring that emails are accessible to all recipients, including those with disabilities and visual impairments. Accessible emails help ensure everyone can effectively engage with the content and understand the information. Some elements to consider include: 

Color contrast and readability:

Proper color contrast helps ensure that individuals with color blindness or with low vision can differentiate text from background colors. To further help ensure readability, choose easy-to-read fonts and avoid small font sizes. 

Structured layouts and navigation

Organize email content with a clear and structured layout that includes headings, subheadings, and bulleted lists.

Accessible links and buttons: 

Ensure that hyperlinks and buttons are accessible and easy to use for individuals using assistive technologies or keyboard navigation. Use descriptive language that indicates the destination or action associated with the link. 

Mobile responsiveness: 

Many users access emails on mobile devices, so test emails across various devices and platforms to ensure consistent accessibility and readability.

Screen reader compatibility 

Optimize your email designs for screen reader compatibility by using clear and descriptive alt text for images, headers, and links. 

Healthcare email marketing strategies

Once you've implemented processes to ensure that all email communications are in compliance with legal regulations and accessibility guideline, it's time to get creative! 

1. Build welcome sequences to introduce new patients to your practice

Your email marketing is an excellent way to welcome new patients. For anyone new to the practice, set up a pre-designed welcome series introducing them to your staff, services, patient portal, and more.

2. Foster trust through education 

Trust is fundamental in healthcare. Patients look for providers not only for treatment but also for guidance. Email marketing can be used to educate people on preventive measures and wellness strategies. These resources should be accurate, evidence-based, and easily digestible for patience, helping build credibility and trust in your expertise. 

3. Propel your business forward 

Email marketing can be used to attract new patients and retain existing ones. For new patients, offer promotions and deals on elective services. For existing customers, remind them of your available services and offer a complimentary consultation. 

On the other hand, you can use email marketing to encourage existing patients to leave reviews and testimonials or request feedback on their experience, which can help improve your client experience. 

4. HIPAA-compliant personalization

Although personalization can feel limiting in healthcare due to regulations, segmentation is one way to personalize your emails. Prior to signing up to your email list, you can ask for patience to choose the kind of material they would like to receive from you. By organizing your email list based on interests, you can send relevant content that aligns with their needs while assuring compliance and consent. 

5. Humanize your brand  

Conversations in healthcare, even virtual ones, benefit from a human and empathetic touch. Using a conversational, human tone in your emails can help nurture the provider-client relationship beyond face-to-face interactions. Humanizing your brand can help create meaningful connections and encourage open communication, which are elements crucial for patient satisfaction. 

Start designing your healthcare emails with Beefree

Beefree offers a range of professionally designed templates that are not only visually appealing but also optimized for accessibility. Our catalog of 1,700+ email templates adhere to accessibility standards by incorporating clear alt text for images, readable fonts, high color contrast, and structured layouts. By using Beefree email templates, healthcare providers can streamline the creation of accessible emails, ensuring that their messages reach and resonate with all recipients.

Start designing for free! 

If you haven’t started exploring AI and how it can impact your content and email marketing, it may be time to join the club. According to HubSpot’s State of Generative AI survey, 82% of marketers report that generative AI has changed how they create content. 

Today’s artificial intelligence can be an influential asset in your email marketing. From creating personalized content to delivering next-level data analysis, AI can support every step of your email creation process.

Understanding AI in email marketing

As AI capabilities expand, the societal perception that AI will eliminate jobs grows. While it is true that AI can transform an email marketing program, allowing for more efficiency, it isn’t a replacement for your email marketing team. 

Instead, AI-powered solutions are power tools to enhance your team's ability to create more engaging, effective, and high-performing campaigns. Additionally, for small teams with limited resources, AI makes email marketing more accessible and allows larger teams to scale production. 

How are email marketers leveraging AI?

Influencer Marketing Hub shows that 63% of marketers are currently using AI in their email marketing. While AI is mainly known for its content optimization capabilities - there are various other ways marketers can harness the power of AI, unlocking its full potential: 

• Automation: AI tools can automate routine and repetitive tasks. For instance, when folks sign up for your newsletter, AI can manage those new contacts and segment them to receive an onboarding email sequence.
  
  
• Personalization: According to Campaign Monitor, personalization can increase email marketing revenue by 760%. AI can spot patterns in customers’ activity and use these to personalize their emails, such as sending them content about a topic or product they’ve been viewing on your site or product recommendations based on their browsing history. 

• Analytics and insights: AI is excellent at gathering and analyzing data for insights that will help you improve your future campaigns. For example, it can identify the best times to send emails to particular customers, increasing engagement. 

• Segmentation: Dividing your mailing list into segments based on customer behaviors and patterns is crucial when sending targeted campaigns to customers. AI can help by picking up patterns and creating segments based on these patterns, allowing you to send relevant content to the right people.

Challenges and considerations of AI

As much potential benefit as AI has for email marketing, no change comes without its challenges. Some challenges to consider are: 

• Data privacy concerns: Data privacy is always concerning when using third-party solutions. Given that AI handles large volumes of personal data, it is vital to ensure that the solutions you onboard comply with regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. Additionally, communicate these changes to users, updating your terms of use and privacy policy to promote transparency. 
  
  
• Errors: Because AI is driven by the data it is trained on, errors or biased outcomes are possible. However, we believe this to be true without AI as well. It is important always to have multiple steps of quality control and assurance and to fine-tune AI prompts to avoid biased responses.
  
  
• Loss of human touch: As mentioned earlier, AI is not meant to replace email marketers but to support them. Regarding email marketing, a human touch and a conversational tone are crucial for engagement, something AI simply can’t achieve alone.

How to get started using AI in email marketing

With all the potential AI has in your email marketing, if you haven’t tried it out yet, now is the time.

1. Audit your email marketing process, jotting down areas of opportunity.  As interesting as AI advancement is, it is not necessary to use AI simply for the sake of using new technology. Once you clearly understand your current email marketing process, you can identify specific areas where AI can enhance your efforts. 

2. Make small but measurable changes. Compare performance between AI strategies and manual strategies. For example, send out two campaign versions, one with AI-generated content and the other with content you created without AI, to see which one performs better. Use these results to determine where AI can make a practical, profitable difference.
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3. Identify the most repetitive or time-consuming aspects of your email marketing. Automating these tasks with AI can significantly improve efficiency and free up valuable time for more strategic activities. Use this list to help you find the right tools. 

AI email marketing tools

With over 70,000 AI businesses worldwide and 42% of companies exploring how to integrate AI, it’s easy to get overwhelmed - so where do you start? Here is a roundup of some of the top AI solutions allowing marketers to optimize their email operations: 

• Grammarly: This solution needs no explanation. Grammarly is a leading AI-powered copy editor helping marketers create clear, concise, and error-free messaging. 

• ChatGPT: The tool that changed the AI game. ChatGPT serves as a solution for ideating, writing, and proofreading copy for marketers. Many tools, such as Beefree, have integrated ChatGPT into their product, empowering users with a built-in AI assistant for all content needs. 

• Phrasee: This tool analyzes past data and uses it to predict and optimize messaging to increase “performance, conversion, and ROI.”
  

• Seventh Sense: Seventh Sense analyzes when your recipients open and click emails, spotting patterns and then automating your email send times to send emails to individual recipients when they’re most likely to open them.
  
  

A new generation of email marketing with AI

The power of AI in email marketing is undeniable. For email marketers, AI solutions can help create more relevant, timely, and stronger customer relationships, inevitably driving higher conversion rates. However, the adoption of AI shouldn’t be just for adoption sake. 

At Beefree, we take pride in slow progress that helps solve users' most prevalent needs. Our implementation of the AI copy Assistant has helped Beefree users save time juggling from tool to tool and optimize email content directly in-app. This is how we recommend you embrace AI, making perhaps small but meaningful changes in your process that allow you to stay ahead in this new, fast-paced era of email marketing. 

If you’re ready to optimize your email marketing efforts and try AI, consider trying Beefree—after all, it’s free! 

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While new marketing platforms pop up everyday, marketers are not tossing email to the side. While some claim that Gen Zers don’t use email and refer to other platforms such as TikTok and Instagram to make purchases,  a recent poll by Media Post reports 53% of Gen Zers still enjoy getting weekly emails from their favorite brands.

‍Jennifer Harmon, Content Strategist and Creator of Convince & Convert, confirms that email marketing is likely to only become more important as changes continue to happen with paid media, cookies, and permissions.

With a ROI of $36 for every dollar spent and 79% of marketers naming email as one of their top effective channels, the idea that email is dead is ... well, dead.

The continuing dominance of email marketing

It isn’t luck or routine that keeps email marketing alive and thriving, but rather it's unique advantages:

• Unparalleled reach: Email marketing provides a direct channel to connect with vast audiences worldwide. With an expected 4.73 billion email users by 2026, marketers can leverage automation tools to send personalized emails at optimal times regardless of geographical boundaries or time zones.
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• Personalization at scale: In addition to being able to reach audiences far and wide, email marketing allows marketers to personalize messages at scale. With segmentation and automation tools, personalization requires minimal manual intervention - a benefit not offered by other digital platforms.

• Cost-effective growth: Unlike other marketing methods that may require investment in print materials or ads, email campaigns can be executed at a fraction of the cost. As the audience base grows, With the right tools, marketers can easily scale email production as their audience base growth.
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Key trends shaping the future of email marketing

As we delve into the growing need for marketers to not only catch the attention of their audiences but also to connect and drive conversions, there are three key trends shaping the future of email marketing:

AI-driven personalization

‍According to Hubspot, segmented emails have 30% more opens and 50% more clickthroughs than general emails send to your mass audience. The need for segmenting and personalization aren’t new but the way we approach them is.

AI today is used as a power tool to collect relevant data about users. For instance, it can use customers’ purchase history or viewing history to email them personalized product recommendations. This is increasingly important, with 71% of consumers now expecting personalized interactions from brands, but it is only the tip of the iceberg.
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63% of marketers of marketers leverage AI to help them get more done, faster. ChatGPT or bullt-in AI solutions tools like Beefree’s AI copy assistant make it easier to find the right messaging for email campaigns, by optimizing existing copy or tailoring copy to unique audiences they might not know much of yet.

Interactive email experiences

Interactive email content achieves 73% higher click-to-open rates, according to Martech Advisor. Interactive email content includes surveys, polls, carousels, gamification elements, and more. Email builders and third-party solutions have made integrating such content easier than ever allowing the every-day marketer to up their email content without the need for developers.

Microinteraction such as small animations or a CTA hover are growing in popularity.These small elements make an mundane task such as reading emails, an interactive experience.

Navigating the challenges and seizing opportunities

While innovation brings a world of possibilities, it also brings a few challenges for marketers. The rapid pace of emerging trends and their life cycle makes it hard for marketers to quickly adopt and stay ahead of the competition without causing email fatigue. Additionally, as highlighted by Norton, 69% of users are more concerned than ever about their data privacy, which in turn makes them more wary of what they engage with.

Email fatigue

Frequent emails result in email fatigue leading to reduced engagement rates, or worse case scenario an increase in unsubscribe rates. To combat this, it's crucial to strike the right balance in email frequency to your industry and audience. While finding the the right frequency is not a one size fits all, we recommend auditing your emails sends.

Start small with sending the right emails at the right time like when a user first subscribers or completes a desired action. Slowly integrate additional content and test its performance. Each email should serve a specific purpose and provide valuable and relevant content, this is where segmentation and AI-driven personalization becomes your best friend.

‍Privacy concerns

While for marketers the ability to collect a wide range of data on user demographics and behaviours is gold, for users this brings concerns. Marketers can mitigate these concerns by making consent and transparency regarding data collection and usage easily understood with an option to opt-out. Not only does this allow users to make informed decisions, but in the long term allows for increased trust and loyalty.

AI biases

While biases is not exclusive to AI, the rise of Artificial Intelligence has brought this concern to the forefront of marketer's mind.

Because AI is influenced by the historic data it processes and individual prompts, it may inadvertently perpetuate responses based on stereotypes and biases patterns. This can lead to content that is skewed and alienates certain segments of the audience.

Much like anything else that is public facing, we recommend implementing internal process to detect biases. This may mean having a review process in place to cross-reference AI outcomes with multiple folks with different background and experiences. Another suggestion is to regularly audit AI prompts keeping diversity and inclusivity top of mind to ensure fairness and accuracy.

Beyond the inbox: Integrating email marketing with other digital marketing strategies

As valuable as email marketing is, 72% of customers say they prefer to engage with brands through multiple channels. By coordinating email marketing efforts with other channels, marketers can build engaging and cohesive experiences for customers. In the same way that all conversations with a friend feel the same - whether they’re in person, over text, or on the phone - a holistic digital marketing strategy allows marketers to create space for immersive interactions that meet customers where they're at.

The future of email marketing lies in its integration with other marketing channels. Some standout ways to do this include:

• Landing pages: For marketers, landing pages helps lead customers to take a desired action, increase conversion. For users, this cohesive integration offers a smooth transition from email to a browsing experience where they can find more information that helps them make educated decisions.
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• Social media: Marketers can leverage the power of social sharing, UGC, and email marketing to amplify their reach and establish a balance of nurturing new and existing audiences. For customers, this means a seamless way to engage with one brand regardless of the channel they prefer, fostering a sense of community.
  
• Content marketing and SEO: Email campaigns can drive traffic to valuable content resources, such as blog posts, whitepapers, videos, and infographics. For customers, this means having an easy way to acquire new knowledge and interact with the brands they love.
  

Embracing the future of email marketing

Change is inevitable in all aspects of life and marketing is no exception, but this doesn’t mean you need to throw out your old playbook. Rather, it's about recognizing how the landscape if evolving and adapting. As mentioned today, some of the key areas driving the future of email marketing include AI and automation, multichannel marketing, and the emphasis on enhanced interactivity. While these might seem like heavy strategies to implement, know that you don't have to do it alone.
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At Beefree, we're dedicated to empowering marketers with the tools and resources needed to thrive in this dynamic environment. Our intuitive HTML email builder, AI copy assistant, and wide range of email and landing page templates support marketers in the search of innovative solutions to respond to the shift in the market's need.

To find out more, sign up for Beefree today!