Top 12 Healthcare Direct Mail Best Practices to Help You Advertise Your Services Effectively
Direct mail helps marketers make their voices heard to their prospects amidst the digital noise. It is personal and offers people a break from their screens!
In the healthcare industry, providers use medical direct mail to remind patients that they are here for them. It is a tangible reminder that talks about their services and help get people to walk in through their doors.
Moreover, nearly 81% of Canadians read the mail items they receive the same day, making it the most attention-grabbing marketing channel.
Apart from providers, other businesses like healthcare equipment manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, etc., also use medical direct mail. It allows them to reach physicians and administrators and form professional relationships.
Hence, there are many reasons to use mail healthcare, and we will discuss them further in this blog. However, it is crucial to remain strategic regarding reaching the relevant audience, tracking results, etc.
Also, try making your mail items creative and interactive—to stand out from the crowd and make recipients feel special. Healthcare professionals, clinics, dental offices, pharmacies, insurance agencies, etc., can use these engaging mail pieces to achieve their goals.
This blog also walks you through several best practices for healthcare direct mail to help you improve your ROI. Let’s get started!
What is Direct Mail Healthcare?
Direct mail marketing is a traditional strategy to help businesses connect with potential customers. There are no middlemen in such marketing forms, and there is a one-to-one interaction between both parties.
Healthcare organizations employ medical direct mail to do the same thing as other industries—increase conversions and retention rates. Fortunately, direct mail works equally well for all sectors and can produce fantastic results if done right!
You have countless options to choose from, ranging from different direct mail formats to design layouts. Try making these selections based on your offer, messaging, and target audience.
Why Is Healthcare Direct Mail Still Prevalent?
Many marketers ask questions like- isn’t direct mail obsolete these days. But, it is far from the truth that direct mail is dead!
The direct mail industry has become more successful than ever after companies started overusing digital media! The total value of this industry in 2022 is $1.3 million. Thus, we cannot deny that healthcare direct mail is still the most effective marketing channel and can produce fantastic results.
Below, we have listed a few more reasons this marketing form is popular:
It Is Trustworthy and Authentic
How often have you interacted with a sponsored advertisement on Instagram or Facebook? Once a week? Perhaps, once in a few months?
Direct mail assures engagement because people perceive it as an authentic healthcare communication channel. They also believe mail healthcare is more reliable than emails and other digital marketing ads.
Naturally, selecting a physician is a big decision for almost all patients. Thus, sending a well-curated healthcare direct mail item with your contact details helps build trust and credibility.
Also Read: It Has a Longer Life Span
Most people scroll through an online ad but look at a direct mailer for a long time. If you add up the time recipients take to open your envelope, scan the graphics, and read your copy, you can grab their attention for a few minutes!
Hence, medical direct mail has a longer shelf life as recipients read it carefully and save it for future reference. Try attaching a coupon with a time-bound offer to make people act faster.
Healthcare Direct Mail Has High Response Rates
The average response rate you can achieve using offline mail is between 2% to 4%. It may seem less, but the equivalent ROI can surprise you!
Also, this response ratio is much higher than most digital marketing channels.
It Is Memorable
People remember healthcare direct mail pieces and are more likely to engage with them. Undoubtedly, traditional mail creates a nostalgic effect that makes recipients remember it weeks later.
Thus, you can increase your brand visibility and recall rates by sending mail using healthcare mailing services like PostGrid. Such automated solutions help you ship items at the right time to the right people to increase the impact of your campaigns.
There Is Less Competition
Direct mail is a less-crowded channel compared to overflowing inboxes and never-ending ads. You can embrace the opportunity and contact prospects directly at their houses or offices.
Furthermore, you can be more creative and make your healthcare direct mail items eye-catching. Hence, recipients can separate your mail from their bills and pay more attention to your marketing messages.
Also Read: Top 7 Healthcare Digital Marketing and Direct Mail Combination Examples
Healthcare Direct Mail Best Practices
We have divided this section into two parts to help you distinguish between marketing to doctors and patients. Let us see how they can advertise using offline mail in the best ways possible:
Marketing to Physicians or Doctors
Face-to-face meetings seem mandatory for marketing to medical professionals, but it can be hard to get an appointment. Fortunately, medical direct mail helps create strong bonds with potential customers without in-person correspondence. Nowadays, most marketers close numerous deals without personally meeting their clients using mail.
Below, we have compiled some productive techniques to help you further:
1. Personalize Your Copy
Even adding the recipient’s name is enough to grab their attention. You don’t need to go out of your way and spend extra to personalize your mailers. Just use medical mailing services like PostGrid, which offer variable data printing.
2. Provide Relevant Data
The medical field is evidence-based, and healthcare professionals want to see relevant statistics backing up your claims. Hence, try adding facts and figures to your healthcare direct mail pieces to convince your prospects to buy from you.
3. Segment Your Mailing Lists
All healthcare providers have specialized needs, and you cannot send the same medical direct mail items to everyone. Therefore, use targeted mailing lists based on the following factors:
- Location
- Level of Expertise
- Years of practice
- Specialization
- Type of patients
- The number of employees
- Past buying habits and preferences
- Income level, etc.
Luckily, PostGrid’s direct mail services offer custom mailing lists to help all businesses target their intended audiences.
4. Do Something Different
It is advisable to ditch your plain, white envelopes and think outside the box. All clinics, hospitals, etc., already get a lot of such mailers, and it is easy for your medical direct mail to get lost in the shuffle.
Therefore, use colourful envelopes with one-line teasers, or switch to other mail healthcare types, like postcards. You can also send corporate gift items, including branded mugs, pens, water bottles, etc., to your top-end and crucial clients.
5. Let Your Expertise Reflect on Your Healthcare Direct Mail
Create content reflecting your industry knowledge and highlighting your brand as a reputed one. You can insert some use cases and customer reviews to make your items more persuasive.
6. Focus On Your CTA and Offer
Use a straightforward CTA allowing your prospects to know what to do next. You can get them to call, email, fill out an online form, book an appointment, etc. The plan is to get these healthcare providers closer to the final sales stage using medical direct mail.
Moreover, you need to add a discount offer to motivate potential customers to purchase your products, primarily when interacting with them for the first time.
7. Integrate Your Marketing Channels
Combining your offline and online marketing forms allow you to get the best results. Using such integrated strategies, you can reach a broader audience and increase brand awareness.
Try amalgamating healthcare direct mail marketing software with email marketing, paid search, social media marketing, etc. Also, it is essential to time these campaigns properly to increase efficiency.
Marketing to Patients
Though you can use all the strategies mentioned above for marketing your services to patients, here are some more tips to help you:
8. Add Patient Testimonials
Adding the testimonials of your existing and loyal patients is an excellent way to make your healthcare direct mail credible. Also, they help make your items more interactive and result-driving.
9. Verify Lists
You may have the details of thousands of patients in your database. Hence, you can combine those records and conduct a healthcare direct mail marketing campaign. But, there could be problems like mail returns and delivery delays if your mailing lists are not updated.
Nevertheless, you can prevent tons of wastage by using PostGrid’s address verification before mailing. It can also help you build segmented lists from scratch for your campaigns.
Also Read: What Is Address Line 2
10. Add Your Brand Logo and Contact Details
It seems obvious, but many organizations fail to provide adequate information in their medical direct mail. Including your phone number is not enough; you must also provide your email address, location details, website link, social media profiles, etc. Thus, patients can engage with you on a channel of their preference!
11. List Your Benefits
You can promote your services by talking about your benefits. For instance, you can tell your patients that you offer several payment options for their convenience in your mail healthcare. Also, you can discuss your after-hour services that help the working class or busy parents visit you.
These benefits differ from organization to organization, but including them in your medical direct mail copy is always a good idea!
12. Send Mail During Public Holidays
Healthcare providers can use public holidays, like Victoria Day or Canada Day, as an excuse to send healthcare direct mail to their patients. They can send discount coupons for free consultations to new patients or ship informative letters to their existing patients interested in specific services.
Furthermore, you can send holiday greeting postcards to your old patients to make them feel appreciated and boost retention rates.
Also Read: Best Direct Mail Marketing Companies
Is It Illegal to Send Medication Through the Mail?
Along with marketing items, most healthcare organizations also use medical direct mail to send other documents, like:
- Test reports
- Consent forms
- Discharge summaries
- Physical and mental health records
- Lab invoices, etc.
But are you allowed to send medication via post in the same way as marketing and transactional mail? The short answer is yes, but you need to follow several guidelines.
Also, you must know the Food and Drugs Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act govern drugs. You can only ship medication if your packaging, labelling, and contents follow the applicable regulations.
Also Read: Bulk Or Mass Mail Services
How Can PostGrid’s Healthcare Mailing Services Help Businesses?
PostGrid offers automated direct mail services to allow organizations to connect with their existing and potential customers. You can integrate our API into your CRM or other software applications and mail items directly from your system.
Here are some of our most helpful features that healthcare organizations and other medical-related businesses can benefit from:
- Data Security: Healthcare providers follow numerous regulations and guidelines to ensure patient data security. Thus, they should select medical mailing services, ensuring confidentiality and data protection. PostGrid is compliant with PIPEDA, HIPAA, SOC-2, and several other laws that let you be compliant while sending mail to patients and other parties.
- Complete Print and Mail Fulfilment: Our healthcare direct mail solutions help you at every stage of your mailing process. Thus, you can automate everything from designing your mailers to shipping them via Canada Post. You can finally skip instructing your staff to complete manual tasks, like affixing stamps, sticking labels, and standing in Post Office queues.
- Mail Tracking: Real-time tracking helps you know the delivery statuses of your sent items. You can log in to your PostGrid account and access your healthcare direct mail tracking reports via the dashboard.
- Campaign triggers: It is now possible to pre-set your medical direct mail campaign dates and connect with your audience on time. You can also set triggers based on specific events to reach out to prospects as soon as they show interest in your services.
These features are only examples of the extensive healthcare mailing services that PostGrid offers. We are also known for our:
- Industry-best pricing
- Pre-built design templates
- Address verification solutions
- Dedicated customer onboarding
- Zapier integration, etc.
Also Read: Healthcare Marketing Strategies to Attract Today’s Healthcare Consumer
Conclusion
Healthcare-related businesses find it hard to prove their trustworthiness and attract genuine leads. However, medical direct mail can help them increase their response rates significantly. It is one of the oldest marketing forms but generates excellent results for all companies.
Still, conducting a healthcare direct mail marketing campaign in-house can be daunting and expensive. Therefore, you should try PostGrid’s direct mail API to cut costs by 75% and get everything done 50% faster.
Are you ready to save your internal resources and conduct mail healthcare campaigns effortlessly? Sign up now to see how PostGrid works to help you fulfil your objectives!
