Marketing methods have certainly evolved from the days of newspaper, magazine and Yellow Pages ads. Today’s savvy marketers know that using the Internet to their advantage (particularly through social media, with its predicted usage of 2.5 billion by 2018) is not only a smart option, but an absolute necessity when marketing to seniors.
However, as important as social media marketing is in helping keep your busienss in front of your target audience, it’s equally important – perhaps even more so – to include email campaigns in your marketing plan. And if you’ve decided that email marketing is “old school,” nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, as of 2015, there were 2.6 billion email users, and that number is predicted to climb to over 2.9 billion by 2019.
Those billions of emailers aren’t just chatting with friends and family, either. A study by the Direct Marketing Association revealed that email-driven marketing nets hundreds of billions of dollars in sales – and that for each dollar spent in email marketing, over $40 is generated in return. Not only that, but email marketing can:
- Drive visitors to your website and social media platforms
- Be easily forwarded to others who might buy your services
- Nurture customers along a buying journey (depending on the platform used)
- Help develop relationships with people when you can’t see them in person
So the question becomes not if you should be actively marketing to potential clients through email, but how. These tips can help shape your email marketing strategy:
- Keep your tone direct and concise. Clearly, and briefly, outline the benefit available to your readers. For example, “Click here to save 50% on your first home care visit when signing up for an in-home assessment.”
- Ensure your mailing list is accurate. Starting with a clean list of contacts is crucial. In particular, be sure you’ve obtained permission to email these contacts, through opt-ins from your website, for example.
- Know your audience. Your audience is comprised of referral sources, current clients, loved ones of current clients, current employees, and leads who’ve expressed interest in your agency. All of these people have the potential to send business your way. Be sure your messages contain helpful information that educates, inspires, and informs.
- Run a test. Create two separate email concepts and send out to a small group of recipients, with differing subject lines and calls to action. Then review the analytics to determine which email resulted in a higher open/click-through rate before sending to your full list of contacts.
- Track results. A successful campaign will, of course, result in sales. Analyzing your conversion rate will help you determine how to proceed with future campaigns.
If the idea of creating your own email marketing campaigns, testing, and measuring results seems overwhelming – after all, you’ve got an agency to run! – it’s wise to hire a professional home care marketing agency with particular experience in the industry, such as corecubed. We know the aging care industry inside and out, and our expert content creators and designers understand everything there is to know about marketing to seniors.
Contact us at 800-370-6580, x1 to learn more about how we can help you increase your ROI through successful email marketing campaigns!