Devolution
Now that bulk email has replaced postal mail, a devolution has taken place. E-marketing has become the red-haired stepchild of medical marketing.
Why?
- Cheap distribution.
- Thrift gone berserk.
| Doctors shopping online for e-marketing see that email distribution can be had for $30 to $100 a month. |
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Unaccountably, they see this absurdly low price as the benchmark for what e-newsletters should cost.
They Forgot Something
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But what about the writing? What about the designing?
Newsletters don’t write and design themselves. |
An Oxymoron Is Born
To satisfy the absurd goal of
pricing newsletters close to the cost of distribution, e-marketing
companies invented “automated e-newsletters.”
These pair up pre-written content with bulk distribution
systems. Customers select their content cafeteria-style, inserting it in
a pre-designed template for distribution.
Voila! Shrink-wrapped and flash-frozen e-newsletter, cheap as dirt.
Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater
But look what’s happened: the end-product has been gutted of all meaning. There’s no there there.
- No personal message,
- No professional advice,
- No timely counsel,
- Nobody home.
This gutless message now goes out to the doctor’s most valuable constituency – his patients, the precious low-hanging fruit that’s six times likelier to come in for a procedure than a new patient.
An Afterthought Instead of a Centerpiece
Like giving a spouse cheap rhinestone jewelry instead of real diamonds, this kind of misguided thrift can only backfire.
THE LESSON: Don’t play your patients cheap. They got you to where you are today. Take the time to send them real messages. Write your e-newsletters yourself, or hire professionals who can convey your unique point of view.
Yours in continued prosperity,
