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Whether printed pieces or in electronic formats, newsletters can be effective – but how do you know? Just because your administrative team likes them doesn’t mean they’re good investments.
Before you publish another issue or launch a new publication, take a look at what you’re trying to accomplish and whether a newsletter will help you be successful. While it’s only one way to communicate with your audience, a well-done newsletter can have great impact when it gives the reader timely information or something he or she can’t find anywhere else.
Here are a few tools you can use to measure your publication’s effectiveness:
- Readership survey. Whether you’re sending a printed piece or an electronic version, make sure to ask those who are receiving your newsletter what they like or don’t like. Here’s the tricky part: your results will be skewed because you’re only hearing from those who aren’t dropping it in the trash or hitting the delete key. While it’s helpful to know what types of information your loyal readers are interested in, what you really need to know is why others aren’t. Try random surveying in your cafeteria or waiting areas. You’ll run into some who recall the newsletter, but you’ll learn much more from those who can’t.
- Specific calls to action. Use a trackable website address, a trackable telephone number or a trackable (get the hint on tracking this yet?) e-mail address to make sure your readers don’t have to wonder what they should do next. Sometimes you’ll need to incent them to contact you with a free health screening or information booklet, other times just asking them to call for more information is enough of an ask.
- Downstream revenue tracking. Here’s one that will get your CFO’s attention. Take your distribution list, compare it with your existing patient list, then use the remaining names to track new patients that were “acquired” as a result of the publication. Start with specific services you featured and look at the numbers over time. You can try to claim all the revenue (especially if the new patient cites the newsletter as a referral source), but applying a percentage to your efforts makes more sense.
Remember, you’re trying to stop having that newsletter end up in the circular file bin or electronic recycle bin. You also want to show why it should be included in next year’s plans. What ideas can you share for measuring newsletter effectiveness?
For information on healthcare marketing and PR and rural healthcare marketing and PR, please visit golegato.com
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