3 Ways to Use Email Marketing in Physician Recruiting

Guest blog post by Mark H. Cohen
President of Colloquy Digital, LLC

Is email marketing a key component of your physician recruiting efforts? If not, it should be. Contrary to popular belief, the world of social media hasn’t replaced email; if anything, email marketing is more effective than ever. Here are three ways to leverage email when sourcing new physicians for your practice.

1. Direct Communications

Obviously, you can reach out to prospects directly once you’ve obtained their email address. You can introduce your company and advise potential candidates of physician job opportunities that seem like a good match based on researching their profile, and so on. No doubt you’ve already done plenty of this type of emailing, and you know how crucial it is to research candidates before reaching out.

Sometimes, a simple, direct email is all it takes to pique a physician’s interest. But more often than not, you’ll need something a little more in-depth… which leads us to point number two.

2. Drip Campaigns

When I work on lead generation campaigns for clients, my philosophy is that once we’ve spent the time and money to generate a lead, we want to hold onto that lead until he or she buys or leaves. This is where drip campaigns come in.

Drip campaigns are typically done by sending emails with information and offers on a regular basis—drip by drip—to your lists. (And a point about lists here; make sure you’re sending to people who want to hear from you! They’ve either opted into your list or given you their contact info.) Drip campaigns are meant to continue the conversation you started with your initial outreach. You can create and schedule these emails in advance and pretty much “set them and forget them.”

Use drip campaigns to lead the prospect through the recruiting journey, to stay top of mind, and to provide additional opportunities for targeted communications via email, social media, or phone. In time, this regular contact may develop into a relationship that could lead to an employment contract.

3. Newsletters

As reputable as you, your organization, and the jobs you have may be, it’s almost impossible to stay relevant with your prospects, given the amount of communications they’re likely bombarded with. Let’s face it: it’s a physician’s market out there! You have a lot of competition for their attention.

When you have a perfect match for a candidate, things tend to take on their own momentum. But if you reach out to a physician and there isn’t a match, how do you stay top of mind until there is? As we just discussed, drip campaigns are one way of doing that. Another proven method is through email newsletters.

In this case, rather than sending a generic, text-laden email focused on one or more job opportunities, you’ll want to send something more compelling. Put together a visually appealing email based on industry topics, your candidates’ interests, and content along those lines. Offer information, tips, and additional job opportunities, and send it on a regular basis. What this does is keep your name and opportunities in front of physicians, so that when they are ready to make a move, they think of you. Or at the very least, when you call, they remember who you are!

More Tips: Email Marketing Webinar

Interested in learning more about how email marketing can assist you in your physician recruiting endeavors? I recently hosted a Email Marketing Essentials for Physician Recruiters webinar for PhysEmp. You are welcome to watch the replay if you like.

And, of course, if you have any thoughts on this post or the webinar, I invite you to share them in the comments below. I’ll be happy to answer your questions!

Mark H. Cohen has gone from the mailroom of an NYC ad agency to running digital agencies and global marketing teams. Currently residing in Fairfield, IA, Mark consults with companies around the globe via his company, Colloquy Digital, LLC.