Healthcare email marketing best practices for doctors

Email marketing remains one of the most cost-effective ways for healthcare providers to stay connected with patients — but only when properly executed. From avoiding spam filters, to segmenting your audience and writing subject lines that stand out, the small adjustments that healthcare organizations make can greatly impact patient engagement.

Read on for 9 healthcare email marketing best practices so you can effectively reach patients.

Consumers are more interested in email offers and updates than ever, with a 2025 report from Omnisend finding that email open rates jumped 6% year over year. But the only way for a patient to open your healthcare marketing email is if it lands in their inbox, not in their spam folder.

In addition, up to 45.37% of email traffic is considered spam, according to Statista. So how do you make it to the inbox?

A few tips to pass through the spam filter include:

In life and email marketing, timing is everything. You could send the most engaging email ever to new patients and current ones, but if it arrives in their inbox at the wrong time, or if it's one email of too many, it might not resonate. They might even unsubscribe, as 69% of respondents to a Constant Contact survey said the number one reason they unsubscribe from mailing lists is too many emails.

So what's the best time of day to send a healthcare marketing email? Omnisend's 2024 research found that:

However, every audience is unique. Consider A/B testing and experiment by sending your emails at different times on different days to see how opens and clicks compare. And make sure to allow patients to easily opt in or out.

Audience segmenting allows you to send personalized emails that are more likely to be relevant to a given patient. This is important because consumers expect personalized interactions, and 76% of them get frustrated when they don't receive them, according to McKinsey research. Every email campaign you create won’t apply to every patient on your list, so use segmenting to tailor messages to the correct audience.

For example, a dentist might send emails that include a discount on teeth whitening to patients who have used at-home whitening strips but are reluctant to pay high prices. The dentist wouldn’t send the discount to patients who have recently undergone teeth whitening because these patients are willing to pay the total cost for the service.

Keeping patients informed on topics they’re interested in will boost your engagement rates.

Healthcare email marketing can take many different forms. An email marketing campaign can provide various forms of messaging, such as:

Serving up different types of content will engage and inform patients, keeping them interested in your email communications. Just remember to protect patient privacy and stay HIPAA-compliant with your content.

Patients might receive your emails, but that doesn’t mean they’re reading them. According to Constant Contact, health and wellness (physicians, home care, dentists, mental care, nutrition, etc.) emails have a 37.77% open rate and a 0.88% click rate according to the most recent data.

Carefully monitoring key metrics like open rate, click rate, and bounce rate will allow you to know what’s working and isn’t. After reviewing, you’ll be able to adjust and optimize your messages accordingly.

Your patients’ inboxes are likely filled with emails, so your subject line needs to stand out.

Keep your subject line short, including your practice name, and avoid “reminder” language (e.g., remember to schedule your annual appointment).

Many factors go into a successful healthcare email marketing campaign, but none are as important as content. Spelling errors and poor grammar reflect poorly on your practice and make it hard for patients to take the message seriously.

Email content should be proofread by the person who wrote it, but don’t stop there. At least one other set of eyes needs to review it because it can be difficult for the author to spot mistakes since they’re so close to the content.

In order to get the return on investment (ROI) from email marketing, use the digital marketing channel to its fullest potential. This means having email content that drives patients to take one clear action.

Include a call-to-action (CTA) button such as “book online” or “schedule appointment” to make it obvious what action you want them to take. Remember to avoid spam language in your CTA.

Your patients are busy, so they don’t have time to read an email manifesto. Short messages are also better for mobile. This is crucial, considering 41% of email views come from mobile devices, according to Forbes.

When properly executed, email marketing in healthcare is an effective way to keep in touch with patients and entice them to return to your practice — whether for checkups or other services.

Feeling overwhelmed? Learn how Tebra can help your practice with email marketing and more with a free, no-strings-attached demo today.